Mary Anne’s story is not just about cruelty. It is about how violence and bureaucracy entwined to obscure responsibility and delay justice. In late 1849, she was sent from the Bideford workhouse into domestic service with a married couple: Robert Courtice Bird and Sarah Bird. What followed was a slow descent into brutality.

Mary Ann endured a campaign of physical abuse at the Birds’ hands. Evidence would later show that she was struck repeatedly with sticks, flogged with birch rods, beaten with a furze bush, and even thrown to the ground. A neighbour reported seeing her with bruises; others noticed she looked weak, withdrawn, in pain. Her employer reportedly made her sleep in a cold, locked outhouse and denied her food. The system that sent her into this home never checked back.

By January 1850, Mary Ann was dead. A post-mortem revealed layers of bruising (inflicted over weeks) yet the medical conclusion isolated a single blow to the head as the immediate cause of death. When the Birds stood trial for murder at the Exeter Assizes before Mr. Justice Talfourd, the court ruled that the fatal act could not be conclusively attributed to either defendant. Despite overwhelming evidence of prolonged cruelty, the couple was acquitted on a technicality.

The public, already uneasy with the moral contradictions of the workhouse system, erupted in fury. Editorials in The Times condemned both the judgment and the structures that allowed it. In Parliament, MP Mr. Fitzroy raised questions about the Bideford workhouse master, Thomas Surnam, who had been told of Mary Ann’s injuries. Rather than show concern, he allegedly said they "ought to have broken a stick about her back.” Though he denied using those exact words, he refused to clarify. Parliament demanded a full inquiry into his conduct.

In response to the backlash, the government ordered a second trial, this time not for murder, but for felonious assault. The Birds’ legal team argued that the new charges were unlawful: the abuse had already been presented in the murder trial, and the doctrine of autrefois acquit (double jeopardy) should apply. But the prosecution countered that some assaults were distinct and not contributory to Mary Ann’s death, and thus could be separately tried.

The legal arguments were dense but critical. In The Queen v. Robert Courtice Bird and Sarah Bird, the jury was instructed by Russell Gurney, Q.C., to decide whether the Birds had committed assaults that were independent of the lethal injury. Medical testimony described beatings across Mary Anne’s body, on her arms, thighs, and back, delivered across several weeks. The jury returned a verdict for the Crown: guilty.

However, the judge, uncertain about the legal standing of the conviction, reserved the point for higher review. The appeal split the judiciary: eight judges upheld the conviction, six dissented. The Birds were never sentenced, and the indictments were filed away in the Record Office, awaiting a ruling that never came.

Mary Ann Parsons’s death revealed more than the monstrous behaviour of one household. It exposed the callousness of systems meant to safeguard the poor, the fragility of legal protections for working-class children, and the moral absurdity of a law that parsed suffering into admissible and inadmissible fragments.

Her case forced Victorians to reckon with their institutions, from the punitive architecture of the workhouse to the rigid proceduralism of the courts. And though legal textbooks still cite her case for its implications on double jeopardy, her legacy is not about jurisprudence, it’s about visibility. She was, for a time, the girl the system tried to forget. History didn’t.

Sources

• Hansard Parliamentary Debates, HC Deb 26 March 1850, vol. 109, col. 1419.

• Regina v. Robert Courtice Bird and Sarah Bird, 2 Den. C.C. 95; 5 Cox C.C. 20 (1851).

• The Times, March–August 1850 archival coverage of the Bideford case.

• The Queen v. Bird, noted in Legal Journal Reports (20 L.J. M.C. 70), and referenced in later case law: Girdlestone v. Brighton Aquarium Co. [1878] 5 Ex. D. 137.

• Parsons Case Review, Journal of Victorian Criminal Law, vol. 15 (2019).

Emma Woodhouse is a historian and author.

She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty.

Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman from Bridgnorth in Shropshire who was arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July.

Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

Emma is also the co-founder of On Creative Writing.

It began with an almost Shakespearean accusation. In November 1873, Rachel was charged with assaulting her neighbour, Mary Hall (or Wilson as she was sometimes known), not so much for the physical strike — though she did land one — as for the stinging verbal barrage that followed. She allegedly branded Wilson a ‘witch’ and a ‘sea cat,’ a particularly vicious kind of fish notorious for biting through thick sea boots if not killed immediately after being caught.

For Wilson, the insult cut deeper than any blow. To be accused of witchcraft in Newhaven, a tight-knit fishing village steeped in superstition, wasn’t just inflammatory; it was reputation-wrecking. She flatly denied any occult leanings and argued that she had no desire, or power, to hex the local fishermen, as had been implied.

Sensing that Wilson may have fanned the flames, the magistrates fined Rachel five shillings, a modest penalty that acknowledged mutual provocation while avoiding inflaming community tensions any further.

But Rachel's story didn’t end there.

Two years later, in June 1875, she was back in court, this time for striking a man named Heggie across the face in a local baker’s shop. She pleaded guilty, explaining that Heggie had mistreated her son and she was acting in his defence. The court took a dim view of street justice, however, and fined her seven shillings for assaulting Heggie, with an alternative of ten days in prison if she didn’t pay.

These two appearances sketch a vivid portrait of Rachel as a woman unafraid to speak, or act out, her mind particularly in defence of her beliefs and family. In a world where women’s voices were often subdued, Rachel’s echoed loudly across the cobbled lanes of Newhaven.

What makes these incidents fascinating today isn’t just their colourful language or courtroom theatrics, but what they reveal about the social fabric of coastal Scotland in the 19th century. This was a place where superstition still carried legal and emotional weight, and where personal pride clashed regularly with communal expectations.

Rachel Geddes wasn’t a villain but she wasn’t a heroine either. She was, however, undeniably human: reactive, loyal, and shaped by the sea-swept culture around her. Whether defending her son or repelling an insult, she left an indelible mark on her community’s folklore.

A woman accused of witchcraft, armed with words as biting as any sea cat’s teeth, and unafraid to challenge a man who she suspected had ill-treated her son; Rachel reminds us that history doesn’t just reside in dusty tomes, but in the tangled lives of real people, weathering their own storms.

Seven years prior to her demise, Emma Stone Crofts paused her “immoral life,” and made a home with Charles Crofts, a solicitor’s clerk of respectable standing. The romance, sparked at an open-air gathering, saw the couple move into lodgings near York Place. Their romance did not last. Charles left her, allegedly to take up with another woman, and fled to America. He was never heard from again.

Emma then entered into a relationship with a man named Preston from Grantham. She fell pregnant and was delivered of a daughter, Amy, but by the time Amy was just over a year old, Emma had returned to Leicester, single and visibly in decline. Witnesses routinely saw her intoxicated, disoriented, and voicing suicidal intentions. She often said she would kill both herself and the child.

The first close call occurred when Emma’s sister, Mary Stone, was visiting their parents’ home in Sandiacre Street where Emma was living. Mary was nursing Amy when Emma snatched her from her arms with the words: ‘ Give me my child, and I'll do for it and myself too.” She took a bottle containing a dark liquid from her pocket, and tried to swallow the contents, but Mary and her parents managed to prise it from her, and they pulled Amy out of her grasp too. Emma then took another bottle from her pocket and her family were forced to take that from her too; they ascertained that all of the bottles contained laudanum.

Three days later, Emma returned home at 1 a.m., behaving erratically. After a day of drinking, she suddenly grabbed her daughter from her mother's arms and fled. A neighbour, Joseph Rudkin, saw her heading towards the canal. Alarmed, he followed. But before he could reach her, she threw off her bonnet and Amy’s hood, then threw the little girl into the water before leaping in herself.

Rudkin rushed to retrieve them, managing to pull Amy out alive but she died shortly after. It took 20-30 minutes to retrieve Emma’s body, which had drifted downstream.

The jury ruled her actions were undertaken whilst“in an unsound state of mind, brought about by her intemperate and profligate habits.”

It later transpired that Croft was set to testify in court as a witness against a man named Thomas Johnson who had been arrested for stealing a glass globe from the door of the Temperance Hotel in Granby Street. However, since she was the principal witness, Johnson was discharged. Had Johnson threatened her not to speak up? Could an appearance in the witness box been yet another weight for Crofts to bear?

We can look back on stories like these and consider Crofts’ motives. Single, forced into a life of sex work to survive, a child in tow, she lived in abject poverty. This coupled with what might these days be perceived as post-natal depression, Crofts could look to nobody for help.

Worcester Journal, 15th Feb 1868

Leicester Journal 14th Feb 1868

Morning Herald 5th Feb 1868

Emma Woodhouse is a historian and author.

She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty.

Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman from Bridgnorth in Shropshire who was arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July.

Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

Emma is also the co-founder of On Creative Writing.

A little before 5:00 a.m., he saw Hunt again, this time attempting to leave the house with two large bundles. Spotting Battersby, she threw the parcels back inside and slammed the door shut behind her. The officer knocked. No answer. Eventually, he forced his way in and what he found would haunt the neighbourhood for weeks.

The house was largely unfurnished. The so-called “front kitchen,” where Hunt claimed the elderly woman resided, was empty. In the rear kitchen, accessible only after some effort and suspicion, lay the body of old Mary Stowell, her head beneath the grate, a poker stained with blood and clumps of hair beside her.

Her wounds were numerous. A cord had been wrapped around her neck six times. Her face was disfigured by blunt trauma. Blood covered the floor. Upon calling for a doctor, it was confirmed that she had probably been dead for eight hours.

The bundles Hunt attempted to flee with were found to contain clothing and personal items marked with the initials M.S.: Mary Stowell. Blood was also found on Hunt’s clothing, her bonnet strings, and her cloak.

Witnesses came forward and spoke up at Mary Hunt’s trial. Mary Anne Porter, the constable’s wife who searched Hunt, confirmed the presence of blood. William Crofton Moat, the attending surgeon, described the brutal scene and the state of the corpse. Mr. Mills, the victim’s son-in-law, recounted that Hunt, who had been out of work, had lodged with his mother-in-law for eleven weeks, but had been told to leave. Hunt reportedly refused. A lodger, Susannah Nisbett, recalled hearing Hunt call Stowell "an old wretch" just two nights before the murder, and said she threatened to “do for her.”

The prosecution alluded to a motive that was all too familiar in Victorian murder trials: money. Hunt allegedly believed there was cash hidden in a drawer, and with eviction looming, desperation may have led to violence.

Throughout the proceedings, Hunt maintained an eerily calm façade. She denied all knowledge of the murder. “I know nothing whatever about it,” she said.

But the public wasn’t convinced. As Hunt was led from the court, a crowd ha

d already gathered, and they hissed and hooted.

Yet as the public reeled from the horror at No. 40 Adam Street West, few could have anticipated that Mary Ann Hunt, now condemned to die, would become the subject of a moral and political controversy that reached the highest levels of government.

Following her conviction and sentence of death, Mary Ann Hunt awaited execution in the cold confines of Newgate Prison. But as her final days approached, word emerged that she was pregnant; this was an unsettling complication that cast the looming punishment in a new and troubling light. Previously, pregnant condemned women were allowed to give birth, and then hanged, their punishment delayed until the child could be taken from them. However, in the case of Mary Ann Hunt, public and political opinion questioned this precedent.

From the town of Bridgewater, a memorial (petition) was sent to Sir George Grey, Secretary of State for the Home Department. It read in part:

“There is something peculiarly unnatural, revolting, and horrifying, even to those who are not prepared to do away with the punishment of death, in the idea of making an orphan of a new-born babe by intentional and violent means…”

It was a powerful moral appeal. The signatories implored the government to commute Hunt’s sentence not out of sympathy for her crime, but out of mercy for the unborn child.

On November 6th, just before the swearing-in of the new Lord Mayor of London, a session of the Aldermen was convened. Among the final acts of civic duty for the outgoing mayoralty was the reading of a letter by Alderman Moon, one of the visiting magistrates at Newgate.

He shared a letter from Sir George Grey, relaying the following from Her Majesty the Queen:

“Under the special circumstances which have occurred in this case, Her Majesty has been pleased to command that the sentence shall not be carried into effect.”

Instead, the sentence was formally respited. Hunt was to remain in Newgate until after childbirth, after which her punishment would be commuted to a non-capital sentence.

The decision was met with a mix of relief, moral debate, and even resentment from those still horrified by the nature of the crime. But for many Victorians, haunted by the image of an infant born under the gallows’ shadow, it was a necessary act of humanity.

In the larger context, the case of Mary Ann Hunt contributed to a growing discomfort with the death penalty, particularly when applied without allowance for gendered circumstances, mental state, or maternal status.

What Became of Mary Ann Hunt?

The precise details of Hunt’s fate following confinement are sparse in historical record. Like many women whose sentences were commuted, Hunt may have faced penal servitude or transportation. The child she bore, if it survived, would grow up marked by its mother’s crime and the strange mercy that saved them both.

But in a time when the noose was seen by many as justice incarnate, the staying of Hunt’s execution was nothing short of radical, a rare moment when mercy outweighed vengeance in Victorian England.

The murder of Mary Stowell was undeniably brutal, senseless, and tragic. But the story of Mary Ann Hunt, and the unborn life that stayed her sentence, adds a layer of complexity few true crime tales possess.

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty.

Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman from Bridgnorth in Shropshire who was arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July.

Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

Emma is also the co-founder of On Creative Writing.

Born in Shifnal, Shropshire, Hannah attended the Bluecoat Charity school, and was expected to contribute financially to household income from the age of eight onwards. She worked for a solicitor's wife, Mrs Andrew Phillips, to begin with, followed by work in the Red Lion Inn. She then became the nursemaid for a large brood belonging to the Reverend Robert Eyton, who lived at Ryton Rectory.

From the age of seventeen onwards, she worked as a maid, first for Lady Boughey at Aqualate Hall in Staffordshire, although this position only lasted eight months as she was sacked for "playing as we was cleaning our kettles."

Following this dismissal, Cullwick worked for Lady Louisa Cotes at Woodcote Hall in Sheriffhales. Cullwick benefitted from Lord and Lady Cotes’ standing, as she was taken to London as a kitchen maid fir the season during 1852, 1853 and 1854.

In 1854, Hannah met Arthur Munby. Munby was a barrister with a secret obsession: he documented working-class women. His penchant was for those who laboured in public view: sweeps, navvies, and, most of all, maids. He sketched them, photographed them, recorded their dialects and filled journal after journal with rhapsodies of praise for their strength and fortitude as they cleaned up the grime of others.

Cullwick began work for Munby, and he was mesmerised.

When he met Cullwick, he realised she was unlike anyone he had ever met before. She not only allowed his gaze to rest upon her; she controlled it. She wrote copious diaries, detailing her own experiences and articulating her sense of class, race, gender, and power. Her writing reveals a complicated self-awareness: she performed the role of the submissive maid but infused it with her own agency and ritual.

Power, Dirt, and Desire

Their relationship defied easy categorization. Though Munby was legally and socially far above her, Cullwick maintained extraordinary control over their dynamic.

They married in secret in 1873, a scandalous move for a man of Munby’s station. Only Cullwick’s two sisters attended. But Cullwick refused to live as his wife in public. She insisted on remaining a servant, at least in outward appearance, fearing the loss of her identity and integrity.

“If I was a lady I couldn't do what I do now,” she wrote. “I'd lose myself.”

The marriage never became public.

Hannah’s diaries described in detail the sexual desires and fetishes she perpetrated as part of their relationship. This included wearing a ‘slave band’ and calling her husband ‘Massa’ and you can read more of this in some of the books in the recommended reading section below.

A Proto-Feminist Icon?

Was Hannah Cullwick a proto-feminist? A submissive fetish object? A self-made archivist? The truth lies somewhere in between. Her diaries, many of which are now housed in the British Library, present a rare and electrifying portrait of a unique element of working-class womanhood.

Cullwick’s story isn’t one of social climbing. She didn’t transcend class boundaries by becoming a “lady.” She inhabited her working-class identity so fully, and with such startling awareness, that she both upheld and exploded the myths surrounding Victorian servitude.

What makes Cullwick radical isn’t just that she married above her station. It’s that she refused to erase who she really was.

REFERENCES:

Daily Malta Chronicle and Garrison Gazette - Saturday 09 July 1910

Civil & Military Gazette (Lahore) - Monday 16 January 1950

Bridgnorth Journal - Saturday 09 July 1910

Recommended reads for more about Hannah Cullwick:

• Liz Stanley, ed. The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant. Rutgers, 1984 (ISBN 0-8135-1070-8).

• John Cullwick. Our Hannah: A biography of the Victorian published diarist Hannah Cullwick (1833-1909). Lewis Sinclair Associates 2022 ISBN 978-1-3999-3139-7.

Five years before the tragic events of 1878 unfolded, Ellen Lannigan’s husband was institutionalized, sent to a lunatic asylum. His absence left her with the heavy burden of caring for their children alone. At a time when a woman’s status was often tied to her husband’s ability to provide, his removal from the household placed Ellen in a precarious position. Without financial stability or social support, she was left to fend for herself and her children in a society that offered little aid (and a lot of harsh judgement) to women in such dire straits.

Liverpool from Wapping by John Atkinson Grimshaw

In Victorian Britain, unmarried women faced severe societal limitations, but single mothers endured an even harsher fate. Victorian ideals dictated that a woman’s primary duty was to care for her home and children, but society rarely offered them the means to do so. Employment opportunities were scarce, largely limited to domestic service, factory work, or shopkeeping, jobs that paid meagre wages and demanded exhausting labour.

Respectable boarding houses turned away unmarried mothers, landlords were unwilling to rent to them and few charities prioritized their needs. The workhouse, an institution that was feared and hated by many, was often the only option, but its brutal conditions made it a place of last resort. Many single mothers were forced into lives of quiet desperation.

Despite her struggles, Ellen attempted to build a life for her family. She ran a small shop and took in lodgers to make ends meet. But one night, one of these lodgers, drunk and opportunistic, forced his way into her room and took advantage of her. This assault left her in a situation all too familiar to impoverished women of the time: forced cohabitation with a man who ultimately abandoned her before the birth of his child. And it wasn’t just one extra child he had left Ellen to provide for on her own; it was twins.

In Victorian society, a woman in such circumstances had few choices. Shame and condemnation awaited those who bore children outside wedlock, and few avenues of support existed. With no financial security, no stable home, and a deepening cycle of hardship, Ellen Lannigan faced challenges that would have seemed insurmountable to most.

On the night of the murders, newspapers reported that Ellen found herself without even a bed to lie on. She was exhausted, powerless, and without hope. If she died of starvation, who would look after her children? But if the twins had never been born, she might be able to support the rest of her offspring more easily. In a final act of despair, she placed her infants into a pool of water.

Whether the act was one of intent or desperation, the courts saw only murder.

Liverpool New Assize Courts

Her trial was swift and the punishment for murder was be severe: death. Yet Ellen’s plight stirred public sympathy, raising difficult questions about the justice system’s ability to recognize the complexities of human suffering. There were many who condemned her actions, but others could understand her plight.

On August 16th, the Home Secretary issued a respite, sparing Ellen from execution.

Yet her story remains.

It is a stark reminder of the failings of Victorian society, a world where women like Ellen Lannigan were abandoned, judged and left with impossible choices.

Whether we can understand the decision she made on the day she drowned her infant twins or not might hang on whether we ourselves have ever faced the possibility of starvation. To feel empathy for a mother who killed her children is difficult.

Ellen Lannigan’s case forces us to ask: where does justice end and compassion begin?

REFERENCES:

Worcestershire Chronicle

Leicester Chronicle

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty.

Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman from Bridgnorth in Shropshire who was arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July.

Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

Emma is also the co-founder of On Creative Writing.

Giving the police names such as Violet St. John, Maud Le Grand, Lily Sinclair and Maud Rothschild, Tottie Fay bounded through London, dressed in a shabby ball gown, faking an upper-class accent, and often carrying a pair of opera glasses.

Tottie Fay grew famous in London (and indeed, in the national newspapers) during the 1880s and 1890s for a variety of exploits. Constantly in and out of court for accosting gentlemen, being drunk and disorderly, and for stealing items from the hotels and lodgings she managed to con her way into, Tottie Fay employed a variety of tricks to gain a roof over her head. With few belongings of her own, she still managed to declare herself a woman of means, often intimidating, or preying on the pity of, small hotel owners so that they would giving her a room.

“I’m newly arrived from the Continent,” she would tell prospective victims. “Mama would worry so if she thought I had not secured a room for the night. Mama will be so pleased to know I have found such friends already!”

Slipping into her hotel room, Tottie Fay might plunge into one or another of her schemes in order to make money. Sometimes, she might present herself outside a theatre at kicking out time, accost a gentleman, request that he see her home and then accuse him of impropriety. The gentlemen would regularly give her money so that she would not continue making a scene, allowing them to slip away with their reputation in tact. At other times, she would order food to be brought up to her room, and cigarettes and alcohol. Obliging landlords/hotel owners would comply, thinking her a woman from a family of means. However, the next morning, she would have disappeared, leaving nothing but an empty plate covered in cigarette butts.

In and out of prison, numerous times each year, these smaller sentences did nothing to stop her. Tottie Fay was determined to get what she could from life, and appeared to relish the attention it bought her. In fact, some newspapers labelled her a ‘street celebrity’.

For example, in 1890, Dolly Le Blanc was arrested and charged on two counts: firstly, for obtaining food from a woman named Harriet Moore under false pretences, amounting to 2 shillings, and for obtaining a bonnet and other articles from a Sarah Maria Green, up to the value of £2. She was given 6 months imprisonment at Millbank.

In her prison records, Dolly Le Blanc was 22 years old, and had told the police that she was an actress. Various previous convictions were documented, alongside numerous drunk and disorderly instances. The earliest was from 1st March 1886, for stealing surgical instruments, and it carried her real name. Dolly Le Blanc, also known widely in the newspapers as Tottie Fay, was really called Amy Anderson and she was allegedly the daughter of a costermonger from Seven Dials.

On 20th May 1892, a concerned citizen, John Hyde, wrote to the Echo, to relate a sighting of Tottie Fay. She had been standing quietly in a doorway following once of her many prison releases, trying to read a newspaper. Numerous local lads had been pushing her, calling her name, hooting at her and generally harassing her. Was this acceptable behaviour, Mr Hyde questioned. This onlooker suggested that such treatment from others led Tottie Fay into many of her actions, goaded and insulted by so many who recognised her. In this way, Hyde suggested, she was led into creating disturbances to protect herself, which inevitably ended in her being locked up. Mr Hyde, of 13, Oakley Street, Lambeth, seemed to be one of few in the whole of London who actually cared about Amy Anderson’s real feelings, and the story of poverty and ridicule that fuelled her pseudonyms and her trickery.

In June 1892, she was found dancing at three in the morning for a group of cabmen. She allegedly revelled in their attention.

One reporter from the St James Gazette, alleged that he had once paid her bail and secured an interview with her. He related the life story she had told him:

“I am a Jewess…my mother lived in Russell Square…I speak seven languages…my sister is very well off and has a country house in Staines…”

In September 1892, Tottie Fay was in court, charged with attempting to commit suicide in the Regents Canal. Giving the name Lilian Vivian, Tottie Fay had described her employment as a teacher, and told officers she was residing in Old Kent Road. She was still wearing the clothes she had previously been arrested in, having just completed 5 weeks behind bars. When disturbed, she had said: “Oh, do let me alone. I’m in low spirits.”

“Even such as I can feel and suffer deeply.”

In 1892, it was announced that Tottie Fay was a ‘lunatic’. She was taken from her cell at Wormwood Scrubs, where she had been residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure, and taken to an asylum. Letters from doctors appeared in the newspapers, discussing whether or not they believed she could be reformed.

In 1896, a meeting was held at the St. Giles’s Board of Guardians over Tottie Fay’s belongings. Currently residing at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, her earthly belongings were racking up fees at the Great Western Railway Company. These belongings were mostly worthless, and made up of her jaded old fake-finery. The meeting ended with what was supposed to be a joke - the Guardians would not be paying the fee to redeem her belongings; they had had quite enough of Tottie Fay already.

In 1897, a new theatre production, entitled ‘From Scotland Yard’ played in London. one of the comedy characters, played by a Miss Cleveland, was called ‘Tottie Fay’, based on Amy Anderson.

By the early 1900s, the name ‘Tottie Fay’ was used as an insult for inebriate, and sometimes, ‘lunatic’ women.

When I was writing my book, Mary, Queen of the Forty, I came across Tottie Fay. Her story was too interesting, and she was too famous at the time, to leave her out. You will find her in the book, even if only for a short time.

REFERENCES:

Bridport News - Friday 10 June 1892

Echo (London) - Friday 20 May 1892

Illustrated Police News - Saturday 22 June 1889

Illustrated Police News - Saturday 31 August 1889

Reynolds's Newspaper - Sunday 21 June 1896

St James's Gazette - Thursday 15 December 1892

UK, Calendar of Prisoners, 1868-1929

With grateful thanks to the BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty.

Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman from Bridgnorth in Shropshire who was arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July.

Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

Emma is also the co-founder of On Creative Writing.

In 1852, Johnston became a young, unmarried mother, left to face the unforgiving moral judgment and economic desperation that met single women in Victorian society.

Yet despite the hurdles life threw at her, and despite the hardship she endured, Ellen Johnston wrote, and wrote well. At first, her verses appeared in The People’s Journal, a Dundee publication that was known for giving voice to working-class writers. But her real breakthrough came through the Dundee Penny Post, edited by reformer Alexander Campbell. Between 1865 - 1868, Johnston’s poems were regularly featured on the front page.

Letters poured into the Penny Post from other working-class writers, many of them women, who responded to her work with admiration and empathy. Johnston’s poetry made them feel seen.

These correspondents offered her not just praise, but friendship. In her letters, Johnston confessed her innermost emotions and discussed her situation. She spoke of her isolation and her comfort in the quiet companionship of a cat who, as she said, had “lapped the tear that did my cheeks imbue.” She told of being betrayed by family, deserted by a lover, nearly driven to suicide. Writing was a way not just to survive, but to reclaim her story.

In 1867, Campbell helped her publish Autobiography, Poems, and Songs, which sold 800 copies, and went into a second edition.

At this time, according to the newspapers, Johnston left the factory, intending to make her living as a poetess. She sent a copy of her book to Queen Victoria, who replied with a payment of five pounds from her ‘private purse’. She then sent one to the Prime Minister, Disraeli, who had fifty pounds sent to her from the Treasury.

However, Johnston was not ignorant of the stances of middle and upper-class readers, who were still reticent to give credence to her writing. She explored this in her poem, An Address to Nature on its Cruelty, which seeks to highlight her situation and questions, and even challenges, their judgment of her writing:

O Nature, thou to me was cruel,

That made me up so small a jewel;

I am so small I cannot shine

Amidst the great that read my rhyme.

..........

[']She looks so poor-like and so small,

She's next unto a nought-at-all;

Such wit and words quite out-furl

The learning of "A Factory Girl."'

Despite the prominence of “factory” in her self-description, Johnston’s poetry rarely recounted or dwelled upon the drudgery of the factory worker. Yet factory life seemed to linger at the periphery of her poetry. Some verses were celebratory, for example, commemorating mill-sponsored outings or acknowledging her employers in terms that might lead, if she was lucky, to some form of patronage. Others offered glimpses of the grind, as in her poem, O Come Awa’, Jamie, where she called for brighter gaslights, accusing the factory foremen of cheating the workers out of effective illumination.

By 1868, Campbell noted in the Penny Post that Johnston was living in Glasgow, “struggling to maintain herself by the sale of her Autobiography”.

Glasgow in the 1800s.

In 1870, Johnston applied for poor relief. Her request stated she had been too ill to work for months and had survived by pawning clothes and jewellery. She received only two shillings and sixpence along with a weekly payment of one shilling and sixpence for just eight weeks. Then she was left to fend for herself once more.

In March 1873, she applied again.

On the 20th of April 1874, Ellen Johnston died in the Barony Poorhouse, aged 46. Her official cause of death was anasarca—a condition often linked to severe malnutrition.

Ellen Johnston’s poems testify to a woman who refused to be erased.

A woman who dared to speak, to write, and to call herself a poet.

Let’s remember her together.

REFERENCES:

Autobiography, Poems and Songs of Ellen Johnston, “Factory Girl” (1867)

Ellen Johnston — Scottish Women Writers on the Web

Florence Boos, Memoirs of Victorian Working-Class Women: the hard way up (New York: Palgrave, 2017).

Paisley Herald and Renfrewshire Advertiser - Saturday 14 November 1868

The Free Library, Class And Poetic Communities: The Works Of Ellen Johnston, 'The Factory Girl' 2001 West Virginia University Press, University of West Virginia

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty.

Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman from Bridgnorth in Shropshire who was arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July.

Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

Emma is also the co-founder of On Creative Writing.

But what is so important about these histories that allows them power even today? Why, in essence, do they matter?

Firstly, history teaches us who we are, where we came from, and what we can aspire to be. As a child in the 1980s and 1990s, with no female role models in my family that had achieved more than motherhood and housewifery, I had no idea that the world could be so huge, and that my future could be so unwritten and exciting. The books I read did nothing to give me any more ambition. And this is massively important. When working-class women are erased from historical narratives, we deny future generations role models who reflect resilience, ingenuity, and courage in the face of systemic adversity. As a teacher now, I can still see pockets of communities where girls are growing up in a similar way to my own childhood, without aspiration to be more than mothers and wives. Working-class histories are as relevant today as they have ever been in shaping the minds of our daughters and showing them that they can break the mould.

Our daughters need inspiration so that they tackle today’s struggles. The struggles of working-class women from the past are echoed in today’s issues: the fight for wage equality, labour rights, access to education and healthcare and more.

I came from a family who never complained, never stuck their necks out, never made a fuss. Even putting my thoughts down in this post would make my parents cringe, because they always averred that we should never allow people to know our true thoughts, feelings. Everything was TMI, and to share these things was to bring shame and embarrassment upon myself and my family. The working class did not talk about it. They just got on with it. It took a long time for me to wiggle away from that mindset and start to stride out in my own direction, throwing myself into art, music-making and writing, anything creative, anything to explore what I could create.

I created paintings and sold them at art galleries.

I play in a band.

I write books.

I do all the things history taught me not to do because I was working class. My father’s favourite phrase when it came to my hobbies was “What are you pulling through you now?” Essentially, what ridiculous thing are you attempting now?

Revisiting the histories of our ancestors reminds us of the progress hard-won by those before us and serves as a blueprint for the battles yet to come.

Resurrecting these forgotten voices is my passion. Working-class women were not silent participants in history. They organized labour movements, nurtured families, shaped communities, and stood as pillars during times of crisis. They were passionate, forces to be reckoned with, strong, dedicated. Their omission in history perpetuates the myth that the contributions of ordinary people are not significant, when, in reality, these women were the driving forces behind societal progress. Our daughters need to know that they too wield this power.

We can understanding today through examining past social issues such as gender inequality, wage disparities, and labour rights. The experiences of the working class highlight patterns of systemic oppression and can help to inspire solutions rooted in solidarity and justice.

Reviving the histories of working-class women isn't just an academic endeavour for me; it's a moral imperative. By incorporating their stories into the social consciousness, we can not only inspire the working class daughters of today, but we can also challenge historical biases and foster a culture that values the contributions of all individuals, regardless of gender or class.

Join me and my Forgotten Voices on my Substack today!

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty. Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman from Bridgnorth in Shropshire who was arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July. Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026. Emma is also the co-founder of On Creative Writing.

Caught up in my days of sunshine and solitude (I went on my own with just my dog, Ethel, for company) I scoured the records to try to find some long forgotten voice from the past.

I found a number of things I could mention, from elopements, to murder, to theft, to love stories. But I could not ignore the story of Betty Owens from 1876, recalled in a newspaper, and here it is laid out for you.

Betty Owens lived in what was described as a ‘miserable hovel’ beneath the shadow of the rock known as Bwrdd Arthur, or Arthur’s Table just outside Llanddona. Via a precipitous path, a doctor was led to the house one dark night to tend to Betty Owens, who had fallen in the fire. A lad led him to the spot, but as soon as he spied the roof of Owens’ cottage, he fled, leaving the doctor to make his own way up to the cottage. He let himself inside, where he was met by an older lady, Mary Evans, a neatly dressed woman attending upon the injured Betty, who came towards him and spoke in Welsh, telling him that Betty must not see him. She asked him to give her something she could give to Betty by way of medication, but admitted that she was too afraid of her to allow the doctor to see her, for Betty would not take his intrusion kindly. She had, Mary Evans said, the power. And she would use this power to do harm to him, and, if riled, to her as well.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, the doctor saw a bedstead in the corner, and called to the woman to bring over the rushlight she had lit. Upon the bed, he could make out a huddle of rags, and as he spoke, the rags moved, and turned, and Betty Owens, burned from her fall in the fire, uttered:

“Who are you? What do you want?”

She then cursed blatantly. The doctor attempted to assuage her ire with an explanation of who he was, that he was here to see to her wounds, but Betty continually interrupted him with curses and blasphemies. She refused to allow him to examine her burns. At last, he told her that if she would not let him treat her, he would have to send for a strong nurse to come and hold her down whilst he dressed her burns, Betty Owens had endured enough of his presence. She sat up in bed and let out a string of curses in Welsh, cursing the doctor, his wife, his family, whilst Mary Evans called for the doctor to come away.

“She will do you harm,” Evans told the doctor. “She has the power.”

When he asked what she meant, Mary Evans related how Betty had cursed the cows belonging to Farmer Jones of Ty-Gwyn after he refused to cart her potatoes; the cows had become too weak to eat or stand. Jane Evans had also lost her big white sow after Betty Owens had taken umbrage against her. The doctor waved away these magical allegations, but asked, out of curiosity, whether he could see this ‘power’ for himself.

He came back the following day, and found Mary Evans still attending upon Betty, and she invited him in, and took a teapot from a crevice in the wall next to Betty’s bed. Inside it was a little parcel of paper, which Evans took out and unfolded. Thirteen folds she peeled back, until she revealed a little piece of yellowing parchment, with a red cross smeared in each corner.

“That be blood,” she told the doctor.

Pins were stuck into it from all angles, and human hair and nails were contained within. In the centre was a blob of black wax.

“This be the seal,” she told him.

The doctor observed that Mary Evans was fearful to touch the wax seal.

Betty Owens continued to refuse his ministrations. Within a week, she died of her burns.

***

Pins played a large part in witchcraft belief in many reports I’ve read regarding women who practised, or professed to practice, witchcraft. These perfect little stabbing tools were found in most homes, where people might have used them for innocent activities, mending and making clothing. They could be easily swept away, or explained away, and also easily whipped out to stick into a poppet or into a jar of toads.

A fear, and distrust of medical men was also prevalent, particularly amongst the poor, who did not have the funds to pay them in the first place. The trusted methods of the local hedge-witch, systems of healing that had been in place for hundreds of years using natural ingredients, as well as charms, were also more situated in the consciousness and social construction of many poor people. If it was good enough for their old grandmother, it was good enough for them, and the tales of the effects of concoctions that were new-fangled and expensive were further horrors of modern medicines of the time.

Betty Owens burns might have been treated by Mary Evans, perhaps even under Betty’s instructions. However, those burns were bad, and the onset of infection in addition to the serious nature of the burns themselves, meant that Owens time was numbered.

***

We often think of witchcraft as something that became less prevalent after the 17th and 18th century. However, there are a multitude of cases of witchcraft in Victorian times, and the social aspects of its continued dominance are fascinating.

Safe to say, Ethel and I loved our little jaunt to my favourite place, and we will be going back. And when we do, I will remember Betty Owens, and Mary Evans.

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty. Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman from Bridgnorth in Shropshire who was arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July. Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026. Emma is also the co-founder of On Creative Writing.

The Steam Yachts.

Yesterday, I spent the day at my former place of employment - Blists Hill Victorian Town. This place is largely responsible for my Victorian leanings. A new addition to the fairground had caught my eye and demanded that I pay a visit.

The steam yachts were said to be the first white-knuckle ride. Patented in 1888, and powered, of course, by steam, these were the forerunner of the pirate-ship rides we know today.

This example of the ride was built in 1921, but there would have been fairs around the country that offered this ride to leisure-seeking Victorians who wanted a thrill that they had never experienced before.

As with the pirate-ship, the seats at the end are the most thrilling. Unlike the pirate ship, there are no safety bars, or seat belts. Riders hook their arms around the back of the seats, elbows cocked, and this is what keeps you in place. And as you ride, and the yacht is virtually vertical, and your feet come up off the floor, your own arms are the only thing stopping you from face-panning the people below you. It works. A no-nonsense approach to health and safety.

What has this got to do with forgotten voices, I hear you ask?

Everything.

So often, Victorian times are considered stuffy, or joyless. Yet the vibrancy, the music, the innovation and the white-knuckle seekers are forgotten. The nameless servants, labourers, maids, farm-workers, who knew that the travelling fair would come, and who saved their pennies and dressed in their best to frequent the heady heights of steam-boats, gallopers and swing-boats, and test their luck on the stalls or the coconut shy, are forgotten. Their leisure-time, their laughter, their hard-earned moments of joy at the fair are gone.

And it wasn’t just fairs that gave the poor times of joy. They might have hoarded money to attend other events around the year too. Travelling circuses, summer fairs, dances, church events, performances, boxing matches, horse-racing and other events drew in the crowds around the country. The Victorians worked hard, but they enjoyed time to play too.

The two yachts are named Britannia (sporting an Union Jack on its base) and Columbia (with an American stars and stripes base). A 47-key organ blasts out the music at the front of the ride.

This is one of only two of these rides left in the world, a fabulous piece of steam-fair history. If you want to see it, or have a go, it is currently situated at Blists Hill Victorian Town, one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Sites. Indulge in a bit of Victorian leisure for yourself.

For more information on this ride, and other steam-fair rides go to:

Victorian Web

Carter's

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty. Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July. Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

Born of the 14th of March 1762 in Nacton, Suffolk, Catchpole was the daughter of a ploughman. As a child, she was fearless and determined, once riding bareback into Ipswich using only a halter, to fetch a doctor. However, the family were poor, and Catchpole grew up illiterate.

Without access to an education, Catchpole worked as a servant until, in 1783, she was employed as an under-nurse and under-cook by Elizabeth Cobbold at the Manor House in St. Margaret’s Green in Ipswich. Elizabeth’s husband, John, ran the Cliff Brewery. Whilst working for the family, Cobbold learned to read and write, and is credited for saving the lives of three of the children in her care.

(By Richard Cobbold - http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw42230/Margaret-Catchpole?LinkID=mp54492&role=sit&rNo=0, Public Domain)

Around this time, Margaret fell in love with a sailor called William Laud. Laud was trouble. He was part of a gang of smugglers, and attempted to persuade Margaret to travel on the water with him. But Margaret had another admirer, John Barry, and he stepped in to keep her from Laud. Unfortunately, Laud was armed, and he shot Barry in the head. Although it was not a mortal wound, Laud became a wanted man. He disappeared.

Yet Margaret was unable to forget him. In 1795, she left her employment with the Cobbolds. She went through a period of ill-health and unemployment, and for two years, she struggled until she was brought news of Laud once more. Laud was, according to a man called Cook, in London, and Cook had concocted a plan about how Margaret could get to him. He incited her to steal a horse and ride to London; his intention was to sell the horse on once she reached her destination. Margaret’s determined and fearless nature resurfaced. Dressed in man’s clothing, she stole a horse from John Cobbold, a coach gelding, and rode it all the way to London. It took her nine hours to complete the 70 mile journey. Yet upon reaching London, Margaret was arrested for horse theft and put on trial at the Suffolk Assizes. The newspapers described her as ‘a tall and dark person’ with an ‘intelligent countenance’.

Margaret pleaded guilty, and was given the death penalty. However, this was later commuted to transportation for seven years. She was held at Ipswich Gaol during this time, waiting for her fate, but after three years, she used a bed frame and a clothesline to scale the walls, climbing the 22 foot wall and escaping to freedom. Her intention was to get on a smuggling cutter and sail away, but the wind was unfavourable and she could not find a vessel to board. She had made herself sailor’s clothes from the bed sheets in her room, clothes which were so perfectly fashioned that she looked exactly like a sailor, right down to the hat, her hair up in a pigtail, so that she resembled a smart young sailor, ready to set sail.

Sadly, this freedom was short-lived. Information reached the authorities that Margaret was in Melton, dressed as a sailor. Knowing that Margaret knew someone in Sudbourne, her acquaintance was tracked down and, after initially denying they knew anything about her whereabouts, they were threatened with being arrested. Suddenly, they changed their tune, and revealed that Margaret was hiding out, sleeping there with a smock covering her sailor’s garb. Margaret was recaptured, arrested near the beach and once more given the death sentence. However, as before, this was commuted to transportation for 7 years. This time, the authorities saw her off British soil quickly, and on the 15th of December 1801, she arrived in Sydney.

Margaret never married, having sworn never to be with another man after Laud died. However, the letters she wrote in Australia give first-hand accounts of important historical and social issues of the time, including the degraded behaviour of those in the colony, the coal miners at Coal River who were convicts, and detailing the Aborigine people she saw, as well as the flooding of the Hawkesbury River.

Richard Cobbold, the son of Elizabeth and John, Margaret’s former employers, wrote a book about her called The History of Margaret Cobbold, which was published in 1845.

Contemporary adaptations of her life include Carol Birch’s novel, Scapegallow, published in 2007, which I highly recommend.

REFERNECES:

The history of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk girl; : Cobbold, Richard : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Biography - Margaret Catchpole - Australian Dictionary of Biography

Ipswich Journal - Saturday 5th April 1800

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty. Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July. Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

At the age of fourteen, Colling went into service, to work for Mrs General Hughes, who was impressed by her intelligence. Colling spent what little of her wages she could afford on books.

When Colling was 25 years old, she was spotted by Anna Eliza Bray, the wife of the vicar of Tavistock. Mrs Bray was a writer herself, and she noted Colling’s neat appearance and intellectual countenance. When Colling sent some of her poems to Bray, a relationship between the two women sprang up that would take Colling’s poetry to places she could never have imagined.

By this time, Colling was working as a domestic servant for the Hughes family, who lived close to the vicarage. Bray was in touch with the renowned poet laureate, Robert Southey, who undertook to review Colling’s poetry.

In 1831, Bray saw to it that Colling’s work was published in a tome along with letters she had written to Southey regarding Colling’s life history and her own input into the publication and reviewing of Colling’s work. The book was entitled: Fables and other pieces in verse, by Mary Maria Colling. It should be noted that although Colling’s work was the focus of the book, most of the pages are taken up with Bray’s letters to Southey, and much of their content refers to Colling’s history and poetic ability in a slightly patronising way. However, without Bray’s input, and her obvious interest in Colling as some sort of protégé, it would have been impossible for Colling to have entered the world of publication. Through Bray’s support of her, we are able to read the poems of a working-class woman whose work would otherwise likely have been lost.

If you would like to read the book, and examine some of Colling’s bucolic poetry, you can find it here:

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=xUleeaTAGzwC&pg=GBS.PP8&hl=en_GB

The interest that arose in Colling following Southey’s reviews and the articles that sprang up in newspapers such as La Belle Assemblée garnered public interest. Despite these reviews and articles detailing Colling’s lack of education, and often, lack of poetic prowess, she was also hailed for her creativity when she had been raised in an environment so lacking in literature.

The Reading Mercury went on to liken her poem, Morning Twilight, to Milton’s L’Allegro. Her poetry appeared in print in numerous publications. Colling went on to perform her poetry at her local inn, where tourists would come to hear her recite it from memory, or even to improvise verses, once she had completed her work during the day.

Despite Colling’s success, there are darker inflections to her legacy that cannot be ignored. The references consistently made by Bray, Southey and others who put her poems into print, labelled her by her lack of education and her working-class status as something of an oddity. Yet they were also charmed and inspired by both her personality and her ability to create despite the barriers that society had placed in her way.

Without Bray, Colling’s life and work would be lost to us now. Colling’s legacy as a female, working-class poet in the 1800s is uniquely open to us because of the support she received from Mrs Anna Eliza Bray and the attention given to her work by Robert Southey.

However, Colling is said to have died in an asylum at the age of 49, in Tavistock. Her legacy, however, is not forgotten, and her voice still lingers in her poetry and in her relationship with Anna Eliza Bray.

REFERENCES:

Fables and Other Pieces in Verse, With Some Account of the Author in Letters to Robert Southey - Google Play Books

La Belle Assemblée - Wednesday 1st February 1832

Reading Mercury - Monday 5th December 1831

Talking about Tavistock: Mary Maria Colling; A C19 Maid-Servant Poet (website)

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty. Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July. Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

https://amzn.eu/d/8xeqDHy

1895.

Desperate to catch the Queen of The Forty Thieves, D.S. Grey pursues Mary Carr, leader of an all-female gang, whose reputation and beauty is famous all over London. Every piece of evidence he finds forces him towards the realisation that his task will not be as simple as he’d anticipated. The daughter of an international train robber, the leader of the most successful all-female gang in the history of London, beloved by many, Mary Carr is almost impossible to track down and arrest.

Someone, somewhere, must have a grudge against her.

This is the real story of Mary Carr, pieced together through research of prison records, newspaper reports and archives, this is life-writing as fiction, from three perspectives: D.S. Grey, Mary Carr and the woman who unwittingly caused her downfall, Bridget McGee.

How do you take a play that is blatantly antisemitic and perform it for a modern audience?

In case you are going to watch it, I don’t want to give too many spoilers.

Most of us know the basis of The Merchant of Venice. The Jewish money-lender, Shylock, is painted as the villain, demanding a pound of flesh in return for a debt which cannot be repaid by a Christian lender, who the audience are supposed to feel empathy for. Shylock’s daughter has run away with another Christian, and Shylock is ultimately cornered into changing his faith when his claim for flesh is deemed unlawful. For a modern audience, the themes of the play, the antisemitic nature of it, the sheer blatant hatred, is monstrous to behold.

But this adaptation took Shakespeare’s problem play and created a masterpiece filled with empathy for the Jewish people faced with the onslaught of Oswald Moseley and his Blackshirts. It was, in my opinion, a work of genius.

We began with the Jewish family coming into the audience, hospitable, friendly, inviting us to join them in their meal. Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock stunned us with her astoundingly heart-wrenching performance as she was spat on and racially abused by Moseley’s followers, her neighbourhood graffitied, demands upon her faith made. By the time she asked for her pound of flesh, I was right there with her, and I totally understood why she wanted it.

At the end, Oberman tells us of her own relatives, who stood up to the Blackshirts in 1936.

A standing ovation was my only option.

If you haven’t already seen it, and you have the opportunity, go. You’ll see Shakespeare’s problem play transformed into something that needs to be re-performed for at least the next 500 years.

Bilsun confessed to the clergyman whilst in custody.

At first, the court wanted to bring forth the Bilsuns’ son, who was only seven years old, and who had seen his father murder his mother. However, evidence was so strong against Bilson that eventually, the court decided this would not be necessary. As other evidence was given, Bilsun raised his hands a number of times, which, according to the news report, gave the impression that he was trying to indicate that witnesses were lying. Described as a ‘ferocious ill-looking man’, Bilsun shook his head at the jury as his sentence was passed.

The defence attempted to prove a case of ‘mental derangement’, but it lacked proof, and Bilsun was condemned to death.

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty. Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July. Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

BIGAMY

Samuel Avery, described as a tall, fine-looking young man, with fashionable attire and an overall genteel countenance, stood before the magistrate on a charge of bigamy.

Married to Ann Kidd on the 16th of March, 1819, Avery watched as the registry clerk for St. Mary-le-Bonne presented the registry book with details of his first marriage as evidence.

Yet a man named G. Blunt gave evidence that Avery had married a woman of his acquaintance called Mary Haydon in a romantic nod to the patron saint of lovers everywhere on the 14th of February in Staffordshire.

Mary Hayden, described as presenting a respectable appearance, being handsome and around 20 years old, told the room that she had known Avery for more than two years, and that he had courted her and paid her his addresses for much of that time. She was the niece of a successful tradesman who lived in Tottenham Court Road, and had allegedly been in possession of some property which had been passed to her new husband upon their wedding. Her sister was married to the Earl of Bradford’s gamekeeper, and when the marriage took place, it was at this gamekeeper’s house on the estate of the Earl of Bradford that they had spent their honeymoon. She affirmed that they had indeed married, but gave the date of their nuptials as the 24th of February.

Further evidence was presented by Mrs Ann Barclay, who had known Avery for seven years, when he began courting Ann Kidd. Not long after, Kidd had told Barclay that she had married Avery and that she was now ‘in the family way’. Although Kidd was not in court that day, Barclay was able to describe how she had seen her not ten days ago, and that she was certainly still living.

There were no details regarding the outcome printed that day.

A HANGING IN HORESHAM

In another shocking revelation, printed in the Morning Herald, murderer George Daw was executed at Horesham.

After hearing of his sentence on Friday, and given the information that he would be hanged on Monday morning, Daw began to act in a frenzied manner, and was confined to a solitary cell, where, he informed the gaoler the next morning, he slept very well.

He was visited throughout the day on Saturday by the Reverend Chaplain, but continued to demonstrate a complete lack of remorse, being described as ‘callous and indifferent’. However, during the Sunday morning, Daw was visited by the Rev. who found that he had slumped into a ‘morbid insensibility’. He refused to take part in prayers, and declared that his sentence was ‘all very right, and very true’. He attended Divine Service in the chapel with the other prisoners, but upon returning to his cell, still presented no remorse or contrition. When the turnkeys checked up on him that night, he was sleeping soundly.

On the morning of his execution, he was visited by Reverend Mr Witherby, and spoke of the murder. He told Witherby that he and an accomplice met Sawyer - the man he murdered - and Daw punched him and stole his watch. The accomplice, who remained nameless, allegedly declared that he would finish the job, battering Sawyer with a cloven bat and then threw him into a pond. Daw completed his tale with the declaration: “They have got one but thank God, the other has escaped!”

The High Sheriff had arrived by this time, and the hour for the execution was upon them. Daw was escorted to the scaffold, but grew frenzied once more, and tried to rush past the Chaplain, and had to be restrained. Only around 700-800 people had amassed to see him die, a number small enough to cause the reporter to wonder why more had not come. Once Daw was standing on the drop, he paid no attention to the funeral service read by Reverend Witherby, and the authorities were shocked that he went to his death having said no prayers for forgiveness and showing no remorse for his crime.

Daw’s body was sent to a hospital in London for dissection.

Emma Woodhouse is a historical fiction author and researcher. She currently has three books published: The Prendergast Watch; Simple Twists of Fate and Mary, Queen of the Forty. Her next book, Mercy, a true story about a woman arrested for murder in 1848, comes out in July. Her first non-fiction book will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026.

I’ve been researching Mary Carr since 2021. I first discovered her when I was writing a fictional novel set in Victorian London and I wanted to find someone, or something, real, for my main character to interact with. I found Mary. And I was hooked instantly. I completed that book (Simple Twists of Fate, published in March 2025 by Holand Press) and instantly began to dive into research about Mary.

This culminated in a novel about her life; Mary, Queen of the Forty, published by Havisham & Webb in March 2025. But I knew I had to tell the whole truth, and get all the facts out there. So I approached Pen & Sword Books and they were happy to sign my non-fiction book, which will hopefully be published by March 2026.

Until then, I’ve got four years of Mary Carr research popping out of my brain, and it’s time to start splurging some of it out onto Substack for anyone who cares to listen.

I’ve seen a lot of newspaper articles and posts about Mary since A Thousand Blows. Every single one contains inaccuracies. And I want us all to know her, properly, to get to understand the woman she really was, because she was fabulous.

Mary was never known as Queen of the Forty Elephants. In fact, there was no such gang as the Forty Elephants in the 1800s. Mary was in a gang called the Forty Thieves. And her gang of Forty Thieves wasn’t the only gang of that name in London at that time. There were at least three gangs with the same name. Everyone loved that name, derived from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves which was a successful stage show and pantomime. Mary’s gang started out as a bunch of very persistent flower girls who were not satisfied with the meagre wages of a street seller. They started out stealing pocket watches and, after Mary was banged up in 1890 for pinching the pocket watch of a man in Soho, they moved into blackmailing scams. These scams were not new ideas; criminals had been using variations of them around the city for years. There is no evidence she ever used a gun, and there is no evidence of shoplifting sprees as portrayed in A Thousand Blows.

Mary was beautiful, and this helped her no end in her scams. She had even caught the eye of Frederic Leighton, the Royal Academy president, as he was travelling through Piccadilly, and modelled for both him and Dorothy Tennant. Yet the wages of a model were miniscule in comparison to the sort of income Mary wanted. They could not sustain her, and she continued to use blackmail to make herself a fortune.

Mary built a community about herself. She picked up children off the streets and bought them boots. She fed them. She gave money to charities that fed hungry street children. She paid bail for people and she looked out for families who had a parent, or parents, in prison.

In 1896, she was indeed arrested for child theft, but in court, that charge was dropped and she was instead prosecuted for harbouring a stolen child. The police tried to make out that she had neglected the child. Little Michael McGee was discovered by D.S. Grey living in her house at 118 Stamford Street and was found playing with his bike. Would a woman who neglected the boy really have bought an expensive gift like a bicycle for him? In fact, when Mary stood trial, Michael McGee tried to climb over to her, and declared he loved her to the whole court. When Mary was sentenced, she asked if she could say goodbye to the boy. Her request was denied and she was led away sobbing.

When Mary was released from prison in 1898, she was soon in trouble again, this time linked to hotel robberies. However, there is no evidence that she undertook the actual crime itself; Charles Harvey, the man who was arrested with her was said to be part of a gang of men who undertook the robberies. Mary was the fence, or mosker, tasked with getting rid of the goods as quickly as possible.

Mary was only linked to shoplifting once, and this was in 1905, in Bournemouth. Arrested with a younger woman, Louise Mitchell, the two women turned on each other in the cells. Louise told Mary she would have to take the blame, but Mary refused. They were charged with shoplifting from three stores in Bournemouth, but by the time the trial was heard, the allegations against them from two of the stores had been dropped. Mary stood as her own defence, questioning Mitchell in front of the courtroom. She was not, sadly, victorious. Both women were sentenced for the crime.

Mary’s life was fascinating, and these are some of the highlights, but there’s plenty to tell. The non-fiction book I’ve written will lay it all out for the reader, describe the evidence and give the reader a real understanding of the socio-economic background of Mary’s life, as well as exploring her contemporaries.

In my novel about her life, I’ve laid out the essential story of her life alongside the story of D.S. Grey who was the police detective that arrested her in 1896. Any poetic licence I’ve taken in writing the book as a novel is confessed in the author’s notes.

If you’d like to chat with me in person about Mary, I’d be delighted! You can catch me at a few events this year, and there will be more to come.

I’ll be at the Neo-Victorian Criminalities, Detection and Punishment Conference at the University of Wolverhampton in June, talking about Mary Carr.

I also have a library tour in Shropshire in April, at Ludlow, Bridgnorth, Shrewsbury and Oswestry, talking first about my first book, The Prendergast Watch, and then putting forth the trial details of Mary’s 1896 trial, so that the audience can play jury - if you want to join me, grab a ticket on Eventbrite!

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I will be posting about all things Mary Carr and the Forty Thieves.

Four years of research, culminating in a fictional version of her life to be published in March and a non-fiction contract with Pen and Sword Books to write a history of her life.

Subscribe to read all about Mary Carr and her female gang who terrorised Victorian London, and the arrest that broke her heart.

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Website: https://emmawoodhousebooks.wixsite.com/ewhb