The mystery of Mary Ann

Mary Ann Diggory's story is one of those intriguing family mysteries about which no one ever spoke. And, of course, by the time I became interested enough to start asking questions, the main source of answers -  her younger sister, my grandmother - was no longer with us.

Mary Ann was the eldest child of Thomas and Eliza Diggory (nee Roberts) and was born in 1888. In the photograph below, taken around 1902, she's standing at the back, next to her sister Nellie (b. 1891). Her brother Tom (b.1893) is in the centre, twins Hannah and George (b. 1892) stand either side of the group and my grandmother, Edith (b.1898) is in the front.

Mary Ann standing at the back of the group.
Her youngest sibling, my grandmother, is beside their mother.

Walked out

As I've mentioned before on this blog, all I knew was that Annie (as she was known) walked out of the family home in 1904, aged 16, about two years after the above photograph was taken. That was the last anyone heard of her for almost 80 years, until my grandmother was contacted by the vicar of Annie's local church, shortly before Annie died in 1982.

Whether I'll ever discover exactly why she left all those years before, is questionable. I haven't been able to confirm the most obvious scenario, having come across no illegitimate babies with the surname Diggory, born within a few months of her leaving home, though, of course, that doesn't rule out such a possibility. At that time unofficial adoptions were common, so if Annie did have a child, he or she may be registered under a different name.

Lost in the census

Frustratingly I've not tracked Annie on 1911 census, either. There's someone of the same age recorded as Mary Annabel Diggory, who's a 'trained nurse' working as a servant in a care home in Hereford (as you'll see below, Annie did become a nurse so it's possible that her employer gave her that status and she called herself Annabel to disguise her real name).

Another possibility is a Mrs M Diggory, living in Kinnerley in Shropshire but she's only listed in a Summary Book, so there's no information about age. One other person, male, is mentioned as part of the household but I'd need more to go on to work out if it's Annie.

Nursing badges

One thing I did know, is that Annie was a nurse and had trained at Redhill Hospital. Recently, while sorting through my late Dad's things, I came across a little box of medals and badges, amongst which were three which had belonged to Annie.

In the left photograph is her S.R.N. (State Registered Nurse) badge, engraved with her name and registration number, dated 1923 when nurses were registered for the first time. On the right is an East Surrey Hospital Training School badge.


Another badge, beautifully set in enamel, has East Surrey Hospital's previous name, Reigate & Redhill Hospital around the edge, along with the date 1866. This is the year the original Reigate Hospital was established by Dr John Walters when money was raised to convert two cottages into a hospital. Five years later a new hospital was built on the edge of Redhill Common and the two names were combined.

I drew a blank searching for an image of this badge on the Internet so I consulted Surrey Archives. They believe it may have been produced as a commemoration piece for the 50th anniversary, possibly for fund raising purposes.

The Red Cross

Mary Ann Diggory 1888-1982

But why did Annie choose to train in Surrey when she lived in Shropshire? Perhaps it's tied in with an interesting fact I learned from  Michelle Higgs, author of Tracing Your Medical Ancestors (a copy of which I have on my family history bookshelf) who I often meet on Twitter's #AncestryHour.

Michelle tells me that nurses generally paid for their training. I can't imagine Annie's family having access to such financial resources, even if she had still been in contact with them, so my immediate thought was that she must have had a benefactor. And I have an idea who that may be. But more on that in a moment.

A few years ago I came across an article in a family history magazine about the British Red Cross. For a donation, family members could establish if their nursing ancestors ever worked with the organisation. I got in touch and found to my delight that Annie appeared in their records. These confirmed that Annie had trained at East Surrey Hospital between 1912 and 1915.  Also, they revealed that during WW2, Annie was appointed Sister in Charge at a Red Cross convalescent hospital in Childs Ercall, Market Drayton, Salop, serving for 2 years from 1941-43. Unfortunately, no one in Shropshire Archives is aware of the existence of such a hospital. It's possible Childs Ercall Hall may have been used for the purpose. Enquiries are underway...

Annie's British Red Cross records also noted that she'd worked at the Kent & Canterbury Hospital and the Princess Alice Hospital in Eastbourne. Although I haven't established exact dates as yet, I'm hopeful of tracking down staff records from the individual hospitals to learn more about her working life.

Secret sponsor?

But back to the mystery sponsor. On Annie's record notes was the name of her next of kin. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that no one in her immediate family was named but instead Mr & Mrs E F Murrell, Shrewsbury were cited as 'friends'. The Murrell family were well known in Shropshire as nurserymen and award winning rose growers, running the prestigious Portland Nurseries, founded by Edwin Murrell (father of this Edwin F Murrell) in the 1830s.

Interestingly, the 1939 Register, taken on the eve of World War II, finds Annie living in the Murrell's family home in Shrewsbury. Was Mr Edwin Foley Murrell the person who paid for Annie's nurse training? As as a enterprising businessman, did he have contacts in Surrey? And what was Annie's connection with the family?

And if that's not enough to be going on with, what about those intervening years from 1904, between when she left home and started her training? What was she doing then? Where did she go? Were the Murrell's involved then?

As ever, there is so much more yet to find out about Annie and her life before she was reunited with my grandmother. But I'm on the case!

*******************************************

If you've nursing ancestors there are several websites worth checking out:

The British Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Museum-and-archives/Historical-factsheets/Nurses-and-hospitals

The Royal College of Nursing's archive:
https://www.rcn.org.uk/library/services/family-history-and-research

Scarlet Finders has some very useful information on various sources: http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/2.html

The National Archives holds some records along with helpful research guides:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/patients-doctors-nurses/

Preserving the memories

My dad in 1956, aged 27

There's no easy way to say it, but 7th May 2016 saw the end of an era as my dear dad passed away, aged 87. When I stood up to speak at his funeral, my question was, "How do you sum up the life of 87 years in a few minutes?" The answer, of course, is that you can't. All you can do is share some stories which give a sense of the person the mourners are there to remember.

Some of those present had known Dad for many years, others for only a short time. But I wondered how many knew the full story behind an incident in Dad's childhood which had a profound effect on his rest of his life.

Dad and his brother with 'Paddy' the dog 

Dad was born on 12th February 1929, Shrove Tuesday of that year, in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton. When he was a few months old he and his family - my grandparents and Dad's elder brother - moved to the lodge of a large house called The Foxhills, near Wombourne, where granddad worked as the gardener.

The story goes that while playing with the family dog, Paddy, Dad got entangled in Paddy's lead, and fell off a wall, hurting his leg. Whether this was the accident to blame or another, when Dad got his leg trapped in his pedal car and ended up in plaster from his neck to his leg for many months, is impossible to establish - I'm not sure even Dad knew for certain - but it seems that at some point his hip became infected with TB, impeding the growth of his right leg.

Standon Hall Hospital

At the age of 7, Dad was admitted to Standon Hall Orthopaedic and TB hospital, in Staffordshire, some 40 miles away from his home. With buses the only form of transport available to them, my grandparents were only able to visit once a week, at best. 

Dad remained in Standon Hall for three years. As a child I often remember thinking I must have that wrong – surely he could have been in hospital for three years. But he was. 

You can see a photo of him below, flat on his back, grinning out from his hospital bed. 

Dad in bed August 1938 with my grandmother
and nurses from Standon Hall Hospital

I sometimes wonder how long he’d have languished there if the Second World War had not broken out. In 1939 the hospital was evacuated in preparation for the anticipated wounded soldiers and Dad was sent home. He told me recently about the feeling of claustrophobia at moving from a large ward with high ceilings back to the small lodge cottage.

But I suspect the move proved to be his salvation. He was now in the care of my grandmother, who made it her mission to defy the medics saying that Dad would never walk again. Her legacy was to instil in him his stoic disregard for what anyone else would call a disability and get on with life. He considered himself capable of doing what anyone else could, including, as he grew up, riding a motorbike. When he came off it, his doctor censured him severely, telling him the machines were not intended to be ridden by someone with a "gammy" leg!

With little education during those early years, it's to Dad's credit that he knuckled down at school, attended college, went to night-school, completed an apprenticeship and carved out a successful career in engineering as a tools designer. And while he could be stubborn sometimes to the point of exasperation, it's probably that stubbornness and determination which enabled him to achieve what he did. 

As family historians, we delve deep into the past to discover people's stories and, quite rightly, bring mere names to life, but it's equally important to record our memories of the family we've known well and to share those memories, so they don't get lost or, worse, become "brick walls" of the future.

In recent years Dad had responded to my suggestion that he should log his memoirs and I began transcribing some of the audio tapes he made, prompted by questions I set him. We went through some old photo albums and he identified those people he could. 

I've since discovered a few scribbled notes and a simple time-line he'd drawn of his life, the countries he'd travelled to and a list of all the employers he'd worked for. He'd kept every passport he'd owned, every driving licence and every Tax Code notification document from 1954! I think I'm going to be kept pretty busy going through it all!

P. John Shelley
12.2.1929 - 7.5.2016

Secrets in print!

As you know if you've been reading this blog for a while, my initiation into family history was the discovery of an Australian death certificate for my husband's ancestor, Charles Gabriel Baker.

I've mentioned him and his sad story in one or two blog posts in the past, but recently I decided to gather all the information I'd collated and write an article about the long trail I followed to uncover the truth about what happened to Charles and his family.

Having completed the tale, I decided to submit it to Family Tree Magazine and I was delighted when they accepted it for publication.

So, I'm thrilled to announce that the article appears in May's issue of the magazine,

which is out now!

Here's a taster of the first page of my article, beautifully presented by the editing team across 4 pages.

If you'd like a copy of the magazine to hold in your hot, sticky hands, WH Smiths stores generally stock it, or you can download an e-version direct from Family Tree Magazine's own website.

Otherwise, you can learn something about Charles Baker's story from these previous posts:

1. About the amazing information on his death certificate in Death and its secrets
2. How he met his wife, Susan Sawyer, in Romance in the Records
3. Speculation as to why he went to Australia in Ancestors in the Spotlight

******************************************

So what's next...

Having concluded my 4 part story of The Shocking Truth about my wayward ancestor Thomas Shelley and his housekeepr, I've now got to decide what's the next family secret to uncover and share with you in future posts! Mmmmm..... let me see....

Assault and Cruelty - the victim

The final instalment in the sad story of Martha Cotterill and Bessie Shelley reveals more tragic events in Bessie's life and her shocking death.

(If you have arrived here unaware of the previous posts in this tale, you can read them at A family secret - the shocking truth part 1, part 2 and Assault and cruelty - the perpetrator.)

Of feeble intellect

©Courtesy of British Newspaper Archive

Several times in newspaper reports of the magistrates' hearing, Bessie was referred to as being of "weak" or "feeble intellect". No mention is made of this on any of the census entries on which Bessie appears, though the actual term "feeble-minded" wasn't introduced until the 1901 census, over 20 years after her death. Could it have been Martha's treatment, firstly by the ignominious way in which she took over the household and then the physical abuse she inflicted upon Bessie afterwards, which caused Bessie to have a mental breakdown? Or was Bessie already suffering with a mental disability before Martha arrived?

Whichever it was, it could explain why Bessie seemed unable to defend herself against Martha's bullying, more so given Thomas's obvious acquiescence at Martha's mistreatment of his wife. What options did a woman have at that time, in such a situation?

Family despair

In one of the newspaper reports, it was suggested that it was Bessie's wider family who brought the abusive situation to the attention of the authorities. What did they make of the outcome? They must have despaired when Martha, despite having been found guilty, then returned to live in the household. Perhaps they hoped that Martha's behaviour towards Bessie would improve following the court action, aware that the family might instigate further action if she did not mend her ways.

Under the circumstances, it is perhaps significant and unsurprising, that the birth of Bessie's daughter, Joannah, in 1860, would prove to be her last pregnancy, at the age of 34. So, what impact did the arrival and subsequent adoption a year later of Martha's daughter, Mary Jane (who we can now be fairly certain was fathered by Thomas), have on Bessie, I wonder?

Further tragedy

Maybe, with the arrival of other babies in the household (daughters Emma and Martha Ann had 3 illegitimate children of their own, all of whom spent at least some of their early years under the Shelleys's roof) the impact was softened in some way.

But even if Bessie was able to come to terms with her feelings on the matter, it was unlikely to prepare her for further sadness ahead.

In 1858, two years after the court case, Joannah died of scarlet fever, aged only 7 years old. Then two years later, in 1860, another daughter, Mary Ann Holland, died of consumption, aged 16 years.

A shocking death

When Martha died in 1866, I wonder if Bessie felt any sense of release. If she did, she didn't have long to savour it. Barely six months after Martha's death, in January 1867, Bessie also died . 

But what I found particularly distressing was when the certificate arrived and I read the cause of death. Above the name of the certifying doctor was one word - "burning".

Hunt for the truth

But what did that mean? For a moment, I thought maybe Martha's maltreatment had escalated and I'd stumbled across a murder! Until I remembered that Martha was already dead.

I set off on a mission to discover the truth. At one point I feared I'd never find out, as the crucial years of the most likely newspaper to have published a report, were missing. Shropshire Archives made a search amongst their files of another newspaper, copies of which aren't yet available online, but found no mention of events. Neither did they find any record of an inquest. 

But just as I thought I'd tried every possible source, I was prompted by findmypast.com to use up some credits before they expired. I made a final half-hearted browse in the British Newspaper database, in which I'd supposedly already searched, and up popped a short paragraph in Eddowes's, Shrewsbury & Salopian Journal, entitled Sad death from burning at Claverley.

© British Newspaper Archive

Bessie's death appears to have been a tragic accident. According to the newspaper, Thomas was at church with his son, leaving Bessie at home with her daughter and "two children". Again the newspaper mentions Bessie being of "weak intellect".

It's believed that Bessie had fallen into the kitchen fire. Ablaze, she rushed into the passageway but by the time help arrived and the flames were extinguished, it was too late. She suffered severe burns and died soon after, attended by the village nurse, Ellen Braggen, who also registered the death. 

No inquest

The coroner was informed, but apparently took the view that as the cause of death was not in question, there was no need for an inquest. While that might be true, I found it a little puzzling given the report said the deceased "must have fallen in the fire", suggesting that the exact circumstances had not been established.

Thomas & Bessie Shelley's grave
in Claverley churchyard

Bessie is buried in Claverley churchyard along with her husband, Thomas. The headstone would have been erected after Thomas's death in 1881, perhaps paid for out of Thomas's considerable estate of £1,451 2s 2d, which, according to Stephen Morley's Historical UK Inflation calculator amounts to over £158,000 in today's money. 

The wording gives no clue as to Bessie's traumatic life and death (her name is spelled "Bessey" on the headstone), only that she departed this life January 7th 1877. 

May she rest in peace.

Assault and Cruelty - the perpetrator

On 31st October 1856, Martha Cotterill was found guilty of assault and cruelty towards my 3x great-grandmother, Bessie Shelley, at a magistrates's hearing in Eccleshall, Staffordshire.

© British Newspaper Archives

Martha was fined £5 which would have resulted in imprisonment if Bessie's husband, Thomas Shelley, jointly accused but acquitted on lack of evidence, paid her fine.

(If you've not read the story so far, you might like to read the previous posts on the incident,  A family secret - The Shocking Truth,  Part 1 and Part 2.)

Who was Martha Cotterill?

So who was Martha Cotterill and how did she come into Bessie's life?

Martha joined the Shelley household around 1852 as a housekeeper. According to Thomas Davis, a servant in Shelley's employ in 1856, he was told by Thomas that Martha should be considered mistress of the house.

It seems certain that the relationship between Thomas Shelley and Martha was more than just employer and employee.  What is more difficult to establish, is whether this relationship began before Martha moved in or after.

Adbaston Church
(courtesy of geograph.org.uk)

A year before Martha's arrival, the 1851 census shows Thomas and Bessie (nee Holland) living in the small hamlet of Doley, near Adbaston, with their six children - Emma (my great-great gandmother) aged 9, William 7, Mary Ann 6, Martha 5, Eliza 3 and Joannah 1 - along with Thomas's mother, 54 year old Phoebe. Thomas is a farmer of 45 acres, with one live-in servant, John Lee.

A near neighbour

Less than 5 miles away, the same census lists Martha Cotrill (sic), unmarried, aged 25, living with her father, Thomas Cotrill and mother, Jane Cotrill.  Also listed are two grand-daughters - Mary, aged 1, born in Manchester and Elizabeth, aged 3 months, born in High Offley, Staffordshire. Are these girls both Martha's daughters?

Move on ten years and Elizabeth Cottrell, born in High Offley, appears on the 1861 census, now aged 11, but this time she is a boarder in - guess where - the Shelley household, alongside "housekeeper", Martha Cottrell.

A Manchester connection

I haven't found the other girl, Mary, but the eagle-eyed of you who read the previous posts may have noticed a connection. In the newspaper report of the assault on Bessie in 1856, it was stated that Martha had gone to Manchester some months previously to have a baby. The Mary mentioned in 1851 was also born in Manchester. What was Martha's link to Manchester? Perhaps she had family there.

Following her Manchester confinement, there's no evidence to suggest Martha returned with a child. Was it adopted? Or perhaps it didn't survive. In the December quarter of the 1855 birth index, an unnamed "male" child is listed, surname Cottrill, born in Manchester who subsequently died in the same quarter. Was this Martha's baby? And was Thomas Shelley the father?

The clue's in the name

One thing is certain, however. Nine year-old Mary J "C" Shelley, who appeared on the 1871 census as Thomas's daughter, was born Mary Jane Cotterill, on 12th July 1861, mother Martha Cotterill. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the name of the father is not recorded on the birth certificate.

Sadly, however, in April 1875, Mary Jane died aged only 13 and was buried in Claverley churchyard. Unfortunately, I can find no record of her death in the registration indexes under either Cotterill or Shelley, to obtain a certificate to discover the cause of death.

Bessie's tormentor dies

It would be one year after Mary Jane's death and 20 years after the court case that Bessie would be finally set free from the woman who had usurped her role as Thomas's wife. In 1876 Martha died from heart disease and congestion of the lungs. The death certificate recorded her age as 54, though according to previous records, she would actually have been only 50.

It would be comforting to think that Bessie would go on to enjoy many more years with her family, but sadly it was not to be. Bessie herself died six months later in the most horrendous circumstances.

Read the full story here, Assault and Cruelty - the victim.

A family secret - the shocking truth (Part 2)

©Courtesy of British Newspaper Archive

If you've read Part 1 of this distressing story you'll know that my 3x great-grandfather, Thomas Shelley, disgraced himself in 1856 by failing to protect his wife, Bessie, from the bullying and cruelty at the hands of their housekeeper, Martha Cotterill.

Martha Cotterill was found guilty as charged and fined £5, only avoiding a spell in the "house of correction" because Thomas paid her fine.

You would think that given the community outrage and the sheer embarrassment of being hauled up in front of the magistrates court, Thomas would have seen the error of his ways and dismissed Martha from his household forthwith.

But not a bit of it. Martha appears on both the 1861 and 1871 census still living with the Shelley family, no doubt because (as the evidence I've uncovered appears to confirm) Martha was more than a mere servant. As for poor Bessie, she was yet to suffer further trauma.

The immediate aftermath

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Firstly, there was the immediate aftermath of the court case.

Whether as a result of his clients' humiliation or through his own professional loss of face, the solicitor who'd represented Thomas and Martha wrote to the Staffordshire Advertiser, threatening to sue the journalist who'd written the report of the case for the newspaper, on the grounds it was a libellous misrepresentation of the facts.

The solicitor in question, Mr B. H. Smallwood, of Newport, Shropshire, alleged that the report was "grossly inaccurate" and that it contained serious omissions. The newspaper disputed this but Smallwood persisted in hounding the paper with letters of complaint.

Morally guilty

On 6th December 1856, the Staffordshire Advertiser decided to "go public" and published all the
correspondence between itself and Smallwood, followed by the newspaper's counter to the objections Smallwood had raised. It defended the so-called "omissions" on the grounds that including anything further would only have strengthened the case for the prosecution.

However, the editor did make the point that the magistrate who'd delivered the decision had said that, in the opinion of the bench, Thomas Shelley was morally guilty of participating in the offence and it was only because they had no legal proof of him having actually assaulted his wife, that they'd not convicted him as well as Martha Cotterill.

But Smallwood (clearly getting up a head of steam by now!) continued with his grievance.

Lost patience

Finally, on 20th December, the newspaper lost patience. It published a long ranting letter from Smallwood, dated 11th December, in which he nit-picked his way through both their comments in their own defence and on items of evidence presented at the hearing. He challenged the court on allowing Bessie to be called to give evidence, given the reporter had described her as having "rather feeble intellect". (If she was being bullied by Martha Cotterill to the extent alleged, I'm sure her state of mind could be explained by her terror at any repercussions she might suffer.) He also dismissed the reliability of one witness because he was a convicted felon (for poaching, apparently) and complained that the evidence of Bessie's daughter, Emma (my 2x great-grandmother) aged 15, stating her mother had "never complained" to her about Cotterill "ill-using" her, had been deliberately omitted from the newspaper report.

© courtesy of British Newspaper Archive

The newspaper followed this with an editorial, describing Smallwood's letter as being unreasonable in length and unjustifiable in manner. The editor also declared that he was no longer prepared to sacrifice any further column space on the subject. He admitted only to their original report being necessarily curtailed (as in, being a summary, as usual in such cases, rather than ad verbatim) but reiterating that any omissions were "quite as much against, as in favour of the defendants", despite Mr Smallwood "with all the cleverness of a shrewd member of his profession" endeavouring "to show the contrary."

Reading the detail, it's clear that Smallwood, as well as citing legal 'technicalities' (he states, for example that information presented was outside the allowed 6 month period from when the offence was committed), is peeved that a) his arguments presented at the hearing were disregarded by the magistrates, b) they over-ruled his legal objections and c) his closing speech was not published in the press. Perhaps he saw himself as a great orator with the skill to persuade all to his way of thinking, and that having presented himself as such to his clients and then promptly failing to deliver, he was desperate to redeem himself by calling "foul"!

Move away

I should imagine that life was somewhat uncomfortable for Thomas following the hearing and when Sutton Mill, Claverley, became vacant soon afterwards, in January 1857, he decided to move his family out of Shebdon and away from prying eyes (or possibly worse).

© courtesy of British Newspaper Archive

But sadly, as I mention above, Bessie was not able to put the past behind her and start afresh. Not only would Martha Cotterill move with them, remaining in the household for many years to come, but also life had yet further misery to inflict on poor Bessie.


To follow  - The truth about Martha and What became of Bessie. 

***********************************

A family secret - the shocking truth (Part 1)

The secrets revealed during our family history research are often fascinating, sometimes surprising and occasionally tragic. However what I stumbled upon while browsing the British Newspaper Archive recently can only be described as shocking.

We tend to regard our ancestors with a degree of benevolence, even those we discover on the criminal lists, we might try and justify their actions, that they stole the loaf of bread to feed their hungry family, for instance. But I'm not about to make any excuses for the behaviour of my 3x Great-grandfather Thomas Shelley!

The 1851 census finds Thomas living with his wife, Bessey (nee Holland) and their six children - Emma, my great-great grandmother, aged 9, William 7, Mary Ann 6, Martha 5, Eliza 3 and Joannah 1 - along with Thomas's mother, 54 year old Phoebe in the small hamlet of Doley, Adbaston, Staffordshire. Thomas is listed as a farmer with 45 acres and has one live-in servant, John Lee.

Dirty Linen

But 5 years later would see the family's dirty linen washed in public as Thomas Shelley, then living in Shebdon, was brought before magistrates at a

The Royal Oak , Eccleshall, where magistrates sat
(geograph.org.uk © David Weston)

hearing held in The Royal Oak, Eccleshall, on 31st October 1856, accused of "Cruelty and Assault" to his wife Elizabeth Shelley,  along with co-defendant, Martha Cotterill, his housekeeper.

The details of the case were reported in weekly newspaper The Staffordshire Advertiser on 8th November 1856 (and at least two other local papers) under the heading, UNNATURAL AND CRUEL TREATMENT.

A Younger Woman

According to the evidence put before the magistrates, Martha Cotterill had been engaged as a housekeeper about 4 years previously. Ten years younger than Bessey, and in her early thirties, it seems that Thomas became smitten with the younger woman.

Whether he'd engaged her and then fallen for her charms afterwards, or whether he'd known her beforehand, is hard to know for sure, though events might suggest the latter. It transpires that not only did Martha Cotterill move in assuming the role of mistress of the house, rather than servant, but she subjected Mrs Shelley to "the most disgusting treatment and on one occasion Cotterill had struck her on the head with a knife, causing the blood to flow profusely."

Further accusations included kicking, thrusting a mop soaked with horse manure into Mrs Shelley's face, threatening her with a stick, pulling her into the house by her hair, pushing excrement from a chamber pot into her mouth and "inflicting severe pain on some of the most sensitive parts of the body with a bunch of nettles."

Report of trial in Birmingham Gazette
(courtesy of British Newspaper Archive)

Witnesses

A former servant at the farm, James Turner, corroborated Mrs Shelley's statement, saying he had brought the cruelty to the attention of Mr Shelley who had merely laughed and told him if he didn't like it, he could leave. Another servant, Thomas Davis, had heard Cotterill threaten to "knock the complainant's brains out" and that he'd seen Mrs Shelley locked up several times and was never allowed to eat her meals with the family. He also said that Mr Shelley had told him that Cotterill was mistress of the house.

The case, it seems, had so appalled the local community that on the day of the hearing, both defendants had been followed up and down the street by an angry crowd of between 200 and 300 people, shouting and pelting them with rubbish.

After the evidence had been given, the court was cleared for the magistrates to consider their decision. They declared that no case of assault had been proved against Thomas Shelley but that Martha Cotterill was guilty of common assault and fined £5.

Angry Crowd

The waiting crowd were outraged at the verdict, considering it to be a far too lenient. I suspect they were even more incensed when Thomas paid Cotterill's fine to prevent her being sent to the house of correction. It's probably not surprising therefore, that the newspaper reported the crowd had "followed the defendants two miles out of the town, sainting them with no very complimentary epithets." I'll bet they did! One newspaper noted that the defendants had had to be escorted back to Shebdon by a "strong body of police."

No Remorse

It would be nice to report that following such a public condemnation of his behaviour, Thomas Shelley was shamed into treating his wife with a little more respect. But sadly, the evidence suggests otherwise. While I've uncovered no further clashes with the law (on this particular matter, anyway - the other is a different story altogether), it's obvious from what follows that Thomas, no doubt blinded by his infatuation for his housekeeper, considered he'd been treated unjustly.

And as for Martha Cotterill... you'll have read Part 2 to find out more.