Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:13:24.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CALCULATIONS AND CONCEALMENTS: INFANTICIDE IN MID–NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITAIN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2006

Aeron Hunt
Aeron Hunt
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

ON 23 DECEMBER 1858, the Times reported the proceedings of the trial in Reading of Mary Newell, a servant, for the willful murder of her three-month-old child, whose body had been discovered in the Thames by boys who had gone fishing. Since Newell herself had admitted the crime in a statement to the constables who came to her mother's house to arrest her, the focus of the trial was not so much on establishing the guilt or innocence of the prisoner as it was on determining what could have motivated such an extreme and seemingly unnatural act of violence in order to decide the severity of her punishment. According to the testimony of a fellow inmate in the workhouse where she lived, Newell had been “a kind and affectionate mother” to the infant and had “suckled it to the last”; the prisoner's defense counsel, seeking to reconcile this description with the seriousness of her crime, invited the medical witness to affirm that she might have been “seized by a destructive impulse” that made her “destroy [that] to which [she] was most fondly attached.” While Newell's defense hoped to establish mental instability as the likeliest conceivable explanation for her act, the prisoner's confession to the constables, describing her hopelessness on being turned away by the child's father, pointed to another motivation, that of economic desperation: “I went to the father of it, and he refused to give me anything, and I told him I would swear the baby, or have a summons for him. He said I might do so. He put on his coat and left me in the shop…. I stood there till his sister put up the shutters. She said it was no use to stop any longer, he would not be home till 11 or 12. I walked the town till 12, being destitute of a farthing. I walked down the Forbury to the King's Meadow. I undressed the baby and laid it by the side on the bank, and let the baby roll in. Afterwards I walked up and down to see if I could see him come indoors. After that I went and got over into a field, and sat under a hedge–it was in a turnip field–till morning…. I saw him at Christmas and he said he would pay for the child.” (“Criminal Courts” 23 Dec. 1858)

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 71 - 94
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acton William. 1969. Prostitution. Ed. Peter Fryer. New York: Praeger
“Adam Bede.” Quarterly Review 108 (Oct. 1860): 469– 99.
“Adam Bede.” Saturday Review 26 Feb. 1859: 250– 51.
Berry Laura C. 1999. The Child, the State, and the Victorian Novel. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia
Brandser Kristin J. “In Defence of ‘Murderous Mothers’: Feminist Jurisprudence in Frances Trollope's Jessie Phillips.” Journal of Victorian Culture 5 (Autumn 2000): 179– 209.
“Child Murder–Obstetric Morality.” Dublin Review Sept. 1858: 54– 106.
“Criminal Courts.” Times 15 May 1857: 10.
“Criminal Courts.” Times 23 Dec. 1858: 11.
Eliot George. 1980. Adam Bede. Ed. Stephen Gill. New York: Penguin
Ellis Sarah Stickney. 1850. “The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits.” The Family Monitor and Domestic Guide. New York,
“Foundling Hospitals.” Penny Magazine 6 Sept. 1845: 345– 47.
Graver Suzanne. 1984. George Eliot and Community: A Study in Social Theory and Fictional Form. Berkeley: U of California P
Greaves George. (1862–63): “Observations on Some of the Causes of Infanticide.” Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society 2– 24.Google Scholar
Greaves George. (1864): “On the Laws Referring to Child-Murder and Criminal Abortion, with Suggestions for their Amendment.” Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society 19– 42.Google Scholar
Greenwood James. 1869. The Seven Curses of London. New York: Harper and Brothers
Higginbotham Ann R. 1989 “‘Sin of the Age’: Infanticide and Illegitimacy in Victorian London.” Victorian Studies 32 (Spring): 319– 37.Google Scholar
Hoffer Peter C. and N. E. H. Hull. 1981. Murdering Mothers: Infanticide in England and New England 1558–1803. New York: New York UP
1856: “Infanticide.” Saturday Review 9 Aug. 335– 36.
1865: “Infanticide.” Saturday Review 5 Aug. 161– 62.
1853: “Infanticide in the Punjab.” Times 27 Dec. 5.
Jackson Mark, ed. 2000. Infanticide: Historical Perspectives on Child Murder and Concealment, 1550–2000. Aldershot: Ashgate
King Harold. 1865: “Foundlings and Infanticide.” Once a Week 9 Sept. 332– 36.Google Scholar
Krueger Christine L. 1997 “Literary Defenses and Medical Prosecutions: Representing Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” Victorian Studies 40 (Winter): 272– 94.Google Scholar
1859: “The Lemoine Infanticide.” Saturday Review 17 Dec. 737.
Malone Cynthia Northcutt. 2000 “Near Confinement: Pregnant Women in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel.” Dickens Studies Annual 29: 367– 85.Google Scholar
Mody Cooverjee Rushomjee. 1849. An Essay on Female Infanticide. Bombay,
Mort Frank. 1987. Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England since 1830. London: Routledge
Poovey Mary. 1988. Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England. Chicago: U of Chicago P
1857: “Queen Bees or Working Bees.” Saturday Review 21 Feb. 172– 73.
1871 “Report from the Select Committee on Protection of Infant Life.” Parliamentary Papers. 7: 372.
1852. Report on Measures Adopted in the District of Mynpoory, for the Prevention of Female Infanticide. Agra, India,
Richards Thomas. 1990. The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851–1914. Stanford: Stanford UP
Rose Lionel. 1986. The Massacre of the Innocents. London: Routledge
Ryan William Burke. 1862. Infanticide: Its Law, Prevalence, Prevention and History. London,
Symons Jelinger C. 1849. Tactics for the Times: As Regards the Condition and Treatment of the Dangerous Classes. London: J. Olivier
Tennyson Alfred Lord. 1971. Maud. Tennyson's Poetry. Ed. Robert W. Hill Jr. New York: Norton
1857: “The Trial of the Bacons.” Saturday Review 16 May 449– 50.
Williams Raymond. 1973. The Country and the City. New York: Oxford UP