Murderous Mary Ann Cotton

DID you see the first episode of Dark Angel on Monday? Starring Joanne Froggatt, it told the story of Mary Ann Cotton, the West Auckland poisoner, who has featured regularly in Memories over the years.

Mary Ann was hung at Durham Jail on March 24, 1873, for the murder of her stepson, Charles Cotton, eight, although in total she despatched between 14 and 21 victims, which makes her Britain’s greatest mass murderess.

The ITV adaption, which concludes on Monday evening, was pretty good, although the story whizzed by so fast that some people appeared to have been murdered before they were even born. The North-East accents sounded accurate – no hint of Pakistani or Irish creeping in – and Saltburn, which was bodydoubling for the Sunderland coast where Mary Ann really lived, looked ruggedly attractive.

And there was a lot of sex? Mary Ann was at it everywhere – even against one of the pier’s pillars.

But she had four husbands and several lovers, so perhaps she really did enjoy an active and vigorous life.

The programme didn’t present her wholly as a monster. It understood that she was trying to escape the working class woman’s choiceless inevitability of childbirth and dependence – it was just that she chose a wholly unacceptable method to do so.

In 1873, there was also some sympathy for her, among those who were opposed to capital punishment and among those who felt the circumstantial evidence that convicted her was too flimsy to kill her.

The Northern Echo, though, in its editorial written by WT Stead, thought hanging was too rapid and comfortable – it wanted her to have been boiled slowly alive in a cauldron so that she really suffered for her unmotherly crimes.

It was her sex that allowed Mary Ann to escape for so long – no one expected a mother to poison her own children – but, once the penny dropped, it was the murderess’ femininity that shocked the commentators.

Bishop Auckland historian Tom Hutchinson has kindly sent in this “penny dreadful” – a topical song that was top of the pops in the days leading up to Mary Ann’s execution. The composer hasn’t got all of his facts right, but the ditty still gives a sense of the revulsion that was caused by her crimes.

It was meant to be sung to the tune Driven From Home.

The West Auckland poisoner at last has been tried.

That she's guilty cannot be denied.

Her crimes have struck terror all over the land

And deep indignation at every hand.

No feelings of pity was in her hard heart

She never has acted a good woman’s part

With dark deeds of murder she perill’d her soul

And her children destroyed for possession of gold.

Chorus

No one can pity, no one can bless

Mary Ann Cotton for her wickedness

The West Auckland poisoner condemned doth lie

She murdered her children and soon she must die.

Her poor little children’s dear lives she betrayed

For the sake of the money the burial clubs paid:

She stood by and saw them struggling with pain

Her crime she repeated again and again.

The poison she gave them when no one was night

And in fearful agony each one did die:

Although in bad deeds her life has been past

The judgement of heaven has reached her at last.

For months in a prison this bad woman was hurled

Till another poor offspring she brought into the world

Born in a prison amid crime and shame

With an unfeeling mother unworthy the name:

How happy it is that seldom we hear

Of women poisoning their children so dear:

In this world below or the bright world above

A heavenly gift is a true mother's love.

She murdered her husbands and a lodger as well

The numbers she poisoned no one can tell.

So anxious she was for the money it is said

That she ordered their coffins before they were dead:

The strong hand of justice compelled her to stay.

And crimes have been proved as clear as the day

Now in Durham prison condemned she does lie

And soon on the scaffold she will have to do die.

The man or the woman who God’s law offends

And by secret poison encompass their ends

From the strong hardy man to the infant at birth

No one is safe while they stay on the earth

When murders committed in a moment of rage

We often can pity and petition to save

But Mary Ann Cotton who in Durham doth lie

Everyone knows she's deserving to die.

Oh what must she think how she lays in her cell

The day and the hour of her death she can tell

Her heart must be harder than iron or stone.

If she don't repent for the crime she has done :

No blessing she'll have, no sympathy get

No one will pity, none will regret:

It is only justice most people will cry

When Mary Ann Cotton stands up to die.

Mary Ann Cotton is said to have murdered 21 people. Her is her life in 21 steps:

1. She was born Mary Ann Robson in 1832 in Low Moorsley, near Hetton-le-Hole, and grew up in East Rainton and Murton. Her father, Michael, was killed in 1842 falling down the shaft at Murton colliery while repairing a pulley wheel.

2. She married her first husband, miner William Mowbray, on July 18, 1852. They tried a new life in Cornwall, lost several young children, returned to the Murton area in 1860 where William died in January 1865, allowing Mary Ann to pocket £35 insurance money – about six months wages.

3. Husband number two was George Ward, an engineer whom she met while she was nursing in Sunderland Infirmary. They married in August 1865 and he died in October 1866.

4. Husband number three, whom she married in July 1867, was Sunderland shipwright James Robinson, who had originally taken her on as his housekeeper. He became suspicious and kicked her out.

5. Mary Ann bigamously married husband number four, Northumberland miner Frederick Cotton, on September 17, 1870, in Newcastle.

6. They moved to 20, Johnson Terrace, Darlington Road, West Auckland (it was demolished in the early 1970s) where the unfortunate husband died in December 1871.

7. Probably three more of her children died in Johnson Terrace, along with her lover, Joseph Nattrass – the TV adaption shows she had a long-standing and vigorous relationship with him until he died painfully on Easter Monday, 1872.

8. Within a fortnight of Nattrass’ death, Mary Ann was pregnant by her new lover: the middle class excise manager of West Auckland Brewery, John Quick-Manning.

9. In May 1872, she moved with her one remaining child – stepson Charles Cotton – to 13, Front Street, West Auckland, which still stands.

10. She regarded Charles, seven, as an impediment to her marrying Mr Quick-Manning, so she poisoned him in Front Street on July 12, 1872.

11. The inquest into his death was held the following day in the Rose and Crown pub next to 13, Front Street. Despite many doubts, the verdict was that Charles had died of “natural causes”.

12. The local GP, Dr Kilburn, who had kept samples from Charles’ stomach belatedly discovered arsenic in them, called the police and Mary Ann was arrested in Front Street on July 18.

MURDER WEAPON: Mary Ann Cotton's black teapot, and her stool, is now in Beamish Museum

13. Despite a Government restrictions, arsenic was still readily available as a disinfectant to kill bedbugs. It was also good for killing humans because it dissolved almost tastelessly in a hot drink, like tea, and its symptoms of a violent stomach upset were common enough to fool doctors. The black teapot which she used is in Beamish Museum.

14. Under the watchful eye of the Echo’s editor, WT Stead, two more of Mary Ann’s putative victims – her newborn baby Robert and her ten-year-old stepson, Frederick – were exhumed from St Helen’s Auckland graveyard and tested for arsenic.

15. Mary Ann was held at Bishop Auckland police station in Bondgate, and walked down through the town, flanked by policemen, to attend court in Durham. She wore a black and white shawl over her black dress, which was fashionable Durham attire – although it immediately went out of fashion.

16. Mary Ann’s trial was delayed because on January 10, 1873, she gave birth in Durham jail to a baby – probably her 13th. She named it Margaret Edith Quick-Manning Cotton, thus publicly implicating the father.

17. Mr Quick-Manning fled West Auckland and changed his distinctive surname. Some sources say that went abroad; others say he returned to his hometown of Darlington where, reconciled with his wife, he ran a small beerhouse.

18. Mary Ann’s trial before Mr Justice Sir Thomas Dickson Archibald began on March 5, 1873, and she was found guilty on March 7. When he pronounced the death sentence, the Echo said: “When the last dread words fell from his lips, she turned deadly pale, reeled, and would have fallen to the floor had she not been caught by the Deputy Governor.”

19. The Sunderland banker Edward Backhouse, from the Darlington family, led an unsuccessful Quaker campaign to get the Home Secretary to commute the sentence.

20. On March 19, 1873, Mary Ann’s two-month old baby was given for adoption to William and Sarah Edwards, of West Auckland, and her descendants still live in the south Durham area.

21. She was executed at 8am on Monday, March 24, in Durham Jail by William Calcraft. She took three minutes to die, her body jerking around on the rope, and she was buried in the jailyard.