Search results for ""author malcolm moyes""

Jane Bell of Laceby, Elizabeth Dodds of Wrangle and Ellen Green of Fishtoft were three Lincolnshire women put on trial between 1845 and 1875 for killing their husbands with large quantities of arsenic, but were judged to be innocent of the crime. This latest book by Malcolm Moyes on nineteenth-century Lincolnshire poison trials is a comprehensive examination of the circumstantial evidence against the women, which was often constructed from unsavoury rumours, village gossip and downright lies. It is also a critical analysis of the varied key factors which probably led to the acquittal of the women, despite all the odds. Whilst all three women were saved from the hangman’s noose, the final verdict of the jury may still leave the modern reader with some doubts and question marks concerning the innocence of the women, as it did with a number of contemporary commentators on the cases. Malcolm Moyes is the author of By Force of Circumstances: the Lefley Case Reopened and Attired in Deepest Mourning – Eliza Joyce, Mary Ann Milner and Priscilla Biggadike, both published by Troubador.

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The nineteenth century saw the growth of commercially available solutions for dealing with the problem of domestic infestation by mice and rats. Promising a reliable means of destroying the furry detestables', such products as Battle's Vermin Killer, Hunter's Infallible Vermin Destroyer and Barber's Magic Vermin Killer were sold cheaply over the counter, as well as being sent through the post.The trade in such dangerous products made serious money for manufacturers, wholesalers, and shopkeepers. Unfortunately, it also contributed to what was frequently described by anxious coroners and excited journalists as a suicide epidemic, often involving desperate young women in domestic service. In addition, the deadly packets of poison also provided a convenient means for the disposal of a brutal husband, an inconvenient wife, or an insured child.Focusing on Battle's Vermin Killer, produced in Lincoln around 1850, Malcolm Moyes details a cata

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In the second half of the nineteenth century, three women from very different social backgrounds were convicted of infanticide and sentenced to death at the Lincoln Assizes. Lucy Ann Buxton, from Metheringham Fen, was a petty criminal whose mother was an opium addict; Emma Wade, from Stamford, was the daughter of a respected policeman; whilst Selina Stanhope, from Langtoft, near Market Deeping, was admitted into the workhouse as a destitute pauper, after being rejected by her family. All three women were eventually reprieved from the hangman’s noose by order of the Home Secretary. Reprieved at Lincoln delves into the sombre stories of these women and the impact of their crimes on their respective communities. Drawing from a range of contemporary sources, the book also examines previously unpublished documents related to the three cases and sheds new light on judicial processes sometimes shrouded in secrecy and silence.

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Between 1844 and 1868, three women were tried and found guilty of the brutal murder of members of their family by poison at the Lincoln Assizes. Two of them, Eliza Joyce and Priscilla Biggadike, were hanged; the third, Mary Ann Milner, committed suicide in her cell, hours before she was due to be executed. Drawing upon archive sources and the many divergent accounts in the popular press at the time, Attired in Deepest Mourning is the first comprehensive study of all three cases. It analyses in forensic detail the information, misinformation and fake news which defined the lives and deaths of three Lincolnshire women, both at the time, and subsequently. In addition, it presents hitherto unpublished material which takes the reader beyond the hackneyed narrative of the monstrous female poisoner to a more sympathetic understanding of the pressures and circumstances in which the women lived and died. Attired in Deepest Mourning is a local study which provides a valuable contribution to a full understanding of crime and punishment in mid-Victorian Britain.

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