The Shocking Story of The Victorian Baby Killer

It is thought that "respectable" widow Amelia Dyer murdered hundreds of children. Her terrible deeds brought attention to (and ultimately ended) the Victorian practice of baby farming.

Born circa 1837 in a small village in Bristol, she was the daughter of a shoemaker and the primary carer for her mentally ill mother - a tough childhood for sure. As an adult, she used this caring experience and became a nurse.

After becoming widowed and finding it difficult to support herself and her daughter, she was about "Baby Farming" from a colleague.

It was common practice in England in Victorian times. Under strict moral standards, single mothers would be unable to go to the workhouses. With limited other options such as prostitution or starvation, many would instead offer the child an alternative (and hopefully better) future by using the services of baby farmers.

So in 1869 she entered this world and advertised in the local papers "Married couple with no family would adopt healthy child, nice country home. Terms - £10."

Instead of the safe and loving home, she offered to provide, she would instead take the fee and murder then the child. Her favoured methods were either by starvation, strangulation or by using a drug known as "Mothers Friend" - an opium-based cordial.

It is believed that at the time baby farming was common, countless children suffered and died, the term fostering often meant killing - quickly or over a long period of time.

She would travel up and down the country from her home to collect the children charging fees between £10-£80 (which would be worth roughly £1250 to £10,000 nowadays). These unsuspecting mothers would believe that they were giving their child over to a loving, safe family environment

At the time high infant mortality rates were just a brutal fact of Victorian life, therefore allowing her to get away with it for nearly 30 years. Quite simply, the social conditions meant that the deaths escaped the attention of authorities.

However, in 1879 doctors became suspicious over the number of deaths that occurred with children in her care, and she was charged with neglect and was sentenced to six months' hard labour.

When released, she realised that involving doctors to issue death certificates only brought suspicion she decided to start disposing of the bodies herself. She would kill them in different ways to avoid establishing any patterns. If she felt that authorities were getting too close, she would feign a breakdown and check herself into an asylum (her experience with her mother's mental illness would undoubtedly have helped her know how to act). There were frequent moves to new towns with new identities.

Most of the babies she "cared" for were murdered within a few days - some just a matter of hours.

In 1895 Dyer moved to Reading and began using the River Thames to get rid of the bodies. Eventually, this was to be what brought her down.

A bargeman found a weighted down parcel in the River Thames. Inside, wrapped up in layers of linen, newspaper & brown parcel paper, was the partially decomposed body of a baby, Helena Fry. It was on 30 March 1896. They found white tape wound around her neck tied with a knot under the left ear.

While it was a genuinely gruesome discovery, but it would lead detectives to unravel one of the most shocking crimes of the 19th Century's most notorious and prolific child murderers.

When Detective Constable James Beattie Anderson examined the packaging that Helen Fry's body was wrapped in, he noticed some details.

The packaging had a stamp from Midland Railway marked Bristol Temple Meads and was dated 24 October 1895. More importantly, he made out a smudged name & address of Mrs Thomas of number 26 Piggott's Road, Caversham - this was Dyer's married name and a previous address. Neighbours told the police that she had since moved to a property in Kensington Road, Reading.

There detectives discovered piles of baby clothes and receipts for pawning of more. Adoption telegrams, various receipts from adverts from newspapers from all over the Country and most heartbreaking was letters from mothers asking about the well being of their children. What struck the officers was the stench of decomposition, yet no bodies were found there.

Just four days after Helen Fry's body was found, they also found identical white edging tape to that discovered around her neck. So on 3 April 1896 Dyer was arrested & charged with having killed the child.

Six further babies were found when they dredged the Rivers Thames and Kennett, all of them had the same tape wrapped around their necks.

One of the parcels which was spotted near Clappers Pond revealed a particularly gruesome discovery. It was in much more of an advanced state of decomposition than all of the other bodies discovered, so much so that when the parcel was opened, the body & head fell to pieces.

She appeared for trial at the Old Bailey on 22 May 1896. The only defence and explanation that the 57-year-old Dyer offered was one of insanity - as proven by the fact she had previously been committed to asylums in years before.

However, prosecutors argued that her exhibitions of mental instability were merely a cynical ploy to avoid suspicions.

While she had only spent nine months in Caversham, Reading police found evidence that Dyer had "cared" for at least 15 babies during this time.

It is difficult to estimate the true scale of her crimes. Eyewitnesses reported at one point seeing as many as six babies every day being taken in by her.

Considering that Dyer was a baby farmer for roughly 30 years, it is not unreasonable to suggest that she was responsible for the deaths of possibly hundreds of children.

This trial not only got justice for the victims but also brought to attention the repressed but widely used trade of baby farming, and revealed all the horrors and inhumanity involved in this practice.

This case helped bring about changes need for the laws to be applied more effectively and rigorously at both national & local levels, and for the then newly-established NSPCC to become influential.

Eventually, Dyer confessed to her crimes, and on 10 June 1896, she was hanged at Newgate Prison.

For further reading, I suggest Amelia Dyer and the Baby Farm Murders (Victorian Supersleuth Investigates Book 1)