In 1849, the child mortality rate in England was high and women often had large families in the realistic expectation that not all of the children would survive. More than one in every ten children died in the first year of their lives and many more did not reach their fifth birthday. That said, Rebecca Smith seemed to have been unluckier than most women; having given birth ten times, no less than nine of her babies had died, usually when they were around one month old.
To all intents and purposes, Rebecca was a God-fearing Christian woman, a regular attendee of Divine Worship at chapel, who was in the habit of saying her prayers every night. Ann Newman, a fellow chapel-goer, described her as a ‘well-conducted, industrious woman of a kind, quiet disposition.’
By 1849, Rebecca, who was in her forties, had been married to Philip Smith for eighteen years. Philip was a very heavy drinker, who, over the course of their marriage, had squandered a £100 inheritance that Rebecca had received from her father. The couple, who had one living daughter, rented a 30-acre smallholding in Westbury and Philip worked sporadically as a labourer to support his family.
On 16 May, Rebecca gave birth to her eleventh baby, a son whom she named Richard. Her friend, Elizabeth Cockle, who was present at the birth, described the infant as a fine, healthy, full-term baby boy.
Elizabeth was in and out of the Smith’s home every day for the next few weeks, during which time the baby appeared to thrive, although he did develop some small boils on his ears shortly after birth, which disappeared of their own accord in a couple of days. However, on 10 June, she noticed that baby Richard was not at all well, having vomited something that resembled the yolk of an egg. Elizabeth was of the opinion that the child ‘had bile’ and, since the baby was so sick, she advised Rebecca to consult a doctor. ‘It is no good to apply to any doctor for such an infant,’ was Rebecca’s response. She didn’t mention to Elizabeth that she had already consulted a doctor about the baby on 8 June.
Two views of Westbury, 2008. (© N. Sly)
Henry Britton, a surgeon from Bratton, had met Philip Smith on the evening of 5 June. Philip had expressed some concerns about the health of his wife and son and, as a consequence, Britton had agreed to examine them. He found baby Richard to be a normal, healthy baby, in spite of the fact that the baby’s mother assured him that the child had been ill. At Britton’s visit, Rebecca herself complained of feeling weak and of having been sick. Unable to find anything much wrong with her, Britton simply advised her to make sure that she was eating properly.
At six o’clock on the morning of 12 June, Elizabeth Cockle was summoned urgently to Rebecca Smith’s home, where she discovered that baby Richard had died. Elizabeth helped her friend to lay out the baby, giving her a little cap that had belonged to one of her own children to cover a sore on the back of his head. Having washed the child and dressed it in clean linen, she placed the body in a tiny coffin, Rebecca warning her not to turn the baby over as she did or ‘something would run from its mouth’. The baby was buried in the graveyard at Bratton Baptist Chapel.
However, there were those in Westbury who nursed suspicions about the sudden death of Richard Smith and rumours began to circulate throughout the town that Rebecca had killed her baby. Before long it became impossible for the authorities to ignore the buzz of gossip and it was decided to exhume the baby and carry out a post-mortem examination on his remains. Accordingly, Humphrey Newman, the sexton at Bratton, was given instructions by the coroner to dig up the recently buried coffin, which he did on 22 June, handing it straight to PC James Burgess, the Westbury constable. Burgess took the coffin to the Lopes Arms public house and locked it up, giving the key to surgeon George Sharland, who was also the registrar of births and deaths for the area. Sharland had met Rebecca Smith on two previous occasions, when she had registered first the birth, then the death of her son. On the latter meeting, he had asked her if any surgeon had attended her baby before its death and had been told that Mr Britton had seen Richard.
On 23 June, Mr Sharland and a colleague, Mr J.H. Gibbs, went to the Lopes Arms and opened the coffin. Elizabeth Cockle was present and formally identified baby Richard, pointing out the little cap that she had placed on his head only a few days before. An initial examination of the tiny corpse showed that Richard seemed to have been a normal, healthy, well-nourished baby, although he had a small sore on the back of his head. Yet when the surgeons opened up his body, they noticed some inflammation and ulceration of the stomach and intestines. They removed the fluid contents of the stomach and subjected them to various chemical tests, all of which indicated the presence of metallic arsenic. Sharland and Gibbs jointly formed the conclusion that baby Richard had died as the result of arsenic poisoning.
At an inquest into baby Richard’s death, held at the Lopes Arms, the coroner’s jury recorded a verdict of wilful murder against Rebecca Smith and she was committed for trial at the next Wiltshire Assizes.
Her trial at Devizes was presided over by Mr Justice Cresswell, with Mr Slade and Mr Lopes prosecuting and Mr Haddow acting as defence counsel. The courtroom was packed with spectators, all eager to hear the gruesome details of the case.
First to testify was Elizabeth Cockle who told the court that she had seen Richard every single day of his life and that he had been a normal, healthy baby until shortly before his death. Rebecca Smith had complained that the baby cried excessively at nights and Elizabeth, herself the mother of three children, had recommended giving him syrup of rhubarb.
The Lopes Arms, Westbury, 2008. (© N. Sly)
Several people then testified to the fact that Rebecca Smith had bought arsenic shortly before baby Richard’s death. The first of these was fourteen-year-old Charlotte Mackey, who occasionally ran errands for Rebecca. Charlotte told the court that Rebecca had sent for her on 27 May and asked her to go to Mr Taylor, the druggist in Westbury. She wanted her to buy a pennyworth of poison for rats and mice that she could send to her sister, whose house in Bratton was troubled with vermin. Charlotte had taken the penny and gone to her mother, who told her that she would not be allowed to buy poison without a witness, so Charlotte had returned the money.
On 7 June, Prudence Mead had met Rebecca in the street and, knowing that she had recently had a baby, asked her how she was. Rebecca said that she felt very poorly and wanted to sit down somewhere, so was invited into the Mead’s home. There she told Prudence that she had come into town in order to visit Mr Taylor’s shop to buy a pennyworth of poison, saying she couldn’t put anything out of her hands at home for the mice. She asked Prudence if she would accompany her, as she had been told that she wouldn’t be allowed to make her purchase without a witness present. Prudence went with Rebecca to Mr Taylor’s shop and heard her ask the apprentice, Alfred Mumford, for a pennyworth of poison to kill mice. She was asked what sort she wanted and replied that she didn’t know.
Mumford was called to testify and described taking down a bottle of white arsenic from a shelf and suggesting that it would suit her purposes. He weighed the arsenic onto a piece of blue paper, on which he wrote ‘Arsenic. Poison’. He then warned Rebecca Smith that it was highly dangerous and that she should take particular care to keep it away from children. Rebecca assured him that she intended to send the poison to her sister in Bratton and was not going to use it herself.
The next witness to be called was midwife Jane Harris, who had attended Rebecca at Richard’s birth. Harris had not been paid for her services and had called on Rebecca several times in an effort to get her to settle her outstanding account. She described baby Richard as a beautiful, healthy baby and stated that she had told Rebecca that she hoped that this child would survive, unlike her previous babies. On Harris’s next visit, Rebecca had asked her if she thought the baby ‘did worsty’ [sic]. Harris had assured her that the baby was growing normally but when she called again on 25 May, Rebecca had again asked her if the child ‘did worsty’, telling the midwife that baby Richard cried a lot and seemed terribly cross. By the time Jane Harris visited Rebecca Smith again, Richard was dead. Rebecca still had no money to pay her bill, but promised she would get it by the next day. Harris had then told Rebecca that she had heard rumours that Rebecca had murdered her baby.
‘They say I murdered my baby?’ asked Smith incredulously. ‘Who told you?’
Harris had named Elizabeth Cockle and Hannah Bailey and told Rebecca that she knew that she had sent Charlotte Mackey to try and buy poison. Rebecca insisted that the poison had been for her sister to kill mice and rats. Harris then accused her of buying poison herself, to which Rebecca indignantly replied that she hadn’t been into town since the birth of her baby.
Ann Callaway, Rebecca’s sister, was called to testify that, although she had once had a problem with rats and mice at her home, her husband had taken care of it. She had never asked Rebecca to buy or send her any poison and had never heard Rebecca complaining of rats and mice at her own home. This was later confirmed by Sarah Millard, a lodger at the Smith’s home for three months until 17 June, who stated that she had never known there to be any problem with vermin in the house. Ann also told the court that her sister’s husband was not very kind to her and that the Smith’s were very badly off financially. She had taken both food and money to her sister, but insisted that, in spite of her poverty, Rebecca was taking the best possible care of her child.
The prosecution then produced a witness who testified that Rebecca Smith had tried to obtain poison even before the birth of her baby. Jane Joyce had been visiting her sister Hannah Bailey on 24 April when Rebecca Smith had arrived. Rebecca had asked Hannah if she could spare a little bit of poison, as she had a problem with mice at home. Hannah had no poison in the house to give her. Jane, who lived close to the Smith’s home, had often seen Rebecca and baby Richard, whom she described as ‘a fine healthy child’. On 11 June, she and Hannah had seen Richard again and noticed that he was very pale. Rebecca told her that the baby had been sick during the night. At that time, Hannah suggested that Rebecca gave the baby something to comfort it, but Rebecca said it would be no use.
Hannah had run to her own house and made up some arrowroot for the baby, but Rebecca told her that the child wouldn’t eat it. Jane lifted the boy onto her lap and tried to feed him with the arrowroot, which Richard had taken greedily, although he had kept his tongue to the roof of his mouth while eating. Jane also fed some of the arrowroot to her own child at the same time. Hannah found some white ointment that she had bought from Mr Taylor the druggist, which Jane applied to the sore on baby Richard’s head, leaving the remaining ointment with Rebecca to use later. Apprentice Alfred Mumford was recalled to the witness box to testify to the content of the ointment, which he described as ‘white lead ointment’, specifying that it contained no arsenic.
The next witnesses to be called by the prosecution were those involved with the exhumation of the baby and his subsequent post-mortem examination. Having heard from sexton Humphrey Newman and Constable Burgess, and the surgeons who had carried out the post-mortem examination, the court was then addressed by William Herapath, an eminent Bristol chemist, who had analysed the baby’s stomach contents and examined portions of his intestines. He concurred with the surgeons, attributing the baby’s death to arsenic poisoning.
Having heard all the evidence presented in court, the jury retired for about thirty minutes, returning with a verdict of ‘Guilty of wilful murder’ against Rebecca Smith, but strongly recommending mercy for her. When Mr Justice Cresswell asked them on what grounds, they told him that they wished her to have time to repent. Cresswell ignored the recommendation, sentencing Rebecca Smith to death without hope of mercy. She didn’t even flinch as she learned her fate.
While confined in the county gaol awaiting her execution, Rebecca Smith confessed to the prison chaplain that she had previously murdered seven of her other children in exactly the same manner as she had killed baby Richard. The only motive that she could offer was that she was afraid that her children might ‘come to want’. There were suspicions that she might also have attempted to poison her one living child, but she vehemently denied this, expressing great affection for the child coupled with concerns that, being given to drunkenness, her husband would most probably neglect her daughter after she had been executed.
A petition was raised appealing to the Secretary of State for clemency for Rebecca Smith but it was to no avail. The government declined to intervene in the sentence and Rebecca Smith was executed at Devizes on 23 August 1849.