Concealment of a Baby at Birth

Information

1872: At an inquest today, a Peterborough coroner was investigating the case of 'an unknown male infant whose body had been found in the cesspool of a privy at Marholm'. From the post-mortem, he deduced that the child had been dead some six weeks but that it was not possible to presume whether the child had been born dead or alive. At the following quarter session, Harriet Green, a servant girl in the employ of Mrs Mann of Helpston, was brought before the session accused of 'concealment of a baby at birth'. Harriet had complained of back trouble and retired to her room the previous September. Mrs Mann sent for a doctor but Harriet refused to let him into her room and left early one morning without giving any notice. When the baby was found Harriet denied that it was hers but, when the soiled apron was found in her room, she confessed and was promptly arrested. She stated that the baby was a fine child and did not cry. She admitted putting the child into a slop bucket and depositing it in the privy at the bottom of the garden. She was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. (Peterborough Advertiser)

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

DYK about the Vikings in Britain?

793-1066

Information

The Vikings traded with the British Isles before they started raiding them. An early attack was in 793AD when they destroyed Lindisfarne abbey. Up until the mid 800s AD Viking raiders continued to attack easy targets - communities and abbeys around the British coast.

As Anglo Saxon England was made up of several kingdoms, it was easy for Viking armies to attack and conquer them one by one. In 866AD they captured York and made it their capital. By 878AD they had conquered most of England, apart from Wessex. King Alfred of Wessex (‘Alfred the Great’) led a fight back against the Danes, forcing them back into an area that became known as the Danelaw.

Throughout the ninth and tenth centuries the Vikings made colonies on the Hebrides, Shetland and Orkney Islands, the Isle of Man, parts of Scotland and Dublin in Ireland.

By 954AD the Danelaw had been recaptured by the Saxons. There continued to be occasional Viking raids until 1013, when a Danish army invaded under King Sven of Denmark. The following year his son Canute became King of England, the only Viking to do so.

The last Viking invasion was in 1066, when the Norwegian Harald Hardrada was defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Though it can be argued that William the Conqueror of Normandy, who won at the Battle of Hastings, also in 1066, was himself a Viking, so the Vikings DID actually succeed in conquering England.

You can still see the legacy of the Vikings in some of our British place names. Names ending in ‘Wick’ were markets and names ending in ‘by’ were villages, ‘Ness’ is a headland and ‘haven’ means harbour.

References:

Peterborough Museum Exhibition

The Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price, Allen Lane, 2020

Vikings life and legend Edited by Williams, Gareth, Pentz, Peter, Wemhoff, Matthias. The British Museum Press, 2014

Image:

Viking Ship Lofotr licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Map shows a modern version of England-878ad.jpg made using Inkscape. Source: England and Wales at the time of the Treaty of Chippenham (AD 878). From the Atlas of European History, Earle W Dowe (d. 1946), G Bell and Sons, London, 1910. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.