By analysing primary sources, explore how the legislation surrounding infanticide effected the prosecutions of the women being prosecuted.
Infanticide, the act of killing an infant younger than twelve-months-old. Infanticide has always been a highly emotive crime, which questions the model of the ‘ideal woman’, and what it is to have a ‘maternal instinct’. For centuries, the act of infanticide has been seen as unnatural going against natural instinct, a beastly act that offers no explanation. The killing of an infant has through history been done mostly by the mother, it is seen to be associated with the female gender.
Despite the beastly portrayal and opinions that are held towards a person that is able to kill their own children, the law changed substantially, arguably, in the favour of mothers committing this crime. The way the crime was prosecuted and the punishments given to the woman committing these crimes was drastically changed by parliament from the seventeenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, mainly influenced by the changing views in society. The crime infanticide offers an abnormality in rulings throughout the nineteenth century. Women who committed crimes such as murder or prostitution were often seen as deviant, not fitting in to the ideals of what it was to be a ‘woman’ in the nineteenth century. However, infanticide was met with a different approach from the courts as well as society throughout the nineteenth century. Infanticide is undoubtedly and unnatural crime that must only have been committed from an individual that is not of sound mind. This idea was progressed since the eighteenth century, shown through changes in the law.
Throughout this essay I will. Be focusing on the primary sources that the Old Bailey has to offer, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in order to determine how the seemingly unexplainable act went from being a crime which judged the defendant harshly, forcing them to prove their own innocent, to having sympathetic judges and a system which forces the prosecution to prove guilt. As well as this, I hope to display the evident increasing sympathy towards women, leading up to the first half of the nineteenth century, who were being convicted of infanticide and identify the reasons as to why they are treated as an almost separate class to other female criminals and shown sympathy by both the law and society. The legislation that holds importance spans over the two centuries, making it impossible to narrow sources down into a smaller time frame. Due to the infanticide being such a distinct and unique form of criminal activity, the Old Bailey offers a substantial, but not overwhelming, amount of court case studies over the three centuries to analyse how legislation was shaped by the crime. It must be said that the Old Bailey, in no means, offers a true number to the amount of infanticides committed throughout England during this period, but it does still offer and insight as to how and why the legislation changed so drastically, especially as it is based in the capital.
Throughout history, there has been a stigma that has surrounded women that produce bastard children. In the sixteenth century, there was to an extend an anxiety towards women. In this period, the changes in the law meant that women could be prosecuted for their acts of fornication as well as the crime of witchcraft becoming the object of royal law and prosecution. Hoffer and Hull argue that women were vulnerable, in a time were men’s rights far surpassed women’s rights, especially the lower classes being restricted by their social status as well as their genders. With no option of fertility control, women falling pregnant outside of the confines of marriage found themselves in a very difficult position. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, all known cases, from the Old Bailey, of infanticide were a result of unmarried women mothers trying to conceal their illegitimate children. The Poor Law introduced in 1576 meant that women with illegitimate children could be imprisoned for defrauding the parish of funds to support the bastard child. Hoffer and Hull speculate that it was laws such as these that ‘counselled the poor to conceal bastardy pregnancy and perhaps murder their bastard newborns’.
With the law being revised in 1624, The Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murthering of Bastard Children, this new construct meant that the act of infanticide or concealing the death of an infant was parallel to crimes such as murder. By making the crime parallel to murder, the state enforced that a penalty of death could be inflicted onto a woman for concealing the dead infant child, no matter its manner of death. The woman would have to prove otherwise to the court that she did not kill the baby otherwise, without sufficient evidence, she would be found guilty. The act of killing their infant, a violent act, would reinforce this idea of not fitting in to the traditional notion that it is to be a woman. Kilday and Nash go on to suggest that the act of infanticide was seen so differently to other crimes because it went against what it was thought to be a woman and their natural instincts to be a good wife and mother. The prosecution was able to rely on ‘presumptive or circumstantial evidence’, which Beattie highlights as being unjust in prosecuting infanticide, as to whether the child was killed or whether it had even been born alive at all. A women’s reputation and behavior was taken into account, and for a mother who is not married, this would not fair well on her character and only do little good for her case. It was not until 1803 that the law was again revised to allow women being convicted of infanticide the right to be innocent until proven guilty. Also, it separated the crimes of infanticide and concealing the death of an illegitimate child that had been born dead. Dickinson and Sharpe, as reinforced by Jackson, highlight the importance of this change in legislation, it is a monumental step towards achieving a fairer trial.
The case of Ellen Millgate, a woman tried in the Old Bailey, 18th November 1842, is an example as to women concealing the birth of their children due to shame and fear of single motherhood. Rose suggests that it is this fear of being shunned by society that was a key driving force that led these women to commit the crime of infanticide, further this is shown by the Old Bailey’s records of the women mostly being lower class and single. Millgate, through accounts present in the Old Bailey’s records was a servant girl. Servants were especially vulnerable in the nineteenth century, especially female servants. With women already having less rights than men, a servant’s job and purpose is to serve at the will of their household, with many being taken advantage of by the men of the household. With not having a very high status, paired with not being married, meant that Ellen Millgate was faced with a life changing challenge to face. With no option for an abortion, without a cost of both money and high risk of health, Millgate was left with no choice other than to carry the baby to term. Being a single mother in most cases would lead to a job termination as well as the shame of having an illegitimate child and her act of fornication would be public. The pressure put on women who were to get pregnant outside of marriage was immense. They were shunned by society as they no longer fit into the stereotype of a woman, a person who has virtue. In the account, Ann Long, a charwoman recalls hearing the lady of the household saying “how could you ever think to do so?” to Millgate for attempting to conceal the birth of her child. This is an example of the impossible situation that women faced, Millgate is looked down upon for her actions and there is no doubt that within nineteenth century Britain she would have been looked down upon for entering motherhood without a husband. In the Millgate case, there is no evidence shown that the mother did kill the infant, she was not found guilty of the killing of the infant. Instead, the defendant was found guilty of concealing the infant, to which through eye witness accounts the infant was hidden in a clothing box already deceased. In the eye witness accounts, Mary Fryer made a point of saying she “saw no baby linen found”. The importance of Millgate having no infant linens in her position suggests she had made no preparations for the birth. In the eyes of the law at this time this was grounds that she had not made any plans to support the baby once it was born.
The first time this defence had been used was 1689, Hunt calls the defence ‘the childbed linen defence’. This defence went onto be increasingly popular for women facing infanticide charges. The Old Bailey records it being used in seventy-five percent of trials between 1712-1735 and was successful in all but three. In the trial of Diana Parker, 17th September 1794, the “benefit of linen plea” was used. This plea brought to the courts attention that Parker had in fact acquired linen in preparation for the birth of her child, suggesting she had no intention of killing of concealing her child. Again, the trial of Rebecca Prince (1723) and Sarah Russell (1782) are just two other examples of women who were able to show proof of their preparation for motherhood, lessening the prosecutions cases that these unwed mothers killed their babies due to inconvenience. In these two cases, both women’s accounts are heard of the experiences of labour and the still births that they experienced. Cases such as these offer an insight to mothers who may have actually been innocent to the crime they are being accused of. Jackson also puts forward the argument that it would be unusual for a mother to prepare for her babies arrival if she was intending to kill it. This highlights the need for evidence to be proven innocent in the nineteenth century courts. The Old Bailey provides proof that since the use of this defence increased, the amount of women that were acquitted of the crime also increased. These cases show a direct movement away from the severity of 1624 act, and in a direction more towards the ideal of ‘innocent until prove guilty’ that is shown through the progression of indicting people for infanticide.
Whether it was Millgate’s intention to keep, give the baby away or to commit infanticide was not important as the concealment of the birth itself was a crime. The doctor’s testimony in the trial was very important to the final ruling. Doctors and other medical specialists were increasingly called to court for trials or infanticide and were actually present for all two-hundred-and-three tried at the Old bailey in the nineteenth century. Clayton reinforces the importance of having medical professionals present at the trial, to offer some explanation as to how the physical injuries to the infants were caused. Although Clayton recognises that the medical professionals may not have always been right in their rulings, their presence is still beneficial to achieving a fair trial. The medical professionals offered first hand experience and knowledge of what occurs during childbirth. The marks found on the deceased infants were able to be examine and ruled as to whether or not it was a result of the labour or more malicious means. Doctor Green, stated that he was unable to identify as to whether the child was born alive or not. The rope tied around the baby’s neck as described by each eye witness was not ruled to be the cause of death, but instead an instrument used to aid the “agony” of labour. Millgate was sentenced to two-years imprisonment. This sentencing is minor compared to the the potential sentencing of death if she had been found guilty of the killing of her child due to the 1624 act identifying the crime of killing a bastard child an act of murder. Hoff and Hull identify this ruling to be important in understanding how far legislation has come based on the punishments that are given to those found guilty of concealment. It is highly significant as it offers the defendant, at the most, a two year prison sentence, despite the violence associated with infanticide. It underlines the sympathy the court had for these cases. Sarah Russell’s case (1782) at the Old Bailey offers an insight to testimony by both a doctor and a midwife providing evidence on behalf of the defendant. In Russell’s case it was explained that the injuries caused to the baby were not uncommon when going through the birth. All mothers that were found guilty of infanticide, with no grounds for an insanity plea, were sentenced to death. This gives the appearance that the court took a harsh stance on the act of infanticide, however, in reality, no more than thirty-two women were given the death penalty for infanticide in the seventeenth century, whilst it gets continuously lower.
Within the courts, there is evidence that both the health of the mother and the baby were taken into consideration and used as evidence in court. If the mother was o suffer from a health condition, such as epilepsy, then it would not doubt have affected her ability to to care for a baby properly on her own with no other means of aid to turn to. Ellen Middleship’s case is an example of were a mother’s health, as well as the child’s health was taken into consideration for the verdict of the crime of infanticide. Middleship was a sufferer of epilepsy so when faced with an indictment of infanticide, 21st October 1850, it was impossible to say without any witnesses whether she was conscious or not at the time of the birth. Mr Huddersfield, who was to address the jury on behalf of the prisoner was not given chance to do so. Instead, the judge, acknowledging that the case was “of a peculiar nature”, campaigned for the jury, if they felt like Middleship was guilty of anything, to find her guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter. With this being said by the judge, the jury found the prisoner ‘not guilty’ without hearing Mr Huddersfield. The pity displayed by both the judge and jury in this case is shown by the not guilty verdict as well as the judge stepping into give his opinion prior to Mr Huddersfield’s statement. The fact that the woman’s health was impaired added to the end result of a not guilty verdict, but the crime itself sees mothers being looked upon with sympathy to be driven to the murder of their own children, or that they may have had a child die whilst giving birth. This sympathy has been present since the eighteenth century. The prominence of the claim of insanity, or mental incapacity in defence of infanticide became so during the eighteenth century. For example, the trail record of Isabella Buckham. Buckham was acquitted of the murder or her ‘male bastard child’ in 1755. She is recorded to have said that she ‘was not in my senses; I do not know what I said or did. Had I been in my senses I should have been very loth to have parted with it.’ And it was this defense that got her acquitted. By the end of the eighteenth century, to just conceal a dead infant was no longer seen as grounds for proof that a woman had committed a capital charge. The act of infanticide does bring a sense of pity for the defendant more so that other crimes committed by women. Women offenders, those who steal or murder are seen as deviants and rejects to the social norm of what is a ‘woman’ nineteenth century Britain. Judges seemed to go out of their way to try to avoid the death penalty for women on trial for infanticide with, according the the Old Bailey as little as three women being sentenced to death in the nineteenth century compared to the thirty-two on record between 1674-1699.,
Mary Ann Hunt was a woman indicted of murder, killing another woman, 16th August 1847. This trial was just three years before Middleship’s trial. In Hunt’s defence, an illness like epilepsy was brought up with a witness, Ann Smallbone stating she had looked ‘pale’ and that she had been made aware by Hunt of her ‘obstruction’ and had been witness to her illness. Yet, when questioning medical professionals, they do not rule that epilepsy, or fits, would create any ‘unsoundness’ of the mind, therefore her act of murder was her own with no medical influence. Hunt also had numerous character witnesses that testified to her ‘humane’ character in the time previous to her crime, stating that the act was out of her character. Hunt is not displayed the same sympathy as Middleship is done just three years later. Although the victims are of different age, and Hunt is not facing the pressure of childbirth or single motherhood, a similar defence is put forward, one of previously good character and of a potential illness of epilepsy. Despite this, Hunt is put to death, yet Middleship is aquitted with no punishment for the concealment of her child nor the death.
Many mothers claimed that their babies had been born dead and therefore they were only guilty of concealing the birth of their child. A baby being born dead is in no doubt out of the control of the mother, therefore a much lesser sentence would have been given, of up to two years, unless she could prove that she had prepared for the delivery of the baby and to support it. In many cases, the medical professionals could not tell as to whether the baby was born dead or alive. As in the case of Elizabeth Ann Poyle, the Old Bailey’s records show that she was acquitted because the surgeon could not determine “whether the child was fully born at the time the wounds were inflicted upon it”. This lead the court to enforce a verdict of not guilty. Despite the act in 1624 declaring that it was up to the mother to prove that the child was not born alive. Lord Ellenborough worked to correct this. In 1803, Ellenborough enforced ‘An Act for the Further Prevention of Malicious Shooting and Attempting to Discharge Loaded Fire‐arms’…and for repealing ‘An Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murthering of Bastard Children’.
The act enforced by Lord Ellenborough enabled the lesser sentence of concealment to be enforced on the mother, rather than to be just found innocent or guilty of killing. With this act, mothers no longer had to face the presumption of murder so did not have to find a way of proving the baby was dead prior to or during birth. Instead, prosecutions were faced with the task of proving the infant was alive after the birth and it was a separate act inflicted by the mother which led to its death. It is this progression in the law which has allowed for sympathy to be displayed in sentencing in the British courts for the crime of infanticide. Despite offering an alternative, lesser punishment, jurors still held on to this idea of sympathy, the Old Bailey records offer proof in that during the 1840s, up to a third of women still received no punishment for infanticide, or concealing the birth of an illegitimate child. Eigen enforces the idea that there was an increasing social acceptability of clinical diagnosis for the phenomenon that is infanticide. The inflictions and consequences of being born a woman and becoming pregnant outside of marriage, despite in some cases it was a choice to engage in sex, the man does not receive little to any consequences for creating the life and instead the weight is left on the women’s shoulders.
Never making up to more than ten percent of the murder cases held at the Old Bailey during this period, infanticide offers a crime to which is unique to women, with men having little to no contact with the crime. The few times men were tried for the crime of infanticide, they never were tried alone, they were always alongside the mother. Of the cases of infanticide held at the old bailey, men were involved in less that five percent of the crimes which makes the crime of infanticide unique. Until 1849, of the eleven men put on trial for infanticide, none of them were proven to be guilty of the crime. Despite not receiving a guilty verdict in the Old Bailey, men were blamed by society for the downfall of their bastards’ mothers. William Hunter made a speech in the late eighteenth century, denouncing fathers of murdered illegitimate children, condemning them for their actions and lack of. An extract from his speech reads ‘And as for that young Man… he having allur’d this poor wretched Creature into the great Sin of Whoredom, put her (as it were) under a necessity of committing a yet greater, I mean that of Murther… he is greatly guilty before God of both these heinous Crimes… I must desire other young Men also to take notice, so as they may avoid such heinous and provoking Sins’ In the speech, Hunter is ridding the women of mostly all guilt, blaming the men for leading them down the path they are now on. This fits into the idea that infanticide is a crime that is driven by madness. To suggest that the women is not to blame for her actions of conceiving the child, and that she is almost bewitched by the man, the sin is removed from the woman allowing them to fit into the idea of repectibility and to still obtain womanly values.
Due to Lord Ellenborough’s work and putting in place an act that allows mother’s to be innocent until proven guilty is shown to work throughout the nineteenth century.
In the nineteenth century there are two-hundred-and-three recorded cases of infanticide in the Old Bailey. Of theses two-hundred-and-three, eighty-three of these women were found guilty, but only eighteen were found guilty of the crime of the actual killing of the infant. The remaining sixty-five that were found guilty, but not of killing, were instead found guilty of concealing a birth. The woman’s state of mind played a vital role in the rulings and the verdict throughout the nineteenth century. The recognition of childbirth being an immensely painful and stressful time for a mother, particularly those who were carrying illegitimate children, was present not only in the court rooms, but was present throughout society as a whole. The trials of women facing charges of infanticide represent a class that is not necessarily being considered criminal in the nineteenth century, but instead victims of medical reasons which encouraged treatment rather than punishment for the women being found guilty.
By the early 1840s, infanticide and how to combat it was openly being discussed in the House of Commons. Thomas Wakely claimed in the house of commons that infanticide ‘was going on to a frightful, to an enormous, a perfectly incredible extent.’ By the 1860s, the House came to the decision that the amount of infanticide taking place had reached crisis proportions, with eye witness statements claiming to see bundles of dead babies wrapped in sheets and thrown in the street. One witness to this gruesome sight stated “bundles are left lying about in the streets… the metropolitan canal boats are impeded, as they are tracked along by the number of drowned infants with which they come in contact, and the land is becoming defiled by the blood of her innocents. We are told by Dr Lankester that there are 12,000 women in London to whom the crime of child murder may be attributed. In other words, that one in every thirty women (I presume between fifteen and forty-five) is a murderess.” It can be said that the sympathy that was earlier displayed to women within society has began to be drowned out in London by the disgust of seeing infant corpses throughout the poorer areas of London. However, when doing a statistical search using the Old Bailey, only 31 people were brought under the indictment of infanticide through the year 1860-1869. Of course, not every woman who will have been guilty of infanticide will have been taken to court, however to suggest that one in thirty women, between the ages of 15 and forty-five is a major exaggeration of what has been described as an infanticide ‘crisis’. However, it should not be dismissed. With even The Times publishing articles about the ‘epidemic’ in London concerning dead infants. It can instead be concluded that the sympathy towards mothers in difficult positions, becoming pregnant out of wedlock, had run dry in society, and rather sympathy would prefer a solution to the problem. However, the problem of infanticide, shown through statistics, does prove to have been worsening throughout the nineteenth century. By the year 1895, 231 infants were found dead in that year alone. The Ladies’ Sanitary Association felt that civilisation itself felt as if it was under threat, as in 1865 it released a statement expressing that “an annual slaughter of innocents takes place in this gifted land of ours… we must grapple with this evil, and that speedily, if we would not merit the reproach of admitting infanticide as an institution into our social system”.
The plea of insanity and madness, that in previous years had enabled young women who found themselves in a dire situation, a chance to seek a form of rehabilitation through the justice system rather than being faced with the harsh punishment of the nineteenth century legal system for murder. The sympathy that met these women from the judges in court had begun to surpass reasoning as to whether the women facing trial were in fact actually innocent or guilty. Mary Newell’s case is a strong piece of evidence to support this, despite being in Oxfordshire. Newell fell pregnant at the age of 21 (1857), she worked as a servant girl in Oxfordshire. With the father of the child not wanting anything to do with Newell, she ended up being admitted to the Henley workhouse, 11th January 1858. In the May of 1858, Newell gave birth and once more plead to the father for support but received no assistant, so instead put her son into the Thames and left him to die. At the trial it is noted that the court was disgusted with the father’s actioned, denying his son any aid, blaming him for the infant’s death. Newell was condemned to death for her actions, but instead of facing the noose, her reaction to the verdict led to her being committed to the local asylum. A petition began to circulate, receiving over 800 signatures, including that of a mayor and magistrates and sent to Queen Victoria, as well as lobbying the home office, this saved her life. Despite being able to enforce capital punishment on women who commit infanticide, the Victorians were instead lenient towards women that committed this sort of murder, despite their guilt. The interpretation of insanity and madness of women who choose to kill their infants to save themselves and disastrous living situation and life of shame allow women not only in London, but across the country to take advantage of the sympathy bestowed upon them to receive a lesser punishment, if any punishment at all. Although the law prior to 1803 forced women to prove their innocent, rather than the prosecution to prove their guilt. The sympathy towards these women allowed for what is described as an ‘epidemic’ by The Times to grip London and almost normalise the behaviour that is killing and infant.
It should also be recognised, that despite in earlier times, the sympathy being given to these women was because their situation was recognised as difficult and their state of mind in facing what has to come would have been questionable. However, with the introduction of life insurance, and its growing popularity, there came a new motive for infanticide. For half a penny a week, per child, the parent could earn up to £5 is that child was to die. The peak in people claiming for the death of their young children meant that in 1850, a legislation to protect young children was needed, you could no longer get over £3 for a child under the age of ten. This idea of making money on the death of an infant reached infamous proportions in 1870. The ‘Brixton Baby Farmer’, Margaret Waters, was found guilty of conspiring to commit fraud through the murder of a baby.
By the 1870s, it was recognised that the crime of infanticide was a female crime, with few cases involving a man, more specifically committed by a mother figure to the infant. The Times coined the term ‘baby farming’ in the late 1860s, it was firstly thought to describe women “who receive infants to nurse or rear by hand for a payment in money, either made periodically (as weekly or monthly) or in one sum” by the maternal mother. ‘Baby farmers’ became increasingly popular with single mothers. It appealed to the social function and allowed the mothers of these children to freely work and to support themselves and their child. ‘Baby farmers’ however were not greeted with the same sympathy as single mothers in the court room. Waters was executed in 1870 for her crimes whilst creating a media frenzy. Another shocking case is, 1879, Annie Took who killed and dismembered a handicapped infant despite being paid £12 to care for the child, she too was executed. ‘Baby farming’, at first was seen as almost a respectable business, it allowed, in principle, the children of the poor working class to be cared for when their biological family can not provide this care. They ran very public advertisements in every mager newspapers, advertising that they were willing to adopt children for a fee.
However, with the high profile cases such as Waters and Took making headlines in the media, the profession came under deep scrutiny and suspicion. The British Medical Journal, 1868, stated these ‘baby farmers’ would not have “the slightest difficulty in disposing of any number of children, so that they may give no further trouble, and never be heard of, at £10 a head.” Showing their disgust in the business. Baby farmers were not privy to the same excuses as single mothers, claiming insanity for their actions was not going to make the cut in the Old Bailey. Their business like structure in trafficking infants allowed for no sympathy from neither society nor the court room. The involvement of the mothers in this trade is also questionable.
Earlier in this essay, emphasis has been put on the sympathy given to the mothers who are felt forced to kill their children out of panic and desperation. The judges and jury’s in the court have displayed their sympathy through their lenient rulings, as did the members of government with the acts enforced to allow mothers to escape harsh punishment for their supposed crimes. The Times however, on both the 4th July and the 24th September 1870, accuses the mothers sending their children to baby farmers of being “complicitous and selfish”, denying their naivety as to what was occurring at these ‘baby farms’. By 1870, London had become sick of infanticide. The tolerance corpses of babies appearing on the streets, as well as a sympathetic justice system was shattered with the exposure of systematic ‘baby farms’ inside and outside of London. There is no evidence that the mothers who sent their children to baby farms thought they were doing anything other than sending their offspring onwards at the chance of a better life than what they could provide. Clayton agrees with this, that despite the press’ outrage, the is no evidence that mothers were sending their children to die. The media at the exposure of baby farming instead created a moral panic out of a crime that has been present and looked over for centuries by the upper clases. The lower classes were the most effected by infanticide and baby farming. It was lower class women that were forcing themselves to make the choice to end their child’s life whilst still in infancy, in most cases, to save themselves and their child of the struggles that they would face going forward. The Times suggests that the mothers were complicit and knowledgeable about the murderous nature surrounding baby farms, however, there seems little sense in a working class mother working, whilst sending money to the baby farmer, without being under the false pretence that the money is going towards the upkeep of their child. In the case of Margaret Waters, for example, Jeanette Cowen, a seventeen-year-old rape victim, had a child who was put up for adoption by her father without her permission to Waters.
Infanticide, despite being a horrible crime that still shocks people to this day, was a turning point in the English justice system. The trials from the Old Bailey highlight the sympathy in the courtroom for the mothers on trial for killing their children. This sympathy is intriguing as a historian as it displays the unusual relationship between the judge and the defendant. The trials reinforce the idea of the class system that ruled England through the nineteenth century and prior. The lower classes were given an unfair start in life and faced many obstacles, mothers feeling they have no other option but to kill their children to survive is a shocking thing to imagine, but this insight into the past is essential in understanding this violent crime.
It is true that towards the end on the nineteenth century, people such as waters began to take advantage of mothers with illegitimate children. By putting in place a business model and killing children purely for profit is a display of how violent a crime infanticide can be and the lack of sympathy for these people in the courts offer a clear difference in rulings based on individuals situations.
The old Bailey is a very useful primary source in looking into legislation and to create a small case study to follow how legislation and court rulings change.
Infanticide started as a crime in which you had to prove your innocence to be found not guilty, otherwise face harsh punishments such as the death penalty or lengthy prison sentences. For mothers carrying illegitimate children they were to be both fearful of their future and the thought of a still birth, as it may result in their own death through the legal system. The reforms in 1803 put into place by Ellenborough are the most substantial pieces of legislation concerning infanticide. It made a fair trial possible for these woman as well as differentiating between concealing a child’s death and murdering a child.