They then had a boy born in whom they named Robert. When Mary Ann was about five, her family moved to the village of Murton, a rural agricultural hamlet in County Durham. Five years after the family moved to Murton, Robson died in a work accident in February It happened when he fell down a narrow foot mine shaft.
When Mary Ann was sixteen, she left home and became a nurse in the nearby village of South Hetton working for Edward Potter, a manager at Murton Colliery. She also trained as dressmaker. Then, in , at the age of 20, Mary Ann married a colliery pitman and laborer named William Mowbray.
They then moved to South West England and had six children. The birth of a daughter named Margaret Jane was recorded but none of the deaths of the other children she bore were registered even though it was required at the time. Mary then had two more daughters and a son.
Her husband died in January of from an intestinal disorder in Sunderland. She had also insured the lives of her children and had collected some money for those deaths too.
There she had a relationship with Joseph Nattrass. However, she eventually returned to Sunderland and met and married her second husband George Ward in August He was an engineer at the Sutherland Infirmary. County Durham in North East England. Courtesy of Wikipedia. Ward then died on 20 October after suffering several months of illness characterized by paralysis and intestinal problems.
The coroner recorded the cause of death as English cholera and typhoid. He then got her pregnant. Their first child was a girl named Margaret Isabella. She was born in November but became ill and died in February Their second child George was born on 18 June After their marriage, Mary Ann began to insist that Robinson get life insurance.
In addition, he learned she had been forcing his older children to pawn household valuables. Despite having been released from the Infirmary, George Ward developed health problems soon after marrying Mary Ann — and despite various treatments by his doctors, he died in October of after a long bout of paralysis in his limbs and chronic stomach problems. The doctor attending George was accused of incorrectly treating his patient, a point of view that Mary Ann actively encouraged, probably hoping to redirect any doubts away from herself.
But as Mary Ann had different doctors attend to her dying family and she relocated frequently, suspicions never built in a single community. Pallion shipwright James Robinson needed a housekeeper to care for his house and children after the death of his wife, Hannah. In November of , Mary Ann applied for the position and was hired. Two days before Christmas, the baby of the family was interred after having developed, perhaps not surprisingly, gastric fever.
Overcome with the grief of the recent deaths of his wife and then of his infant son, James turned to Mary Ann for solace and support.
She provided comfort and apparently then some, as she was soon pregnant with Robinson's child. A new marriage seemed in the forecast, but Mary Ann was diverted in March of by a sudden illness of her mother.
By the time Mary Ann arrived, however, her mother was doing much better, but Mary Ann decided to stay and look after her anyway — and to visit her own daughter Isabella, who was still living with her grandmother.
He put his mourning aside in time for his wedding to Mary Ann in early August at which Mary Ann stated her surname as "Mowbray" -- apparently her month marriage to George Ward had slipped her mind. The couple's first child, Mary Isabella, was born in late November but had succumbed to illness by the first of March of James now began to become suspicious of his new wife, not only by the frequency of deaths in the household since Mary Ann's arrival, but also by her constant requests for money and her pressing desire for him to insure his life.
Always punctual in his household finances, James was surprised when he received letters from his building society and his brother-in-law detailing debts Mary Ann had run up without his knowledge. He questioned his remaining children and found that they had been coerced by their new stepmother to pawn valuables from the house and give her the money. Irate, he threw Mary Ann out of the house, and she left — taking their young daughter with her.
In late , after wandering the streets in the kind of life that Mary Ann had anxiously feared, Mary Ann and her daughter visited an acquaintance. During the course of the visit, Mary Ann asked her friend to watch the girl while she went out to mail a letter.
Mary Ann never came back and the daughter was returned to James on the first day of After weeks of desperate living, the year began well for Mary Ann. Her friend Margaret Cotton introduced her to her brother Frederick.
Like James Robinson, Frederick was a recent widower and had lost two of his four children to early deaths. His sons Frederick Jr. His sister acted as mother substitute for the family, although in late March she died from an undetermined stomach ailment — which left the opportunity wide open for Mary Ann to console the grieving Frederick and, in an echo of her relationship with James Robinson, she was soon pregnant with Frederick's child.
Mary Ann added bigamy to her growing list of crimes. After giving birth to a son, Robert, in early , Mary Ann learned that her former paramour Joseph Nattrass was not married and was living in nearby West Aukland. Under some pretense Mary Ann moved the family there, and she quickly rekindled the relationship with Nattrass and became less interested in Frederick Cotton. To keep her fears at bay and to keep money coming in, Mary Ann worked as a nurse to John Quick-Manning, an excise officer recovering from smallpox.
Mary Ann apparently saw Quick-Manning as a better match than Nattrass, and soon became pregnant by him. A marriage to Quick-Manning was hindered by the presence of the remaining Cotton household, so Mary Ann apparently went to work quickly and Frederick Jr.
Upon the death of her infant, Mary Ann stated that she did not want to bury the baby immediately, because Joseph Nattrass had also become ill with gastric fever, and she would wait and handle both burials at once. Nattrass obligingly passed away soon after Robert, but not before revising his will to leave everything to Mary Ann.
Only one of her husbands, James Robinson, had escaped a relationship with Mary Ann with his life. The Trial of the Green Wallpaper.
In late spring of , Mary Ann sent Charles to a local chemist to purchase a small quantity of arsenic. The chemist refused to sell the poison to anyone under the age of 21, as was the law. Undeterred, Mary Ann asked a neighbor to purchase the substance and in July Charles died of gastric fever. But Mary Ann had either been in the West Aukland area too long — or the neighbors were more readily skeptical — because suspicions were immediately aroused in neighbors and physicians. Riley had said that it would only be possible if she went with him, which she declined.
Riley went to the village police office and to a doctor and outlined his growing suspicions. The doctor was similarly surprised to hear of the news, as he and his assistant had tended to Charles five times during the previous week and had detected nothing dire, let alone life threatening, in the young boy. Riley convinced the doctor to delay writing a death certificate until he could look into the situation further.
She learned that they would not issue the money until they had a death certificate, so she returned home to get the document from the doctor. Instead of receiving the certificate, Mary Ann received the startling news that she would not be receiving a signed death certificate until after a formal inquest was held. A brief inquest was held and initial evidence did not indicate death by unnatural causes. They reported on the inquest but also alluded to the neighborhood gossip that Mary Ann was an active poisoner.
These reports fanned the fires of rumors and hearsay and the feeling toward Mary Ann within West Aukland became bitter and suspicious. Quick-Manning was appalled by this type of gossip about his intended, and was apparently distressed enough to sever all connections with Mary Ann. Mary Ann began preparations to leave the area, although her friends warned her that it would look suspicious if she did.
Unknown to her, however, suspicions were already building and were about to close in around her. He did so, and the samples tested positive for arsenic. There was debate and talk of further exhumations, but it was decided to proceed with the single murder charge of young Charles Cotton — although the trial was delayed until after the delivery of the daughter fathered by John Quick-Manning. Her trial began in March of The prosecution brought forth numerous witnesses who testified about Mary Ann's purchases of arsenic, the long list of gastric fever victims in her past, and about her statements regarding Charles being an obstacle to her marrying Quick-Manning.
The defense claimed that Charles may have obtained the arsenic that killed him from inhaling loose airborne particles of arsenic that was used as a dye in the green wallpaper of the Cotton home. The judge dismissed this theory and the jury retired for only 90 minutes before finding Mary Ann guilty of the murder of Charles Cotton. Mary Ann continued to proclaim her innocence and wrote numerous letters to her friends and supporters.
A letter to her estranged husband, James Robinson, asked him to bring her child and two stepchildren to visit her in prison. I must tell you: you are the cause of all my trouble. If you had not abandoned me. I was left to wander the streets with my baby in my arms…no place to lay my head.
Robinson ignored her letter, so she wrote him again and asked him to visit her. Robinson sent his brother-in-law to the prison in his stead. Mary Ann was upset that Robinson did not come himself, but asked the man about the children and requested that a petition be circulated in her support. As her execution date neared, she was cheered by a letter from the couple who had adopted the infant she and Quick-Manning had conceived. On March 24, , Mary Ann was led to the scaffold where the elderly hangman misjudged the logistics of the execution — so instead of dying quickly, Mary Ann struggled after the trapdoor was released, and it took at least three minutes for her to be slowly and painfully strangled by the noose.
Chances are, some of Mary Ann's alleged victims died from natural causes or reasons other than poisoning by her hands. Because she maintained her innocence to the end, it will never be known for sure how many victims Mary Ann claimed in her endless quest for the money that made her feel secure.
Her notoriety continues with her fame as Britain's first female serial killer and in a popular children's rhyme:. Mary Ann Cotton -- She's dead and she's rotten! Murderpedia Juan Ignacio Blanco. In spite of the fact that she maintained her innocence to the end, her reputation as the first female serial killer in Britain stands, and her story is the subject of a children's rhyme: Mary Ann Cotton — She's dead and she's rotten!
Death of Charles Edward Cotton and inquest Mary Ann's downfall came when she was asked by a parish official, Thomas Riley, to help nurse a woman who was ill with smallpox. Arrest Rumour turned to suspicion and forensic inquiry. Trial and execution Mary Ann Cotton's trial began on 5 March Nursery rhyme Mary Ann Cotton also had her own nursery rhyme of the same title, sung after her hanging on March 24, Mowbray Perhaps partly to escape the daily life with her stepfather, Mary Ann left home at the age of 16 to work as a servant in a prosperous household in South Hetton.
Ward Soon after William Mowbray's death, Mary Ann moved her remaining children to Seaham Harbour, where she struck up a relationship with Joseph Nattrass, a local man who was engaged to another woman. Robinson Pallion shipwright James Robinson needed a housekeeper to care for his house and children after the death of his wife, Hannah.
Cotton After weeks of desperate living, the year began well for Mary Ann. The Trial of the Green Wallpaper In late spring of , Mary Ann sent Charles to a local chemist to purchase a small quantity of arsenic.
Her notoriety continues with her fame as Britain's first female serial killer and in a popular children's rhyme: Mary Ann Cotton -- She's dead and she's rotten!
Juan Ignacio Blanco. MALE murderers. Born Mary Ann Robson. Classification: Serial killer. Characteristics: Poisoner - To collect insurance money. Date of murder: - Date of arrest: Date of birth: October 1, CMC Crypto 1, FTSE 7, Read full article. Ross McGuinness. January 13, , a. Harold Shipman is the UK's most prolific serial killer.
It is thought serial killer Harold Shipman murdered as many as people. Getty Images. Peter Sutcliffe, dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, murdered 13 women and attempted to murder another seven. Serial killer Dennis Nilsen right in a prison van.
Story continues. Fred West murdered at least 12 women. Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interests and passions. In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article commenting.
Latest Stories. Yahoo News Singapore. In December of shortly after the family moved to West Auckland, Frederick Cotton died from gastric fever. As with all her previous husbands, Mary Ann had taken out life insurance on Frederick Cotton with her as the sole beneficiary.
Whatever his name once head recovered Mary Ann began an affair with him and quickly became pregnant with her thirteenth child. The same month Joseph Nattress revised his will leaving everything to Mary Ann, shortly afterwards he also died from gastric fever. Mary Ann collected life insurance payouts on all three of them. This left a pregnant Mary Ann with the problem of her stepson Charles, his life was insured but he was still alive.
Mary Ann tried to send Charles to the workhouse so that she would not have to care for him but the parish authorities told her she would join him at the workhouse, which obviously Mary Ann did not want to do, because nobody ever wanted to go to the workhouse, it was the very last resort. But the cause of death was concluded once again to be gastric fever and thus natural causes. The boy was buried and Mary Ann collected the insurance money. The defence argued that Charles had died after inhaling arsenic in the wallpaper of the family home, as arsenic was literally found in everything during the Victorian times.
She was sentenced to death by hanging. Mary Ann Cotton was hanged at Durham Gaol on March 24 but she died, not from her neck breaking, but by strangulation caused by the rope being rigged too short, possibly deliberately. She was 41 years old at the time of her death. Because Mary Ann maintained her innocence right up until the end there are no records of how many people fell victim to her, and she was only actually convicted of the one murder.
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