Mary Ann Cotton

When Mary Ann was eight, her parents moved the family to the County Durham village of Murton. At the time of her trial, The Northern Echo published an article containing a description of Mary Ann as given by her childhood Wesleyan Sunday school superintendent at Murton, describing her as "a most exemplary and regular attender", "a girl of innocent disposition and average intelligence", and "distinguished for her particularly clean and tidy appearance."^[2]

Soon after the move, Mary Ann's father fell 150 feet (46 m) to his death down a mine shaft at Murton colliery in February 1842. Her father's body was delivered to her mother in a sack bearing the stamp 'Property of the South Hetton Coal Company'. As the miner's cottage they inhabited was tied to Michael's job, the widow and children would have been evicted. In 1843, her mother married George Stott (1816–1895), also a miner. At 16, Mary Ann left home to become a nurse at the nearby village of South Hetton, in the home of Edward Potter, a manager at Murton colliery. After all of the children had been sent to boarding school in Darlington over the next three years, she returned to her stepfather's home and trained as a dressmaker.

Husband 1: William Mowbray

In 1852, 20-year-old Mary Ann married colliery labourer William Mowbray at

William and Mary Ann moved back to North East England, where William worked as a fireman aboard a steam vessel sailing out of Sunderland, then as a colliery foreman. Another daughter, Isabella, was born in 1858, and Margaret Jane died in 1860. Another daughter, also named Margaret Jane, was born in 1861, and a son, John Robert William, was born in 1863, but died the next year from gastric fever.

William died of an intestinal disorder in January 1865. The lives of William and of their children were insured by the British and Prudential Insurance office and Mary Ann collected a payout of £35 on William's death (equivalent to £3,560 in 2021, about half a year's wages for a manual labourer at the time) and £2 5s for John Robert William.

Husband 2: George Ward

Soon after Mowbray's death, Mary Ann moved to Seaham Harbour, County Durham, where she struck up a relationship with Joseph Nattrass. During this time, her 3+1⁄2-year-old daughter, the second Margaret Jane, died of typhus fever, leaving her with one child of up to nine she had borne. She returned to Sunderland and took up employment at the Sunderland Infirmary, House of Recovery for the Cure of Contagious Fever, Dispensary and Humane Society. She sent her surviving child, Isabella, to live with her mother.

One of her patients at the infirmary was engineer George Ward. They married at

Husband 3: James Robinson

James Robinson was a

Robinson married Mary Ann at St Michael's, Bishopwearmouth on 11 August 1867. Their first child Margaret Isabella (Mary Isabella on her baptismal record) was born that November, but she became ill and died in February 1868. Their second child George was born on 18 June 1869.

Robinson, meanwhile, had become suspicious of his wife's insistence that he insure his life; he discovered that she had run up debts of £60 behind his back and had stolen more than £50 that she had been expected to bank. Then he found that Mary Ann had been forcing his older children to pawn household valuables. He threw her out, retaining custody of their son George.

Husband 4: Frederick Cotton

Mary Ann was desperate and living on the streets until her friend Margaret Cotton introduced her to her brother Frederick, a pitman and recent widower living in Walbottle, Northumberland, who had lost two of his four children. Margaret had acted as substitute mother for the remaining children, Frederick Jr. and Charles, but in late March 1870 she died from an undetermined stomach ailment, leaving Mary Ann to console the grieving Frederick Sr. Soon her twelfth pregnancy was underway.

Cotton and Mary Ann were

Two lovers

After Frederick's death, Nattrass soon became Mary Ann's lodger. She gained employment as nurse to an excise officer recovering from smallpox. Popular cultural sources have called him John Quick-Manning, though there appears to be no trace of a John Quick-Manning in the records of the West Auckland Brewery or the National Archives. The census records, birth, death and marriage records also show no trace of him. However, Richard Quick Mann, a custom and excise man specialising in breweries, has been found in the records; his may be the real name of Mary Ann Cotton's lover. Soon, Mary became pregnant by him with her thirteenth child.

Frederick Jr. died in March 1872 and the infant Robert soon after. Then Nattrass became ill with gastric fever and died just after revising his will in Mary Ann's favour. The insurance policy Mary Ann had taken out on (the still living) Charles' life still awaited collection.

Death of Charles Edward Cotton and inquest

Mary Ann's downfall came when a parish official, Thomas Riley, asked her to help nurse a woman who was ill with smallpox. She complained that the last surviving Cotton boy, Charles Edward, was in the way and asked Riley if he could be committed to the workhouse. Riley, who also served as West Auckland's assistant coroner, said she needed to accompany him. She told Riley that the boy was sickly and added: "I won’t be troubled long. He’ll go like all the rest of the Cottons."

Five days later, Mary Ann told Riley that the boy had died. Riley went to the village police and persuaded the doctor to delay writing a death certificate until the circumstances could be investigated.

Mary Ann's first visit after Charles' death was not to the doctor but the insurance office. There, she discovered that no money would be paid out until a death certificate was issued. An inquest was held and the jury returned a verdict of natural causes. Mary Ann claimed to have used arrowroot to relieve his illness and said Riley had made accusations against her because she had rejected his advances.

Then the local newspapers latched on to the story and discovered Mary Ann had moved around northern England and lost three husbands, a lover, a friend, her mother, and 11 children, all of whom had died of stomach fevers.

Arrest

Rumour gave rise to suspicion and scientific investigation. Doctor William Byers Kilburn, who had attended Charles, had kept samples, and tests showed they contained arsenic.^[3] He told the police, who arrested Mary Ann and procured exhumation of Charles' body. She was charged with his murder, although the trial was delayed until after the delivery in Durham Gaol on 7 January 1873 of her thirteenth and final child, whom she named Margaret Edith Quick-Manning Cotton.

Trial and execution

Cotton's trial began at

The defence in the case was handled by Thomas Campbell Foster, who argued during the trial that Charles had died from inhaling arsenic used as a dye in the green wallpaper of the Cotton home. The doctor testified that there was no other powder on the same shelf in the chemist's shop as the arsenic, only liquid; the chemist himself claimed that there were other powders. Campbell Foster argued that it was possible that the chemist had mistakenly used arsenic powder instead of bismuth powder (used to treat diarrhea), when preparing a bottle for Cotton, because he had been distracted by talking to other people.^{[citation needed]} The jury retired for 90 minutes before returning a guilty verdict.

The Times correspondent reported on 20 March: "After conviction the wretched woman exhibited strong emotion but this gave place in a few hours to her habitual cold, reserved demeanour and while she harbours a strong conviction that the royal clemency will be extended towards her, she staunchly asserts her innocence of the crime that she has been convicted of." Several petitions were presented to the Home Secretary, but to no avail. Mary Ann Cotton was hanged at Durham County Gaol on 24 March 1873 by William Calcraft; she died, not from her neck breaking, but by strangulation caused by the rope being rigged too short, possibly deliberately.^[5]

Of Mary Ann's 13 children, only two survived her: Margaret Edith (1873–1954) and her son George from her marriage to James Robinson.

Television and radio drama

In 2015