Criminals of the Victorian Era

« Ameila Dyer is undeniably one of Victorian England’s most notorious killers, probably second only to Jack the Ripper.

As a criminal, her crime was murder, but the worst part is, her victims were babies.

Called the “Angel Maker”, she is thought to have killed around 400 babies in a thirty-year span, in which she was able to conduct her crimes with apparent impunity.

She began her criminal career in Bristol in the late 1860s, by opening a house of confinement where she took in unmarried and pregnant girls who had nowhere else to go.

She would then frequently smother their baby at birth, but often much to the relief of the mother. Those crimes went unchallenged since Victorian doctors couldn’t tell the difference between suffocation and still-birth.

She later moved to Reading and set herself up as a “baby farmer”, taking in children from desperate mothers who couldn’t keep them no more, and promising that she would find them a better life.

The monster would take the money before actually strangling the helpless children with dressmaking tape, and dumping their corpses in the river Thames. Dyer was finally arrested after the discovery of the body of an infant in the reeds of the Thames since her address was on the parcel paper.

Afterwards, a search of the Thames was ordered and, after 50 bodies discovered, she admitted to the police with this blood running cold quote: “You’ll know all mine by the tape around their necks”.

Her case was so terrifying and famous that songs were written about her, and Britain’s adoption and child protection laws had to be toughened up in a response to the public outcry.

Dyer was eventually hanged at Newgate Gaol, near the Old Bailey in London, in 1896.

She was 58. William Palmer was convicted of murder by poison in one of the most famous cases of the 1800.

Indeed, after completing his medical training, he returned to his hometown of Rugeley to practice as a doctor.

Shortly after his wedding with Ann Thornton in 1847 and the birth of his first child, William Brookes Palmer, in either 1848 or 1850, a lot of individuals surrounding Dr. Palmer died, often in his presence or after being in his company.

These included his next four children, who died either 7 hours, three days, one month, or two months and a half after their birth.

They also included his mother-in-law, his wife, his brother, his uncle, individuals to whom he owed money, as well as several illegitimate children of his.

For those deaths, he had never been suspected, although the death of his brother had been investigated, but Palmer’s involvement couldn’t be proven.

His wife, Ann, was believed to have died of cholera since, in 1853-1854, the so-called third cholera pandemic was affecting Great Britain.

Palmer thus did benefit financially from the death of his wife because he had taken out a 13.000£ insurance policy on her life, but he was still not suspected at all.

He finally found himself in trouble after the suspicious death of a gambling buddy who fell ill right after betting on horses with Palmer, winning a large sum of money, unlike the doctor, and dinning with him.

The man was called John Parsons Cook and, after his tragic death, Palmer was the one who collected his gambling money and then used to pay off his own debts.

A post mortem of the body revealed that Cook had been poisoned and the final straw was Palmer’s purchase of strychnine shortly before Cook’s death.

The doctor was arrested and convicted, largely on circumstantial evidence.

The bodies of Ann and Walter Palmer were then also re-examined, but not enough evidence was found to charge Palmer with their deaths, although it is believed today that he was the one who did it.

An Act of Parliament was passed to allow the trial to be held at The Old Bailey in London, as it was felt that a fair jury could not be found in Staffordshire.

Despite the evidence being circumstantial, the similarity between Cook’s death and the other strychnine victims was enough for the jury to find Palmer guilty of murder.

He was called ‘Palmer the Poisoner” and executed in front of a 30,000 member crowd in June of 1856.

The reason why his trial made headlines is because it was the very first to be moved away from an outlying jurisdiction because of fears that Palmer would not receive a fair trial.

Dr.

William Palmer’s case was such a sensation that it, and its characters, inspired two of the greatest writers of the time.

Indeed, Palmer is mentioned in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, which is one of the many stories of Sherlock Holmes, and Sir Frederick Field, who is the policeman who investigated Palmer’s brother death, was the inspiration for Inspector Bucket in Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House”. We all know that, at the end of the 19th century, everyone could feel England’s power just by walking a day in London.

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