Mother never chose to live anywhere that was too far from a railway station. From her earliest years in Totterdown, she had only to walk a short distance to catch the unmistakable scent of grime, acetylene and burning, sulphurous oil from the clouds of steam, soot and ash pouring from the locomotives. The distinctive chocolate and cream livery of the GWR carriages with their comfortable interiors of upholstered seats and oil lamps to read by provided Mother with a cheap ride. She was easily able to expand her business network into the towns along the main line. Advertisements were soon appearing in the Bristol, Gloucester and London papers. On any given day a quick perusal under the “Miscellaneous Wants” column of the Bristol Times & Mirror would reveal a whole selection of innocently worded advertisements, “sticky honey traps” to lure in the desperate.
Wanted, comfortable HOME for Child 6 months old; state terms and if other nurse children.
Married Lady wishes to Adopt Lady’s Child as own; superior home; premium required.
Wanted, A BABY to nurse; any age.
Wanted, a child to NURSE; will be well looked after.
The babies began to arrive; most were brought to the house after dark. Granny, coming downstairs in the morning to light the fire, would often find a new child lying in the cradle in the kitchen. She would just as often wake in the morning to find that the baby she had kissed goodnight the evening before was no longer in the house. The mother had come to collect it, she was told. But the strange thing was that they never took the clothes; they were left in little bundles which Mother would pawn.
Granny was growing increasingly uneasy. She didn’t like the way Mother was to the children; she was rough at times and had no patience when the babies cried. She would often shake the poor little things in a most shocking manner. She’d told Mother what she thought, but it had just turned into an argument. She didn’t like it when Mother got into one of her rages; you never knew what she would do.
Granny left the house late one afternoon. Mother had been busy sewing one of her quilts so hadn’t noticed her sneak out of the front door. She walked up to Oxford Road and turned right toward town. The Reading Union Workhouse was just over the road and she joined the straggle of grey vagrants queuing alongside the railings, waiting for the porter to admit them through the gates. She hadn’t minded the rough bath they’d given her, or the scratchy workhouse uniform she was made to wear when her own clothes were taken away to be washed, disinfected and put into storage. She slept that night in the receiving ward, the thin urine-stained mattress and the iron bedstead combining to make her old bones ache. It was better than worrying about Willie and the babies. But all the same she wondered all night how they were getting along without her.
Mother had been waiting there for her in the morning; she told the workhouse master there was no need for Granny to be admitted as she had a perfectly comfortable home already. She had promised Granny she would be kinder, had promised to look after her better. And so Granny collected her things and they both walked back to Kensington Road.
It wasn’t long, though, before Granny’s growing concerns over the children led her once more to sneak out of the door of Kensington Road. This time she walked passed the workhouse and its yawning gateway and continued on toward the bustle of Broad Street. She walked through the marketplace with its stalls piled high with potatoes and pot plants, the traders in waistcoats with shirt sleeves rolled up. Through the tangle of cycles and women pushing perambulators, past the India rubber merchants, the tailor’s shop and the cabmen’s shelter and over High Bridge crossing the River Kennet and on into London Street. She walked past the police station at 1 London Street, on past furniture dealers, watchmakers, pawnbrokers and wheelwrights; the road was wide with plenty of room for the horse-drawn trams to pass by either side of the row of gas lights running down the centre of the carriageway. She turned left into the grand expanse of the London Road and stopped outside number 11, an unpretentious dwelling that had once been a shop, but now, in place of fancy hats or leather-bound books displayed in its windows, there were photographs.
Granny stood and stared mournfully into the window at the terrible images of children and babies: naked, abused and near to death. She didn’t notice the tears streaming down her own cheeks until the door of the former shop opened and a concerned looking lady ushered her inside for a calming cup of tea. Granny walked back home that day feeling lighter in her heart. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the kind lady’s husband called at Kensington Road. He was an NSPCC officer and she hoped he would put the frighteners on mother.
Wanted, in comfortable home, CHILD (girl preferred; aged six to ten); terms moderate every care; good school.
Bristol Times & Mirror, 11 January 1896
Nellie Oliver arrived in Kensington Road at the beginning of February. She was only eleven years old but had been put on a train at Plymouth and sent to reading under the charge of a Great Western guard. Her mother was a domestic servant in Looe, Cornwall, and had placed Nellie out with a woman in Plymouth. The identity of her father was a mystery, but he was a man of means who paid a decent yearly sum for his illegitimate daughter. Nellie was a valuable commodity and those in receipt of the annual payment felt free to pass the responsibility of the child on to any willing third party, paying them a lesser sum and pocketing the balance. Mother not only received a moderate weekly sum, but an extra pair of hands to help around the house. Most importantly, Nellie could be used as another decoy: both she and Willie were kept well scrubbed and nourished. To the outside world they presented an impressive example of mother’s maternal skills.
Nellie Oliver, Weekly Dispatch, 19 April 1896
An advertisement mother had placed in the Western Daily Press under the name of Thornley soon caught the eye of a young domestic servant from Bristol.
Married couple having no child would ADOPT one; small premium. Mrs Thornley, c/o Ships letter exchange, Stoke’s Croft Bristol.
Western Daily Press, 3 February 1896
Mary Fry had recently given birth to a girl whom she named Helena. She was a single woman; the father was a well-to-do merchant in the city. It was a common enough situation and it suited everyone that the child be adopted out. The father could afford to pay the terms stated in the advertisement, being only too happy to rid himself of any potential embarrassment, and the young mother was aware that adoption was her only option. Mother arranged to collect the child from the platform at Bristol Temple meads Station, along with £10 and her rail fare; she promised to give the little one a good home. On the morning of 5 march mother left the house telling granny that she was going to London to see the Palmers.
When she arrived home that evening she brought with her a brown paper parcel, about two feet long, which she placed on the sewing machine in the corner of the room. She didn’t volunteer what was in the parcel and, as she was not in the best of tempers, no one dared ask. The parcel lay untouched throughout supper and into the evening; in the morning it had disappeared.
It was granny who first noticed the nauseating smell emanating from the deep recesses of the cupboard in the kitchen. Mother was in the habit of buying scraps of meat for her beloved cats and granny wondered if some had been left to rot on a shelf at the back. She didn’t challenge mother on the matter as her moods had become increasingly strange, and the little bottle of brown liquid which she kept in the pocket of her apron, and from which she would take nips, was beginning to appear more frequently.
Willie had noticed the smell, too; it was growing stronger, putting him off his bread and jam. He was a bright boy and knew better than to complain out loud. On a day when mother had gone to town he looked inside the cupboard to see for himself what was causing the nasty stink. As he opened the door, the stench of rotting meat assailed his nostrils, causing him to gag and cover his mouth. Before he banged the door closed on it, he noticed, sitting high on a shelf, a long brown paper parcel with both ends tucked neatly in.
The smell grew unbearable. It permeated the front room and Mrs Chandler began to complain to mother. She wouldn’t pay rent for a room in a house which smelled so unpleasant. Mother vehemently denied the existence of any smell, but on Monday 30 march she rose from her bed before the rest of the house had stirred and took herself downstairs where she filled the kitchen bucket with soapy water. She instructed young Willie to run upstairs and tell granny that she needn’t get up as “there was nothing for her to do”. When granny came downstairs about an hour later, she was very surprised to find mother scrubbing out the cupboard; she did not usually involve herself in such dirty household tasks. Granny offered to finish off the cleaning, but mother said she would do it herself as the cupboard was so filthy and went to empty the dirty water in the backyard. Later in the morning mother put on her cloak and announced she was off to the pawn shop. She walked out of the house with a brown paper parcel tucked under her cloak, and returned empty handed later that evening. The stench in the house disappeared, although Willie could never bring himself to open the cupboard again; faint traces of the mysterious odour still lurked in the musty interior, lingering among the shelves piled high with baby clothes.
Mother was unaware that the stinking parcel she had tossed in the river had not only failed to sink but, by the end of the day, would be lying unwrapped in the police mortuary.
