Life story retold by Yota Dimitriadi
*Warning: This article refers to a notorious infantile case related to a prolific Victorian baby farmer and murderer. The content is upsetting and includes some details of their death. Links to post-mortem photographs are not shared. If you are affected in any way, please contact support organisations like The Samaritans or Winston’s Wish.
The information is gathered from newspaper articles and online resources, which are acknowledged.
The aim of this article is to commemorate the babies killed and not let their names be forgotten or obscured because of their horrific death and killer.
A small commemoration ceremony took place on 14th April 2024 (128 years from the day of their funeral) for all 4 babies buried in Reading Old and all others who died in the hands of Victorian baby farmers.
Harry SIMMONS was a healthy-looking 13 month-old baby with brown hair and blue eyes. Dressed in a flannel shirt, Harry was about 28 inches long and had no teeth yet. His lungs contained air and were filled with blood. The other organs appeared to be all healthy. The stomach was full of half digested food, which looked like ground rice. This is the description that Dr. W.J. Maurice, who performed the autopsy, gave during the inquest into his death. His little body was found stuffed into a carpet bag along with the four-month old Doris Marmon, with a 40 inches long tape tied in a knot around their neck. Two bricks were also in the bag to hold it down when it was dumped into the River Thames at Clappers’ Pool, Reading.
Portraits produced by Gen AI from the post-mortem photo of baby Harry Simmons and must not be considered as accurate representations of the baby.
His story, and ultimate fate, became a symbol of the horrors of the Victorian baby farming trade.
Harry was born to Lizzy SIMMONS, her only child at the time. She claimed to have been married for 12-14 months and widowed shortly before Harry’s birth. We do not know the date of Harry’s birth. Lizzie was reportedly going into service as a lady’s maid in Gloucester and then abroad. She left one month old Harry in the care of Amelia Anna SARGEANT, a friend from her youth and the wife of an undertaker. The Sargeant family lived at 15, Ealing Road, South Ealing. Mrs Sargeant, sympathetic to Lizzy’s plight, agreed to look after Harry. However, as she had six children of her own she found it difficult to host Harry as well. She attempted to find him a good home and trusted him to a local carer, Mrs Sharp of Brentford. For nearly a year, Harry was boarded with Mrs Sharp and was visited by Mrs Sargeant every week or fortnight. Lizzy, however, disappeared from contact after dropping Harry off, promising to send six shillings a week for his care, which never came. Mrs Sargeant continued to pay for Harry’s care out of her pocket. She paid for Harry’s nursing until 1st April. She explained that Harry would have ended up at Workhouse if she had stopped paying the weekly fee.
Harry’s story also reveals much about Victorian society’s prejudices against the poor and unmarried mothers. During the inquest Mrs Sargeant was called as a witness. She was described as a well-dressed woman, attired in black, who appeared to be greatly distressed. The coroner’s line of questioning reveals a deep scepticism not only about the status of Mrs. Simmons’s marriage but also about Mrs. Sargeant’s judgment and motivations in accepting the child. Part of the exchange as shared in newspapers of the time went as follows:
The Coroner: I cannot quite understand how you took to the child.
Witness: I knew Mrs. Simmons very well. We were friendly before she was married. I did not know her during her married life.
The Coroner: Have you reason to believe that she was married?
Witness: Yes, I have.
The Coroner: This does not appear to be quite a motherly act. You have seen no certificate of her marriage, I suppose?
Witness: No.
The Coroner: You only know from what she told you—that she was married?
Witness: Yes. She knew the child would be thoroughly well cared for with me.
The Coroner: When you took the child, did you not wish to see Mrs. Simmons’s certificate of marriage?
Witness: No. I had always found her thoroughly honest and good, so I did not make any inquiries about it. I might have been a little indiscreet in that.
During the inquest at Mrs Sargeant said that Lizzie had expressed the wish for Mrs Sargeant to get Harry adopted by someone who would provide it good home and bring it up as their own. On 15th March, Mrs Sargeant saw an advertisement in the Weekly Dispatch: ‘Wanted to adopt child. Premium £10, apply to Mrs Harding, Ship’s Letter Exchange. Stoke’s Croft, Bristol.’
Mrs Sargeant responded to the advertisement and stated that, provided the home was a comfortable one, Harry could be placed there under the terms offered. She requested an interview with the advertiser and received a reply from Amelia Harding, of Kensington Road, near Oxford Road, Reading.
On 25th March, Mrs Sargeant visited Mrs Harding at that address. She asked whether Mrs Harding was in the habit of taking in infants. Mrs Harding, replied that she had only ever taken in two children in her life (a boy and a girl), both of whom had grown to adulthood. She said she had a great love for children and could not live without them. She also explained that her real name was Thomas, but as she was well known in Reading, her husband, a goods guard, did not wish her to advertise under her real name. Mrs Sargeant felt that the home appeared very nice, clean, and comfortable, and she agreed to entrust her with Harry.
Mrs Sargeant made an appointment to bring the child to Reading, but Mrs Thomas later wrote, saying she was coming up to London and proposed to meet her at Paddington Station to take the baby. Mrs Sargeant had her husband’s full consent in handing the child to Mrs Thomas.
On 1st April, Mrs Sargeant, accompanied by her husband, met Mrs Thomas, described as a tall and well-built woman, on the down platform at Paddington. With her was another woman, introduced as her niece, who held a child in her arms that looked very ill and appeared to be about two years old. The “niece” said the child was her own.
Mrs Sargeant paid £5, with the remaining £5 to be paid on 11th April, the date of the inquest. Amelia Dyer (alias Thomas) seemed to have charged £10 per child, typically refusing weekly payments and insisting on a lump sum. In the rare cases where she accepted weekly payments, such as that of Willie Thornton, the nine year old, a key witness is Dyer’s trial, the child survived.
Mrs Sargeant said that Harry had been a beautiful, thoroughly healthy, and strong child when she handed him over. He even had some teeth nearly through. She also stated that Harry was not vaccinated and there were no vaccination marks on its arm. This may been given as a sign of neglect, especially at a time when compulsory vaccination laws were in place in England (the first Vaccination Act having been introduced in 1853). In contrast, Doris Marmon, the other infant found with Harry, had four mars of vaccination.
When Mrs Thomas took Harry, she stated that Mrs Sargeant could come down to Reading at any time to check on his well-being. She also promised to write immediately upon arriving in Reading to let her know how the boy was doing. Mrs Sargeant had also apparently intended to write the very day she learned of his death. Mrs Sargeant also sent a parcel of clothing, some of which she recognised when she was called to identify the body earlier that day. The clothes had been wrapped in brown paper and tied with string and they seem that they were never worn.
After Dyer got Harry at the Paddington platform, she stayed overnight at her niece. The next day she boarded the train without an infant but with her inseparable carpet bag. By the time she reached Kensington Road the bag was missing and it was supposed that it was disposed in the Thames. That carpet bag became a decisive piece of evidence in the case. A juryman thought they ought to have some evidence to prove that the carpet-bag was seen at Kensington-Road. A very articulate nine year old boy named William Thornton, who had been living with Dyer for six months, recognised the bag. He testified that when they moved to Reading, he brought some clothes with him in that carpet bag. He recognised it from the pattern and by the torn condition of the inside. He also said that the bag was kept in a cupboard upstairs and that he last saw it the Tuesday before Good Friday. He also testified that Dyer (alias Mrs Thomas) went to London on that Tuesday and returned on the Thursday before Good Friday. Mrs Thomas put some ham and clothes for a baby in London. He did not see it again until the day of the inquest. Mrs Smith or ‘Granny’, as she was called by the household, an elderly lady who lived with Dyer also also identified the bag. She was quite confident that it was the same bag and she had seen it many times hung in the cupboard in a bedroom upstairs. When Dyer returned from London, Granny asked her why she had left the bag, and why she was so late. Dyer said that she had lost her train because there were so many people travelling just before Easter. She also said that she had left the bag at her daughter’s, who wanted it to pack up some things before going to Bridgwater. While Granny stated that she was surprised with the case as she thought that Dyer was an honest and straightforward woman, he testimony helped the police trace Dyer’s movements over many years.
Mrs Sargeant had not seen Mrs Harding since entrusting Harry to her care. She made application to the authorities for leave to visit or speak with Mrs Harding while she was held in custody, but her request was refused, and no communication between them was permitted. She was asked to identify her and she picked her out from a line up of four other women. She also identified the pelisse and other articles produced as belonging to Harry. He was wearing some of them when she gave him up.
On Friday 9th April 1896 at about twenty minutes to five, a man named Botting, who lived in Foulkes Street, Spring Gardens, brought up another parcel from under the centre of the footbridge at Clappers Pool in Caversham. It was a carpet bag, which was proved to contain the bodies of a girl and an exceptionally pretty boy. Two bricks were also placed in the bag: one on top of the bodies and a portion of a brick underneath them. The bodies were taken to the Police Station by a man named Henry Smithwaite, a labourer, of 8, Little John’s Lane, and from there they were sent the mortuary.
In a detailed account Henry Smithwaite testified that three others dragged the river on hearing that something was in the water. They dragged close to the Clapper’s and found the carpet bag [produced], containing the bodies of two children. They found it half way underneath the footbridge. Henry called DC Anderson’s attention to it, at the lock house, he undid the string round the bag, which was partly open and saw a brick removed from it. Sergeant James pulled the cloth off, and he then saw the body of a female child. Henry brought the bag to the police station, where in the presence of Mr. O.C. Maurice the two bodies were taken out and photographed. The female child was tide up in a diaper, and the other one had a chemise and diaper on. The bodies were subsequently brought by him to the mortuary.
Dr Weedon, the coroner, held an inquest at St. Giles Coffee House, Reading, at five o’clock on Saturday afternoon of 11th April 1896, on the bodies of the two babies who were picked out of the Thames at the Clappers, on the previous day, in a carpet bag. The bodies, which were in a good state of preservation, were placed in the mortuary in Bridge Street. Mr S. Brain watched the inquest on behalf the Treasury. The inquest lasted for several hours.
At the time, there were rumours that Amelia Dyer was part of a baby-farming gang, although this was never substantiated with evidence. She was preparing to move to Bridgwater after having stayed in Caversham for three months.
Four infants were taken from the mortuary to be buried in the unconsecrated part of Reading Old on April 14th 1896: Harry, two unnamed babies and Doris Marmon. According to his mother (as shared by Mrs Sargeant) Harry was christened. Nonetheless, he was buried in the unconsecrated part of the cemetery in a common grave with 13 more people, 6 of which are infants. The funeral took place at midday. All funerals were expected to have a service by a priest. However, the service was performed by A. Gibbs, the cemetery superintendent, in the presence of a large crowd. Despite the case being a national story, the funeral was not reported in the local press. In fact, the plot number does not even appear on the cemetery map. This omission may be mistake in record keeping or reflect reputational shame or prevailing attitudes at the time toward fostered, adopted, or illegitimate children.
Sources
- Berkshire Chronicle – Saturday 11 April 1896
- Berkshire Chronicle – Saturday 18 April 1896
- Canterbury Journal – Saturday 25 April 1896
- Echo (London) – Tuesday 28 April 1896
- Information is adapted from the article ‘Amelia Dyer and baby killing‘ by Prof Joanna Bourke
- Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper – Sunday 12 April 1896
Division 9, unmarked common grave, plot 11521.