Introduction

Standing at modern Bondgate in Bishop Auckland, where the old police station and courts have long gone, and seeing shoppers, school children, businessmen and mothers dragging obstinate children, the scene is far removed from August 1872. Here on this street, Mary Ann Cotton was brought to spend a few days in a spartan police station cell. In those days the place was dark and foreboding. The bed on which Mary Ann would have lain was hard with a woollen cloth that was both mattress and blanket. Wednesday, 21 August 1872 would be a defining day for Mary Ann. She would walk upstairs to face two magistrates. They were the Reverend James W. Hick who was the Rector at Byers Green. He lived there with his wife, Jane, and family. The other was Dr John Jobson, a surgeon who lived close to the court at Market Square with his wife, Mary. He would have been a colleague and acquaintance of Dr Kilburn from nearby West Auckland who would be a key player in Mary Ann’s trial.

We then take a long walk along Newgate, today a narrow street of shops and offices. It was along this street Mary Ann was walked by two police officers after her hearing. People who had been present in the court now preceded her, calling to others the outcome of the case. Mothers would pull their children close to them, as by now Mary Ann’s reputation was used to frighten the ‘bairns’. We arrive outside Bishop Auckland’s railway station, much changed since its heyday, when four tracks passed through it. Now only one track carries local trains. It is surrounded by modern retail stores and banks. It is difficult to transport yourself back to 1872, when a crowd gathered to catch a glimpse of the West Auckland Borgia, so named by the papers. They would jeer and hiss at a woman heading for trial in Durham, but who had already been found guilty in the court of public opinion.

We now begin our story of this woman, which we find centred on the coal mines of County Durham