Maria Farrance 1835-1887 nee Brewer
Maria was a poor woman, who was not educated and probably not very articulate. Vulnerable and unable to afford medical care, she was misunderstood or not listened to by neighbours and medical practitioners. She suffered the loss of several of her children and was accused of a terrible crime. Although acquitted, her life and health never recovered.
Early life
Maria was a younger child in the large family of Robert Brewer and his wife Frances, known as Fanny. They moved around, renting rooms in the poorer areas of Bridgwater, but Robert usually managed to find regular work as a either a mason or a bricklayer. Baby Maria was baptised on the 15th of July 1835 at the independent Sion Chapel, Friarn Street, where she was one of ten children baptised that day.
In 1841 Robert and Fanny were living in Ropers Lane (later Albert Street) with their eight children, but as their older children gradually found work and left home, they moved to West Street. West Street is a wide street leading out of Bridgwater, which was then lined with small houses and shops. The road had sloping sides so that animals to be sold at the sheep fair could be displayed in pens. It was a very lively place to live during the annual St Matthew’s fair, when many of the houses would be licensed to sell alcohol, and there was music and dancing in the street.
By 1851 only three children were left at home. Maria and her elder sister Charlotte were both working as domestic servants, while younger brother John, aged 12, was working as an apprentice to his father. There were also two lodgers to help pay the rent.
Ten years later, Robert, Fanny and Maria were still living in West Street, on the south side in between the Royal Oak and the Greyhound Inn. This would have meant that they would never had far to go for a drink, but as they were non-conformists who attended the Sion Chapel, they were probably teetotallers. They were sharing their home with Maria’s married sister Charlotte, her husband James Betty, and their two young children. Maria, aged 25, was working as a labourer in a brick yard. This would have been hard and dirty work, carrying balls of clay and cleaning the brick and tile moulds.
Marriage
Living in Bridgwater, Maria would inevitably have met boatmen working on the river Parrett, and on the 12th of May 1862 in Holy Trinity Church, she married boatman Henry Farrance. (Henry sometimes spelt his name as Farance). Henry, who was a little younger than Maria, was born in North Petherton. He occasionally worked as a sailor, taking what work he could get. Boatmen worked on barges and smaller boats on the rivers Parrett and Tone, while sailors, or mariners, worked on larger boats and ships that went out to sea.
Although Maria was brought up as a non-conformist, she married and had all except one of her children baptised in the Anglican church of St Mary’s[i].
Children
After their marriage, Henry and Maria moved to North Petherton where Henry was working as a boatman. They soon began having children, although after the first two, their family was marked by the tragedy of losing their babies at a very young age.
The 1871 census shows what seems to be the happy family of Henry and Maria with two children, Robert aged 7 and Elizabeth aged 5. However, this snapshot concealed the fact that they had already lost two babies. Walter was born on the 22nd of October 1868 and died a few months later in 1869. Fanny Jane was born in the summer of 1870 and died in the winter of that same year, aged 6 months.
Fanny suffered with mesenteric disease, an inflammation of lymph nodes in the abdomen, which would have caused sickness, diarrhoea and tummy pain. Mesenteric disease today is usually a mild, self-limiting infection in children, but when Fanny became ill in 1870, there were no modern diagnostic blood tests nor x-rays. Fanny may have had one of any number of conditions which cause abdominal pain in babies. The certificate does not say for how long she was sick, so there are many possibilities. Malnutrition would make it worse.
Two years later, Maria and Henry had another son named Walter John. Walter John was baptised in Northmoor Green on the 5th of September 1872, but he only lived for 11 weeks. His cause of death was given as malnutrition. There are many possible causes of death in such a young child, but again, malnutrition clearly played a big part.
After this, Maria and Henry moved to Bridgwater, where they lived in one of the many cramped, unhygienic courts off St Mary Street. Courts in Bridgwater were usually a row or group of very small dwellings, huddled together with a single privy and shared washing facilities, occupied by the poorest families. A third baby named Walter was born there in December 1873. This little Walter died two months later, and his prolonged crying and emaciated appearance caused consternation among Maria’s neighbours. Their witness statements at the baby’s inquest nearly landed Maria in prison.
Inquest on the body of Walter Farrance on Monday 2nd February 1874, in Bridgwater Town Hall, coroner P.O.H. Reed[ii].
Walter was the son of a labourer working on the quay, living in Preece’s Court, St Mary Street, Bridgwater, (where the walls were obviously very thin).
The witnesses were chiefly neighbours, whose evidence was repeated at the trial. They claimed that the baby had been neglected from birth, both in attendance and the supply of food. The baby could be heard screaming for hours with no attempt to soothe it.
Charles Forbes Buchan, a Bridgwater surgeon, reported that he had seen the child shortly after birth and it was then perfectly healthy and of normal size. He saw the child again within an hour of its death and asked the mother why she had not sent for him before as the body was very emaciated. He subsequently conducted the post-mortem – there was no sign of violence, but the weight was about six or seven pounds. The surface was pale and wrinkled and the skin had a peculiar varnished appearance which indicated defective nourishment. His conclusion was that death arose from irregular and insufficient supply of proper food.
After a short deliberation the jury returned the verdict in accordance with the medical testimony and that the mother was guilty of neglect. The coroner then ordered the mother to be taken into custody on a charge of manslaughter. Walter’s death certificate shows under cause of death the words ‘Starvation. Verdict of manslaughter against the mother.’ Maria was out on bail by the time of her trial.
Maria Farrance’s trial for manslaughter at Taunton, March 1874[iii]
The Somerset Spring Assizes of 1874 was opened on Saturday 21st of March at Taunton by Mr Justice Keating.
Mr Murch prosecuted and Mr Saunders defended Maria.
The following witnesses gave evidence:-
- Nurse Mary Pole (see article on Midwives – Bridgwater Heritage) - child was a normal size at birth and appeared healthy.
- Mary Ann Turner – a niece of Maria – recommended a different type of biscuit and Maria tried this. Presumably Maria was mashing biscuit into some milk or weak tea to try to make a feed for the baby.
- Mary Hunt (neighbour) – the child was a fine healthy child, she had heard it crying for three hours one February night and she heard Maria say to the child “I’ll shake thee heart out”. It was admitted in cross examination that the child would not retain the food given him in his stomach.
- Louisa Wright (neighbour) – she spoke to Maria about the child’s appearance. Maria told her that she had had seven children and they were all like it and she had buried three. Louisa saw the child on Sunday morning when it was dying and it appeared to be in convulsions. The feeding bottle on the table appeared to contain only a little weak tea coloured with milk. Louisa advised her to go to a doctor. Maria then went for a doctor but he was not at home, so she went next to a relieving officer[iv] who gave her a medical order, but by the time the medical officer Charles Forbes Buchan arrived, the child had died.
- Harriet Manning gave similar evidence.
- Evidence was given that Maria had no milk of her own and had to ‘dry nurse’ the baby with weak tea and biscuits. The child had been seen on several occasions being fed from a bottle[v].
The judge said that there might have been injudicious treatment, but criminality only arose from culpable neglect. Since it had been proved that Maria had no milk of her own, the jury found that there was no criminal neglect and she was found not guilty.[vi]
After the trial
Henry obviously stood by Maria as they had another child the following year, but baby Ann Farrance only lived for 3 weeks. They moved house to Gloster Place as there was obviously bad feeling towards Maria from their neighbours in Preece’s Court. Gloster Place was a court on the junction of Friarn Street and Albert Street.
Children of Henry and Maria Farrance
Children of Henry and Maria Farrance – all except Ann were baptised at Bridgwater St Mary, abode at time of birth shown in brackets:-
- Robert John (Somerset Bridge) 1863 - 1896
- Elizabeth Ann (North Petherton) 1866 – ? (still alive in 1881)
- Walter (Somerset Bridge) Oct 1868 – 1869 Q3 age 9 months +
- Fanny Jane (Old Basin) June 1870 – Nov 1870 age 6 months
- Walter John (Northmoor Green) Aug 1872 – Nov 1872 age 11 weeks
- Walter (Bridgwater) Dec 1873 – 22 Feb 1874 age 2 months
- Ann (Bridgwater) Aug 1875 – Aug 1875 age 3 weeks.
In February 1874, Maria said that she had had seven children and buried three of them. The above list only shows six children born up to 1874, it is possible one has not yet been found, or Maria was counting a still birth. Another possibility is that she had a child before her marriage to Henry. The three she had already buried were Walter 1868-1869, Fanny Jane 1870-1870 and Walter John 1872-1872. A seventh Farrance child, Ann, was born in 1875, but died aged only 3 weeks. Her cause of death was ‘debility from birth’, in other words she was born sickly and had not thrived at all.
The list above makes it painfully clear that the last five children lived progressively shorter lives.
1880s
In the 1881 census, Maria aged 43, was living on her own in Gloster Place, Bridgwater. She was described as ‘imbecile’, but had not been described as such on any earlier censuses. Henry was not at home as he was working as an able seaman on the vessel Crowpill, a Bridgwater collier. This sailing ketch, owned by John Sully, was in harbour in Glamorgan for the census record.
Meanwhile Maria’s two surviving children had found work and left home. Robert was working as a mariner like his father, and he got married to Eliza Verncombe in Holy Trinity Church in 1881, although he was only 17 years old. Elizabeth Ann was working and living in as a servant in the Rose and Crown Inn, St Mary Street. No doubt she was also trying to keep an eye on her mother while Henry was away.
There is a likely death record for Henry in Glamorgan in 1886, aged 45. After Henry’s death, Maria would have lost his income and being in poor health she had little choice but to go into the workhouse. She died in the Bridgwater Union on the 13th of May 1887 and was given a pauper’s burial in Wembdon Road Cemetery.
What went wrong for Maria and her babies?
The children’s health
The first problems that Maria had were ones of poverty and lack of education. Her mother had died by 1869, so was not around to give help and advice. When her babies began to sicken, Maria was not able to afford much medical help at a time when treatment and medication all had to be paid for. She herself said that all her children had had the same problem, and three of them were dead by 1874. The children’s difficulties all seem to have been concerned with feeding and digestion, but were not adequately diagnosed or treated. There were a large number of possible causes, but poverty and malnutrition made any illness much worse, especially for young babies.
Maria’s health
Maria was not able to produce enough milk to feed her baby in 1874, there could be several reasons for this. She may have been undernourished herself due to poverty, and she may have become very depressed by her repeated bereavements, which could also stop her eating well. In addition, if a sickly baby does not suckle for a period of time this will lead to decreased milk supply. She may have had some untreated physical problem to do with her breasts. Maria would not have had the funds to pay for a wet nurse.
Depression would also explain her apparent insufficient care for her baby, although any sleep deprived person who has had to look after a baby that screams for hours will understand how difficult that can be. Later on her apparent ‘imbecility’ could have been caused by severe depression resulting in a withdrawal from society. Her cause of death at the age of 49, was apoplexy and paralysis.
Clare Spicer and Jill Trethewey 07/04/2025
References
Ancestry.co.uk – births, marriages, deaths and census records.
Friends of Wembdon Road Cemetery – burial records
British Newspaper Archive – digital images of the newspapers referred to below.
Bridgwater Heritage.com – information about West Street and Midwives article.
Role of Relieving Officers - https://www.workhouses.org.uk/admin/index.shtml#ro
[i] The very last child, Ann, was baptised at Holy Trinity Church, although her burial at Wembdon Road Cemetery was conducted by a minister from St Mary’s.
[ii] Bristol Times and Mirror 07 March 1874, West Somerset Free Press 07 March 1874
[iii] Taunton Courier 25 March 1874, Bristol Time and Mirror 25 March 1874
[iv] A relieving officer was part of the organisation of the Poor Law Union in Bridgwater. The Poor Law Union ran the workhouse and also managed outdoor relief for paupers who were not residing in the workhouse.
[v] Infant formula was invented in the 1860s, but was not widely used in the UK until the 1940s or 1950s. No one seems to have thought that Maria should have used it, and she probably would not have been able to afford it, even if it was available in Bridgwater at the time.
[vi] A similar case was reported immediately after Maria’s. A 16 year old mother was tried for neglecting her baby in the Frome Workhouse. As the girl apparently had a plentiful supply of milk, she was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to hard labour for three months. Taunton Courier 25 March 1874.