Baby Farming

She has been called the female version of Jack the Ripper and lived at the same time that he struck. Adopting unwanted infants in exchange for money, she escaped arrest for years by moving around and using different names. It was her case that led to stricter laws for adoption and child protection, and which also raised the profile for the newly established NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). She was Amelia Dyer! (Before you read any further, please be aware that this article is about a baby killer and may be upsetting to some).

Amelia Elizabeth Hobley (her maiden name) was born in 1836 into a respectable family of five children and a mother and father. Her father was Samuel Hobley and he worked as a master shoemaker. Her mother was Sarah Hobley who suffered from mental illness after suffering typhus. Amelia cared for her mother until she died in 1848, and after seeing how a mentally ill person behaved, Amelia may have ‘learnt’ how to feign the same symptoms in later life. She had learned to read and write and enjoyed literature and poetry, and lived quite the privileged life when young.

After her mother died, Amelia lived with an aunt and served an apprenticeship with a corset maker. When her father died, she became estranged from one of her brothers, and Amelia moved into lodgings in Trinity Street, Bristol. It was now that she met and married George Thomas. Amelia was 24, George was 59 and both lied about their ages on the marriage certificate.

Amelia trained as a nurse for a couple of years, which was a gruelling occupation in Victorian times but a respectable one, and she learnt many ‘skills’. Meeting a midwife called Ellen Dane, Amelia learned of a much easier way of earning money. To open her home as a ‘lodgings’ for pregnant and unmarried young women, who had no help in those days and who would have been ruined if they kept the baby. This was called “baby farming” which was when the young woman would pay Amelia (and many others who set up the same business) to take the new baby and ‘care’ for him or her. The sum of anything up to £80 would be paid and then (usually) the parent (or parents) rarely saw the baby again, or even enquired about their son or daughter.

Unscrupulous carers starved these babies, having no intention of spending any money on the child, and some even quickened death by sedating the little baby with alcohol or opiates mixed with cordial. This is what Amelia got involved in. Leaving nursing to have her own daughter, Amelia soon needed money when her husband, George, died. Being much older than Amelia, he was bound to die first.

Amelia saw a way of making a lot of money without the extra work. She put out advertisements and met with the parents, assuring them that she was a respectable married woman who would provide a safe and loving home for their baby. Nothing could have been further from the truth! Amelia didn’t want to wait for the babies to die of starvation and she started to murder them.

She got caught when a doctor grew suspicious of how many babies were dying ‘in Amelia’s care’ and reported her to the police. Amelia was sentenced to six months hard labour for neglect. This, apparently, destroyed Amelia’s mind. Once released, she tried to go back to nursing but ended up in mental institutions as a patient. Having studied nursing and seen her own mother so mentally unstable, Amelia knew how ‘to play the part’, however, she herself was also abusing alcohol and opium-based products.

Amelia returned to baby farming, only this time decided not to involve any doctors, and disposed of the dead babies herself. To elude the authorities, Amelia would ‘pretend’ insanity but knew enough to that she would be ‘comfortable’ in a mental institute. However, the last institute she went into was a very ‘disagreeable’ experience, and Amelia never went into another one again. Maybe the authorities were becoming wise to her.

Amelia now moved about, using different names but still doing her baby farming business. In 1896, Evelina Marmon, who was a popular 25 year old barmaid, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Doris, and soon saw Amelia’s advert. Evelina paid over the one-off payment of £10 and (reluctantly) handed over little Doris, with all intentions of coming back and taking Doris back one day.

Once Amelia had arrived home with baby Doris, she murdered the baby with white edging tape that was used in dressmaking. She did the same with a 13 month old boy. Both babies were put into a carpet bag, weighed down with bricks, and at a secluded spot near the River Thames, were thrown into the water. In the same year, a package was retrieved from the River by a bargeman and taken to the police. Amelia Dyer had been caught! The body of a baby girl was inside the package, and with other evidence, Amelia was arrested. On 22nd May, 1896, she appeared at the Old Bailey and pleaded guilty to one murder, that of Doris Marmon. The only defence she gave was insanity but it took the jury just four and a half minutes to find Amelia Dyer guilty and she was handed the death sentence. Amelia filled five exercise books with her confession and she was hanged at Newgate Prison on Wednesday 10th, 1896, at 9am. Only one murdered child could be linked to Amelia, but it is believed that Amelia Dyer murdered many more. She confessed with the words: “You’ll know all mine by the tape around their necks”.

After this, the adoption laws were made much more stricter, giving local authorities the power to police baby farming. Not all who engaged in this business were baby killers, but they sincerely cared for the babies and tried to give the little ones a happy home. Today, in England, this business is no longer legal (thank God!)