‘Agonised Weeping’: Representing Femininity, Emotion and Infanticide in Edwardian Newspapers

Abstract

Newspaper reports of actual or suspected infanticide were by no means unusual in early twentieth-century England, yet few of these ever resulted in conviction on the capital charge. This article traces the ways in which both local and national newspapers reported on one of the rare cases which a woman was sentenced to death for the murder of her baby: the 1909 trial of Alice Cleaver at the Central Criminal Court. Despite clear evidence of her guilt, newspapers focused instead on the ways in which the defendant had conformed to ideas about respectable femininity, and were united in depicting Cleaver as deserving of judicial and public sympathy. Comparing press reports of the trial with unpublished Home Office papers also reveals the deliberate silence of the press on matters which conflicted with the ‘standard’ representation of infanticide cases—including the fact that Cleaver had a learning disability.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion
• women
• infanticide
• press
• crime
• disability

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Esme Cleall, James Gregory, Helen Smith, Orisheweyimi Olugbo, Kim Stevenson, and the anonymous reviewers at Media History for their helpful suggestions on improving this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Farrell, A Most Diabolical Deed, 2.

2. Goc, Women, 18.

3. It is impossible to determine the precise number of infanticide trials across England and Wales, since this was not a separate offence until 1922, and many women indicted for the murder of newborn children were convicted instead on the lesser charge of ‘concealment of birth.’ Judicial statistics for 1909 recorded that women comprised 28 out of all 77 murder defendants that year (36.3% of the total) and that there were 31 convictions overall, but this did not break down the data any further. See ‘Judicial Statistics, England and Wales, 1909. Part I.—Criminal statistics,’ Parliamentary Papers, 1911, Cd.5743, 705, Vol. CII, 34.

4. D'Cruze and Jackson, Women, 79–80; Wiener, ‘Convicted Murderers’, 112–3.

5. In addition to newspapers cited here, see also the Old Bailey Proceedings Online (henceforth OBPO) (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0, 22 July 2014), March 1909, trial of CLEAVER, Alice (20, laundress) (t19090302-51); and archival material in CRIM 1/112/1; CRIM 1/583/45; CRIM 4/1287/25; HO 144/1034/176577, The National Archives, London [henceforth TNA].

6. Notable exceptions are Frost, ‘She Is but a Woman’ and Stevenson, Rowbotham, and Pegg, Crime News, 84–113. On Victorian precedents see Crone, Violent Victorians; Wiener, ‘Convicted Murderers’; and for interwar changes Bingham, Family Newspapers; Bland, Modern Women; Oram, Her Husband Was a Woman! 61–128; Wood, ‘The Constables and the “Garage Girl”’.

7. Bingham, Family Newspapers, 126.

8. Key studies include Bingham, Family Newspapers; Bland, Modern Women; Davies, City of Gangs; Smith, ‘A Study’; Stevenson, Rowbotham, and Pegg, Crime News; Wood, Most Remarkable Woman.

9. Davies, City of Gangs; Smith, ‘A Study’, 4–27.

10. Grey, ‘Liable to Very Gross Abuse’, 64–8.

11. Grey, ‘The Agony of Despair’.

12. Hackney & Stoke Newington Recorder (henceforth HSNR) 29 January 1909: 8; HSNR, 5 February 1909: 6; HSNR, 12 February 1909: 2; HSNR, 19 February 1909: 5; HSNR, 26 February 1909: 6; HSNR, 12 March 1909: 2.

13. For examples of this nationwide consensus in newspapers see Grey, ‘Discourses’, 37–87 and ‘The Agony of Despair’.

14. Frost, ‘The Black Lamb’, 296–7.

15. Daily Telegraph (henceforth DT), 10 March 1909: 14.

16. Under caution, Cleaver gave police the father's full name (Alfred Tagg) and his address in London, adding ‘ … he is a married man but I did not know this until just before the baby came. I have not seen him since the 12th August last.’ None of these details were ever made public. Statement of Alice Cleaver, 31 January 1909. TNA CRIM 1/112/1.

17. HSNR, 29 January 1909: 8.

18. HSNR, 5 February 1909: 6.

19. Hornsey Journal, 5 February 1909: 3; DT, 9 March 1909: 14.

20. Daily Express, 2 February 1909: 5; HSNR, 5 February 1909: 6; HSNR, 12 February 1909: 2.

21. Dixon Mann, Forensic Medicine, 137–47.

22. HSNR, 29 January 1909: 8; Daily Express, 2 February 1909: 5.

23. Arnot, ‘The Murder of Thomas Sandles’.

24. Daily Mail (henceforth DM), 19 December 1902: 3.

25. Ballinger, ‘“Reasonable” Women Who Kill’, 78.

26. Ballinger, Dead Woman Walking, 103–28.

27. The Morning Post, 3 November 1899: 7.

28. CRIM 1/58/5, TNA; HO 144/1540/A61535, TNA.

29. DM, 2 November 1899: 3.

30. OBPO (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0, 22 July 2014), December 1899, trial of LOUISA JOSEPHINE JEMIMA MASSET (36) (t18991211-77).

31. Daily News, 2 January 1900: 4.

32. DM, 10 January 1900: 3.

33. Ballinger, Dead Woman Walking.

34. D'Cruze and Jackson, Women, 128.

35. HSNR, 5 February 1909: 6.

36. HSNR, 5 February 1909: 6. Mentioning the dress of infanticide defendants (even this briefly) was very unusual, in stark contrast to the detailed clothing descriptions that accompanied reports of alleged sexual ‘deviance’, especially in the interwar press. See Bland, Modern Women; 104–10; Oram, Her Husband Was a Woman!

37. Illustrated Police News, 6 February 1909: 7; Hornsey Journal, 19 February 1909: 12.

38. Bland, Modern Women; Wood, ‘The Constables and the “Garage Girl”’.

39. Grey, ‘Discourses’, 46–65.

40. DM, 10 March 1909: 4; DT, 10 February 1909: 6; Daily Express, 10 March 1909: 1; DM, 12 March 1909: 8; HSNR, 12 March 1909: 2; DM, 15 March 1909: 10.

41. HSNR, 12 February 1909: 2.

42. DT, 10 February 1909: 6.

43. Frost, ‘The Black Lamb’, 306–7.

44. HSNR, 12 February 1909: 2.

45. HSNR, 12 February 1909: 5.

46. HSNR, 26 February 1909: 6.

47. Eigen, Unconscious Crime, 140–4.

48. DT, 10 March 1909: 14; HSNR 12 February 1909: 5; HSNR, 19 February 1909: 5; HSNR, 26 February 1909: 6; The Times, 9 March 1909: 17.

49. Daily Express, 10 March 1909: 1; DM, 10 March 1909: 4; DT, 10 March 1909: 14; HSNR, 12 March 1909: 2.

50. Report of Dr H.F. Foulerton to the Home Office, 1 March 1909. CRIM 1/112/1, TNA.

51. Ibid.

52. Stevenson, ‘The Respectability Imperative’.

53. HSNR, 12 February 1909: 2; OBPO (t19090302–51).

54. DT, 10 March 1909: 14.

55. DT, 10 March 1909: 14.

56. CRIM 1/583/45 and CRIM 4/1287/25, TNA.

57. DM, 12 March 1909: 8; DM, 15 March 1909: 10. On the broader context of letters and petitioning in response to crime reporting, see Frost, ‘She Is but a Woman’; Wiener, ‘Convicted Murderers’; Wood, ‘Those Who Have Had Trouble’.

58. DM, 12 March 1909: 8.

59. DM, 15 March 1909: 10.

60. Ward, ‘Legislating for Human Nature’, 257–61.

61. Frost, ‘She Is but a Woman.’

62. Civil service note, 15 March 1909. HO 144/1034/176577, TNA.

63. Tredgold, Mental Deficiency, 305.

64. Grey, ‘Discourses’, 241–52.

65. Grey, ‘The Agony of Despair’.

66. Bartley, Prostitution, 119–54.

67. Grey, ‘Discourses’, 241–52.

68. See broader context in Walmsley, ‘Women’.

69. Letter from WP Byrne to Home Office, 28 August 1914. HO 144/1034/176577, TNA.

70. On the history of tuberculosis see Bynum, Spitting Blood.

71. Bingham, ‘Ignoring’, 311.

Additional information

Daniel J. R. Grey, School of Humanities and Performing Arts, Plymouth University, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA, UK. Tel: [phone]