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Baby

Age: 0

Sex: male

Date: 4 Dec 1902

Place: Blue School Street, Hereford

A baby was found dead with a gash to its throat soon after birth.

A 25-year-old laundress was tried for its murder but found not guilty.

She had given birth to the child on the Sunday and a nurse was suddenly called in but when she arrived she found a gash in the infant's throat.

The nurse said that she believed that the nurse had been weak minded.

A doctor that examined the child said that the umbilical cord had been severed with a sharp instrument and that the main cut to the infant's throat had extended from the middle of the left collar bone to the base of the skull on the right side an inch behind and half-an-inch below the right ear. He noted that there were other cuts that were shallower.

He noted that he had come to the conclusion that the child had certainly breathed.

However, the foreman of the jury at the inquest said that the infant might have bled to death from the umbilical cord.

The evidence showed that she had had two illegitimate children before who were both still living. She had been single and had lived with her mother in Blue School Street, Hereford.

After the laundress was acquitted the jury expressed a desire that her mother should be censured for neglect.


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

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Ross Gazette - Thursday 04 December 1902, p3

see South Wales Daily News - Thursday 14 August 1902

see Gloucester Journal - Saturday 29 November 1902