RAMSBOTTOM Heritage Society

THE June meeting of the society included a talk by local resident Martin Baggoley about ‘Murder in the Victorian Lancashire Family’.

Martin started by talking about infant deaths in the Victorian Era.

After the 1834 Poor Law Act, it meant that single women lost the financial rights that fathers had to pay for their upkeep.

Also charities refused to help.

This meant that murder of children by their mothers became more common, but was difficult to prove.

Martin told the tale of a 17 year old girl who was found guilty of murder with mercy.

She was sentenced to death, but reprieved to penal servitude for life.

Later on, the law was changed to reduce the sentence of concealment of a birth to only two years.

Martin’s next subject was domestic violence and the final subject was poisoning, which was a common method for women to kill their husbands.

Also life insurance was easy to buy, even without the consent of the person being insured, and poisons were difficult to diagnose. Doctors also signed death certificates without the need for a post mortem.

By the end of the evening, Martin had told the audience of around 30 murders, so thought it would be a good time to stop.

The audience then asked questions about whether it would be as easy today to get away with poisoning, I don’t know what they had in mind! The next two meetings of the Heritage Society are trips, on Wednesday, July 19, at 2pm to the Greater Manchester Police Museum on Newton Street in Manchester with attendees making their own way there and to Smithills Hall in Bolton on Wednesday, August 16, at 2pm, meeting at the car park on Carr Street at 1.15pm and car sharing.