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Baby

Age: 0

Sex: male

Date: 30 Dec 1902

Place: Reform Lane, Maidenhead, Berkshire

The body of a newly-born male child was found in a drainpipe in Reform Lane, Maidenhead.

An open verdict was returned on the body of the child after it was heard that it could not be proved that the child had had a separate existence. A doctor said that there were no external marks of violence about the child's body.

However, the woman who lived in one of the cottages in Reform Lane was charged with concealing the birth of a child.

The woman had been the widow of a colonel in the Royal Horse Artillery who did distinguished service in India and who died in 1888 leaving her practically penniless. She had initially been in the colonels service but he had married her after they fell in love. She was described as the daughter of poor parents who had lived in Market Street, Maidenhead and who had gone into service at the colonels house, Fairsent Villas, North Town near Maidenhead. They were married for eleven years but after he died his pension went with him and he left her and their little boy nothing but a few debts.

After his death the woman returned to service and had since been charring and taking in mangling and earned half-a-crown a week nursing an invalid who lived in Reform Lane and it was alleged that the child found in the drain of the house was hers.

The child's body was found in the drain at the back of a row of cottages in which the invalid lived which served all the cottages. It had been wedged in. The woman had been living with the invalid for the previous six months.

The woman had denied that the child had been hers but had refused to be medically examined.

It’s not known where Reform Lane was but it is thought to have been near to where Reform Road is today, the location of an industrial estate.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser - Wednesday 31 December 1902

see Sheffield Daily Telegraph - Wednesday 31 December 1902

see Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press - Saturday 03 January 1903

see Edinburgh Evening News - Wednesday 31 December 1902