| 23/04/1908 |
While having their lunch in a field on
Southgrove Farm, two farm labourers found a body floating in a disused
well. |
| 02/05/1908 |
At an inquest held at the White Hart,
Burbage, the village doctor, Dr. Farquhar, said it was the body of a child aged
12. It had been in the well about 9 months. No children had been reported
missing in the locality but gypsies often camped in the drove near the well.
The coroner passed an open verdict. |
| June 1908 |
The parish magazine simply recorded
"DEATHS - May God have mercy on the soul of an unknown boy aged about 12." |
| 01/03/1911 |
Mary Ann Nash was arrested at Aughton in
Collingbourne Kingston and accused of murdering her son Stanley George Nash,
born 16th September 1901. In 1907 she had been lodging her son with her aunt at
Aughton while she worked in London however, due to her not keeping up the
payments, her uncle, Ephriam Stagg, wanted the child removed. Miss Nash said
she had arranged to take her son to a Mrs. Hillier of Crabtree Cottages in
Savernake Forest and set off on foot on the morning of 2nd June 1907 to deliver
the child who was wearing his best 'sailor suit'. She returned to Aughton that
night and her son was never seen again.
At the later trial Mrs. Hillier
admitted knowing Miss Nash but denied ever receiving or seeing her son. |
| 10/03/1911 |
A diver was sent down the well at
Southgrove to see it he could find any extra evidence. He found some
clothing. |
| 14/03/1911 |
The body of the boy was exhumed from
Burbage churchyard and sent to London for a post mortem |
| 27/03/1911 |
The Magistrates trial began in
Marlborough.
One problem was the evidence given by Dr. Farquhar in 1908.
Then he had stated that the body was of a 12 year old but if it was that of
Stan Nash he would have been only 6 and there are considerable differences in
the bodies of children of those ages. Dr. Farquhar now said that he claimed the
body to be between 7 and 13. Under intense questioning the Doctor 'found' his
case book of 1908 which he initially claimed to have mislaid and this
substantiated his version of events. This prevented the defence lawyer from
proving that the body was not of Stan Nash as the ages did not match. Miss Nash
continued to protest her innocence but was committed for trial and held in
Devizes prison. |
| 15/04/1911 |
Dr. Farquhar is arrested for perjury. At
Marlborough Magistrate's court it is shown that on day 1 of the trial he gave
evidence by reference to notes he had made sometime after the coroners inquest
in 1908. The court insisted he return the next day with the original notes that
he claimed he had left at home. He duly returned with a note book, heavily
mutilated, but which contained enough of an advertisement to show it had been
printed in 1910. The doctor, probably to protect his reputation, had lied under
oath. He was bailed and committed for trial |
| 02/05/1911 |
Dr. Farquhar resigns from the Pewsey
Board of Guardians because of "advancing age and increasing infirmities". |
| 30/05/1911 |
The trial was held of Dr. Farquhar at the
Wiltshire Assizes in Salisbury. Charged with "falsely, wickedly, absolutely and
corruptly did commit willful and corrupt perjury". He pleaded guilty to the
first two charges and not guilty to the last two. The prosecution, who was Miss
Nash's defence lawyer, accepted these pleas. After hearing the evidence the
judge decided that the perjury had not effected the previous court case
against Mary Ann Nash. Dr. Farquhar's career was now in ruins and so the judge
bound him over in the fee of £50. |
| 31/05/1911 |
The trial begins of Mary Ann Nash at the
Wiltshire Assizes in Salisbury. After hearing the evidence, including that of
Dr. Farquhar, the jury took 20 minutes to reach the verdict of guilty. The
judge, Mr. Justice Coleridge, "assumed the black cap" and sentenced her to be
hanged. |
| 31/05/1911 |
Dr. Farquhar returned to Burbage where he
was greeted with banners, buntings and welcoming speeches from the
Churchwardens |
| 05/06/1911 |
Mary Ann Nash's lawyer writes to the
local papers to say that rumours that she killed another child are untrue and
that the girl in question lives at Marlborough Union Workhouse. He also stated
that an appeal against her sentence is to be lodged. |
| 18/06/1911 |
The appeal is heard. It was based on the
fact that the prosecution had failed to prove that the child's body was that of
Stanley Nash. The appeal was dismissed. |
| 27/06/1911 |
Dr. Farquhar sells up and leaves
Burbage. |
| 07/07/1911 |
Following the receipt of a 14,000
signature petition, including those of some of the jury, the Home Secretary
reprieved Mary Ann Nash and commuted her sentence to life in prison. |
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The following is an extract from a book entitled "Women & Murder" by Hargrave L. Adam and published in London in 1914. In a chapter entitled "Baby Farmers" he gives details of the Well Murder. Being a contemporary document, it gives an interesting insight to the attitudes of the public (or at least that of the author) to the crime and his comments about "baby farmers" may help put Mary Nash's predicament into context.
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| THE BABY-FARMERS |
ONE of the most amazing things about certain forms of
female crime is the complete absence in the criminals of the
maternal instinct. This, which is so powerful among animals,
seems to find no place in the breasts of such women, in spite
of the fact that many have offspring of their own. It is
altogether a baffling mystery. It applies particularly to the
class of criminals known as "baby-farmers." Baby-farming
also involves the important social question of the
illegitimate child. As I write, the Home Secretary has
reprieved the woman Mary Ann Nash, who was condemned to death
for the murder of her little son. The case was known as the "Wilts Well Mystery." Nash was a domestic servant, and the
child she was convicted of murdering was illegitimate. In
June, 1907, she went away with the child, which was never
seen again alive. On April 23rd, 1908, the body of the little
boy was found in a well at Burbage, about two miles from the
cottage where Nash had been with her child.
An inquest was
held and an "open" verdict returned. Early in the present
year, 1911, however, somebody addressed
an anonymous letter to the police, suggesting that the body
found in the well was that of Nash's missing child, and that
she had murdered it. Accordingly the police made inquiries,
as a result of which they arrested Nash and charged her with
having murdered her child and cast the body in the well at
Burbage. In addition to the fact that no suspicion was
entertained towards Nash until the police received
information from so untrustworthy a source as an anonymous
communication, there were several very grave doubts in the
case. For instance, it was never proved how the child whose
body was found in the well came by his death, whether,
indeed, he was murdered at all. There was also considerable
discrepancy between the respective ages of Nash's missing
child and that of the child whose body was found in the well.
The strongest circumstances against Nash were the facts that
when questioned she had told a lie as to what she did with
her child when she went away with it, and that the child has
never since been seen. What has become of it? It seems
incredible that if it were still alive and in the keeping of
somebody it would not have been produced to save the mother
from the gallows. With the widespread publicity the case
has been given, whoever had the child must have become aware
of the perilous position in which Nash stood. The latter's
explanation was that while out with her child she fell asleep
by the roadside, and that when she awoke again her child
was gone, the inference being that somebody had kidnapped it. This, of course, might have been
so, and the child might afterwards have died a natural death,
or even have been killed by somebody else.
The motive
ascribed to the prisoner by the prosecution was that she
had killed the child to free herself of the expense of its
keep. She had already entrusted it to several baby-farmers,
whom, of course, she had to pay for its maintenance. It was
to get rid of this expense and what was in itself an obstacle
and an incumbrance to her, the prosecution asserted, that she
committed the murder. If there were no illegitimate children
there would be no baby-farmers, and in considering one we
must also consider the other. The fate of most of the former
is indeed pitiable in the extreme. Disowned by their natural
parents, cast among strangers, buffeted from pillar to post,
always in the way and not wanted, neglected in every
conceivable manner, ofttimes brutally murdered by their
inhuman guardians, they cry aloud for the interference of the
State. Are they to continue to plead in vain? Is it not time
that the law interceded on their behalf? It is only now and
again that attention is called to the hapless fate of the
child who is "not wanted," when a case like the "Wilts Well
Mystery" occurs or a baby-farmer is brought to justice. But
the torture and slaughter of the innocents is going on all
the time. Quite recently a case came under my notice which
led me to make inquiries. It appeared that a little girl
about five or six had been left on the hands of a certain
lady by its mother, who had not provided for it in any way
whatever. She had got rid of the child by
means of a trick or ruse. She was supposed to be coming back
for it, but she never returned, nor made any sort of inquiry
about it afterwards. The only clothes the child had were
those she stood up in, and they were both poor and unclean.
It appeared the child had had many " homes " during its brief
life, being left in custody of various baby-farmers. As the
mother invariably after a time failed to keep up the very
meagre payments promised, the child was turned away by one
foster mother after another. The one who had charge of her
prior to her being planted on the lady in question detained
all her clothes except those she was wearing as a set-off,
or a partial set-off, to the money owing for her keep.
This
poor mite, begotten in adultery and vicariously reared on
"short commons," was afflicted in various ways. She had an
impediment in her speech, and her sight was so bad that
she had to wear strong glasses ; she had previously had an
operation performed, which was necessary in order to
prevent her going blind. She was miserably thin, and had an
aspect as of one careworn, which in a child so young was
poignantly pathetic. As I have said, her devoted mother never
even made an indirect inquiry concerning her, which is not
surprising when one learns that she upon one occasion said to
the lady with whom she left the child that she wished the "little beast would die." All efforts to trace the whereabouts
of the mother proved fruitless, so the lady who had her in
charge, not being in a position to
support the child without assistance, was compelled to pass
her on to the parochial authorities. So once more the poor
child was "moved on," given into the custody of officials
who dealt with her in a business-like way, which took the
form of unkindness to one of such tender years and so
haplessly helpless. She was thrust through a doorway and told
to go "in there." In there were many other small children in
like pitiful case, the place being a kind of "receiving
house" for human sheep who are lost indeed.
Alas, for the
innocents! It appeared that the mother of the above child had
had three or four such offspring by the same father, all of
whom had been hustled away in the same manner. They were all
the results of illicit intercourse. She had destroyed
others in embryo. Being asked what became of a certain child
of hers, she replied, "Oh, I got rid of that" how, was left
to the imagination. Once or twice she induced a miscarriage, and so in that manner "got rid of it." The father
was himself a married man with legitimate offspring. The
mother was a single woman. The only defence the woman can
have, if indeed defence be admissible, is the fact that her
paramour barely provided for her and her children. She had,
of course, laid herself open to a charge of child desertion, and it would be the business of the parochial
authorities to find and prosecute her. The law, however,
does not provide for the punishment of the man, who certainly
should be made to share any penalty visited upon the
woman. |
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