Today’s Wretched Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Esther Hibner’s embroidery business in London’s Camden Town was run with orphan apprentices from the workhouse.
In January, 1829, the grandmother of one of them, little Frances Colpitts, visited the establishment. She was told by Mrs. Hibner and her daughter, another Esther, that the child had been “naughty” and could not see visitors. The indignant old lady complained to the parish beadle, who, in return, went to the house to inspect the child.
He uncovered an appalling situation. The six little girls Esther had taken from the parish were starving, ragged, lousy and exhausted. Frances was seriously ill with abscesses on her lungs.
The children were taken back to the workhouse, and given broth to compensate for the starveling fare they had received in Pratt Terrace, comprising:
One quarter-pint of milk between the six of them with one slice of bread apiece for breakfast. 8 lbs of potatoes per week between the six of them. One slice of meat every other Sunday.
Despite the generous supply of nourishment offered the children in the workhouse, Frances died within a few days. The two Hibners were tried for her murder, together with their forewoman, Ann Robinson.
It transpired that the children had been made to do fine embroidery work from 3:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. every day.
The poor little mites were kept awake with almost hourly canings for slacking. They took their four hours nightly sleep huddled together on the bare floor under one blanket.
Frances Colpitts’ serious injury occurred when the younger Hibner picked her up by the heels and dipped her head in a bucket of water, while Ann Robinsons screamed, “Damn her! Dip her again and finish her!’
The jury had to decide whether the starvation or the dipping caused the death of this poor innocent child. In the former case, Mrs. Hibner would be hanged; in the latter, her daughter and Ann Robinson.,
In the event, the wicked and cold-hearted mistress has been condemned to death, her underlings will be transported.
Culled from: The Chronicle of Crime
Here is the OLD BAILEY SESSION detailing the crime in all its Dickensian glory!
MURDER PRODUCED BY ILL-TREATMENT AND STARVATION
Esther Hibner, the elder, Esther Hibner the younger, and Ann Robinson, were severally indicted on the coroner’s inquisition with the wilful [sic] murder of Frances Colpitts.
Mr. ALLEY detailed the facts of the case as they afterwards appeared in evidence, observing, that such occurrences were rare in this country.
Mr. Smith, the Master of St. Martin’s Workhouse, proved that the deceased had been apprenticed to the prisoner, Esther Hibner the elder, in April, 1828. She was then in perfect health.
Frances Gibbs was grandmother to the deceased. The last time she saw her alive was on the 27th of September. Witness called several times after, but was unable to see her. Witness called on the 10th of February, and insisted upon seeing her grandchild, when Miss Hibner said, ‘You will see a pretty thing when you do see her, she is in a deplorable state;” adding, that the deceased had been ill. Witness having seen the child, gave information of the condition in which she had found her to the overseers of St. Martin’s parish.
Mr. John Blackman, one of the overseers of St. Martin’s parish.—In consequence of the information given by the last witness, he went to the prisoner’s residence, at Platt-terrace, and found all the children in a wretched state, and quite emaciated. Went again on the following day with Mr. Wright, the surgeon of St. Pancras workhouse, and found the deceased lying on a mattress. She had a cap on, and a shawl was wrapped around her body. The elder prisoner said the deceased had wetted the bed. She refused to suffer any of the children to be removed excepting the deceased, who was conveyed to the workhouse of St. Pancras, it being the opinion of the medical gentleman that she could not with safety be removed to St. Martin’s workhouse. The deceased was dreadfully emaciated. Her lips were contracted, and there was a redness about her eyes. There also appeared to be some bruises on her forehead, and one on her arms.
Susan Whitby, one of the children, said, the deceased came last Easter or Witsuntide. The deceased was obliged to get up to work between three and four o’clock in the morning, and continued working until ten or eleven at night. She used to get a cup of milk and a slice of bread for breakfast, and got nothing else all day. Sometimes the elder prisoner used to say that the deceased had not earned her breakfast, and on those occasions she got only a few potatoes about one o’clock which was the only food allowed her that day. Nine pounds of potatoes were divided amongst the whole family, consisting of twelve persons. Deceased used to lie on the floor of the workshop with the rest of the apprentices. They had no bed but a blanket under and over them, and had no other covering during winter. They had meat every second Sunday. The other Sundays they had some potatoes, and were locked up in the kitchen, the window of which was closed. The regular food was discontinued in October, and the deceased took ill soon after. She was frequently beaten for not doing her work. Sometimes all the prisoners beat her, and sometimes she was beaten by the prisoner Robinson. The younger Hibner used to take the deceased from the frame at which she worked, and knock her on the floor. On one occasion she took up deceased by the heels, and dipped her in a pail of water intended for washing the stairs. She dipped her head five times in the water, and then the prisoner Robinson said, “D—n her, dip her again and finish her.” The deceased used to cry for food, but the elder Hibner would say to her, “You may cry on, for you shan’t have any.” The elder prisoner used to keep a dog, which was fed with wash from a tavern in Gray’s Inn-lane. Pieces of meat and fish were found in the wash, and the deceased, as well as witness and her companions, used to eat them. All the milk that was got in for the whole family was half a pint, and out of that enough was taken for the prisoners’ tea, the remained was mixed with water and given to witness and the other children.
Mary Harford, another of the children, corroborated the foregoing evidence, and detailed other acts of cruelty towards herself and companions. While the deceased was ill, she was told to clean the stairs. She did clean part of them, but fell down through weakness. The younger Hibner took her up stairs, and flogged her.—Cross-examined: All the children, except those that are dead, are now at the workhouse, and are doing well. They were sometimes left alone, but were afraid to go out lest the prisoners should return.
Eliza Norman, another of the children, gave similar evidence.
Mr. Charles Wright, surgeon, stated, that he went at Mr. Blackman’s request to see the deceased. She had sores on her feet, and her toes were mortified. She was removed to the Pancras Infirmary, where she died on the 15th of March. During the post mortem examination, abscesses of the lungs were found, and there weas a slight inflammation of the abdominal viscera. The mortification of which the prisoner died was, in witness’s opinion, occasioned by want of necessary food and exercise. There were also some external bruises upon the body, but not arising from any great violence. The witness added, that he considered the immediate cause of death to have been by abscesses of the lungs and mortification of the feet.
Mr. Thomas Gozner, another surgeon, gave similar evidence.—Mr. Baron GARROW asked him whether he thought the circumstance of the child being dipped in a pail of water, as described by the witnesses, was in itself sufficient to produce abscesses on the lungs, and thereby produce death. —Mr. Gozner: “Certainly, I do, my Lord.”
Here the case closed for the prosecution, and the prisoners were called upon for their defence.
The elder Hibner said, she depended on what her daughter meant to say. The younger Hibner then addressed the Court, declaring that the children had all sworn falsely, and that at all events she was not their mistress, and had therefore no right to be placed where she stood. The prisoner Robinson declared, that she knew nothing of the cruel treatment complained of, and had taken no part in it.
Mr. Baron GARROW proceeded at considerable length to state to the jury the law as applicable to the relative situations in which the prisoners stood. The elder prisoner had taken upon herself to provide the deceased with proper and necessary food and clothing, and in her relation of mistress had rendered herself accountable in the eye of the law for the well-being of the child. The other prisoners were bound by no such obligation, and hence the distinction arose with respect to the relative situations of the prisoners. If the jury were satisfied that the deceased came by her death in consequence of a train of ill-treatment on the part of her mistress and those who had acted under her, they were bound to find the elder prisoner guilty of the charge laid in the indictment, and acquit the other two prisoners. If, on the contrary, they should find reason to believe that the death of the child was occasioned by her immersion in cold water, which was the act of the younger Hibner and Robinson, in the absence of the elder prisoner, it would then be the duty of the jury to find them guilty of murder, and acquit Hibner the elder.
Lord TENTERDEN said, that in a case of such vast importance, not only to the prisoners at the bar but too the public at large, he did not think it would become him to give merely a silent assent to the correct view which his learned and eloquent brother had taken, not only of the evidence, but of the law as applicable to it.
The jury consulted for a few moments, and then asked leave to retire, which they did, and having been absent for about an hour and ten minutes returned into court, finding Esther Hibner the elder guilty of the murder, and acquitted the other two prisoners.
THE RECORDER immediately called the prisoner, Esther Hibner the elder, up for judgment, and addressed her as follows:—”Prisoner at the bar, you have been tried by a very attentive and very humane jury. You have been tried before a judge who has done every thing in his power, in concurrence with the noble and learned judge who sat upon this bench with him, to state to the jury every circumstance connected with your case that could possibly tend to produce any just conclusion in your favour. A sense, however, of the solemn duty by which the jury felt themselves impelled, has obliged them, painful as the task was, to pronounce you guilty of the wilful and deliberate murder of a fellow-creature. You were called upon by your duty to instruct and protect the infant who was committed to your charge. It seems that for some time you did pay, or seemed to pay, a degree of attention to the duty which your situation imposed upon you, but it was not very long before you began to manifest a want of feeling, for which there could have been no other foundation than a desire, by the utmost possible cruelty towards the poor unprotected infant who was under your care, to seek your own gain, by denying her the common necessaries of life; you saw her from day to day sinking under the most dreadful bodily exertions, and enduring sufferings that persons at a much more advanced period of life would have been unable to sustain. Although you have been the mother of a child yourself, you saw her sufferings without any of that feeling which one would imagine could never have been absent from a female breast. You are now to receive a sentence which will suddenly consign you to that death to which, by a course of lingering cruelty, you consigned an unoffending and helpless infant. You have had the time which has intervened between the last and the present sessions to consider the awful situation in which you stand, and I hope and pray that you have filled up that interval in reflecting upon your guilt. You have but a very few hours to live. Let me then pray and entreat of you, as a fellow-Christian and a fellow-creature, to employ the brief interval which yet remains between you and eternity, in supplicating for that mercy hereafter which no human power can now afford you here.”
The learned Judge then proceeded to pass the awful sentence of the law, and ordered the prisoner to be taken from the bar to the gaol, and from thence, on Monday morning, to the place of execution, there to be hanged by the neck until dead.
The prisoner heard her sentence with a countenance perfectly unmoved, and retired from the bar with a light quick step.
EXECUTION.—On Monday morning the wretched woman, Esther Hibner the elder, was executed at Newgate. Since her condemnation on Friday she rejected all arguments to prepare for death, and seemed perfectly indifferent to her fate. The Rev. Ordinary finding her in this state of mind, thought she might be brought to a sense of her awful situation by an interview with her daughter, who at first refused to see her mother, but was at length with much difficulty persuaded to take her final leave of her wretched parent. The meeting, which took place about two o’clock, was cold and indifferent, and appeared to be that rather of perfect strangers than the last parting between a parent and child. On entering the cell they took hands, and then commenced a series of abuse against the witnesses who appeared on their trial, the parties engaged in their defence, and the several parish officers who were bound to appear for the prosecution. In the course of their maledictions, the mother said, “Well, all I am sorry for is, that I did not rush from the dock, and tear the wretches to pieces.” The visit lasted about half-an-hour, and on the daughter’s leaving the cell she wept bitterly: the wretched parent shed not a tear, not was there the slightest indication of sorrow or penitence. On Sunday night she attempted to commit suicide, and was obliged to be confined in a straight waistcoat, in which she was hung. On her appearance on the scaffold, she was received with hootings and yells by an immense concourse of spectators, which continued till the drop fell, and she was launched into eternity.
Culled from: Cambridge Chronicle and University Journal, Isle of Ely Herald and Huntingdonshire Gazette, 17 April 1829
So many thoughts on this one:
1) So orphans were just loaned out as workhorses back then?
2) Why didn’t the grandmother take care of little Frances?
3) Why couldn’t they find all three guilty? Peculiar laws, Victorians!
4) “Lord Tenterden”
5) “Fellow-creature”
6) Did the recorder really come up with that whole spiel right on the spot? Impressive!
7) “Wretched woman”
8) “Rev. Ordinary
9) Oh, to be hanged in a straitjacket!
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
July 17th. Very chilly last night, but warm to-day. The 7th Maine fellow was hunted down by the police and put to torture, after which his head was shaved, and with “traitor” on his back, he was most unmercifully beaten by the justly indignant prisoners. Rations of molasses in place of meat.
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost