Amelia Dyer
The Victorian Baby Farmer Whose Trade Was Death
- 10 chapters
- 18m
- Serial Killers
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The audiobook follows Dyer's criminal activities through ten chapters covering her early life, background, and methods. Specific murders are documented including the death of Doris Marmon. Chapters describe how police discovered the bodies, the legal proceedings, and her eventual execution. The book also explores later developments and speculation connecting her to Jack the Ripper.
This detailed account of Victorian crime will appeal to readers interested in true crime history and the darker aspects of British social conditions during the 1800s.
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Amelia Elizabeth Hobley was born in the village of Pyle Marsh, near Bristol, as the fifth of six children. Her father was Samuel Hobley, a shoemaker, and her mother was Sarah Hobley, formerly Weymouth. She had three brothers—Thomas, James, and William—and two sisters named Sarah Ann. Her mother suffered from mental illness brought on by typhus, which caused violent fits. Amelia was required to care for her until her mother’s death. Historians later considered how this early experience might have shaped Amelia’s own mental health and her understanding of mental illness in others.
Amelia Hobley had two sisters named Sarah Ann, who both died young—one in 1841 at age six, and another in 1845, just a few months old. After their mother passed away in 1848, Amelia lived with an aunt in Bristol before becoming apprenticed to a corsetmaker. When their father died in 1859, his eldest son Thomas took over the family shoe business. In 1861, at twenty-four years old, Amelia became permanently estranged from at least one brother, James, and moved into lodging at Trinity Street in Bristol.
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While living in Bristol, Amelia Dyer married a man named George Thomas, who was 59 years old. On their marriage certificate, they both changed their ages to make the gap smaller—George took off eleven years from his age, and Amelia added six to hers. She trained as a nurse but had to stop after having a daughter. George died in 1869, leaving her without a steady income.
Amelia soon found a way to make money by taking in young women who had given birth out of wedlock, using her home to care for them and their babies. She advertised to nurse and adopt children, offering a large upfront payment and basic clothing for each child. In her dealings with clients, she claimed to be married and respectable, promising a safe and loving environment. Some of the babies were sent away for adoption, while others were left to die from neglect. This practice, known as baby farming, became her primary means of income.
In 1872, Amelia Dyer married William Dyer, who worked as a brewer's labourer in Bristol. The couple had two children together, but eventually, Amelia left her husband and went her own way.
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After some time working as a baby farmer, Amelia Dyer stopped relying on letting children die from neglect and hunger. Instead, she killed them quickly after taking them in, which let her keep most or all of the payment she was paid.
Amelia Dyer was arrested in 1879 after a doctor grew suspicious of the number of child deaths while she was caring for them. She wasn't convicted of murder, only sentenced to six months hard labor. After her release, she tried to restart her nursing career but was repeatedly admitted to asylums due to mental instability and suicidal thoughts—times when it suited her to "disappear." As a former asylum nurse, she knew how to act to ensure a comfortable stay. During this period, she began abusing alcohol and opium-based drugs, which may have worsened her mental state. In 1890, she took in the illegitimate baby of a governess. When the governess returned and checked for a birthmark, suspicion arose, leading Dyer to fake a breakdown. At one point, she drank two bottles of laudanum in a suicide attempt but survived due to her long-term tolerance.
After that incident, Dyer went back to her work as a baby farmer and murderer. She realized it was too risky having doctors sign off on the deaths, so she started burying the bodies herself. Her actions soon caught the attention of police and worried parents looking for their missing children. To stay ahead, she and her family moved often, hopping from town to town, trying to hide and start fresh. Over time, she used many different names to keep from being recognized.
In 1893, Amelia Dyer was released from the Somerset and Bath Lunatic Asylum after her final committal. Two years later, she relocated to Caversham with Jane "Granny" Smith, a woman she had drawn from a workhouse and who became her associate. Dyer also brought her daughter and son-in-law, Mary Ann and Arthur Palmer. Later that same year, she moved to 45 Kensington Road in Reading. To create a believable front, Dyer convinced Smith to pretend she was the mother when dealing with women who were giving up custody of their children to Dyer.
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In January 1896, Evelina Marmon, a 25-year-old unmarried barmaid in Cheltenham, gave birth to a daughter named Doris in a boarding house. She quickly sought adoption and placed an ad in the "Miscellaneous" section of the Bristol Times & Mirror newspaper that read: "Wanted, respectable woman to take a young child." Not far from her own ad was one from a "Mrs. Harding," offering a healthy child to a married couple with no family of their own, promising a nice country home and terms of £10. Marmon responded, and soon received a reply from Dyer. "Mrs. Harding" wrote: "I should be glad to have a dear baby girl, one I could bring up and call my own." She continued: "We are plain, homely people, in fairly good circumstances. I don't want a child for money's sake, but the company and home comfort... I and my husband are dearly fond of children. I have no child of my own. A child with me will have a good home and a mother's love."
Doris Marmon needed a cheaper, weekly payment plan for her baby’s care, but "Mrs. Harding" refused and demanded a full £10 upfront. With no other choice, Marmon agreed, even though she was struggling financially. A week later, the woman showed up in Cheltenham. Marmon gave her the baby, a box of clothes, and the money. Feeling heartbroken to hand over her child, Marmon walked with Dyer to the railway station in Cheltenham, then on to Gloucester, before heading back alone. Soon after, she got a note from "Mrs. Harding" saying everything was fine. She wrote back, but never heard anything again.
Amelia Dyer did not go to Reading as she had told Doris Marmon. Instead, she traveled to 76 Mayo Road in Willesden, London, where her daughter Polly was living. There, Dyer used white edging tape from dressmaking, wrapped it twice around the baby’s neck, and tied a knot. Death would not have been instant. Later, Dyer said: "I used to like to watch them with the tape around their neck, but it was soon all over with them."
The next day, Wednesday 1 April 1896, Harry Simmons was taken to Mayo Road. A second child had been lost, and the same method would be used to kill him. The white edging tape needed for the strangling was not available, so the length that had been used around Doris Marmon’s body was removed and reused. Both women were said to have helped wrap the first victim in a napkin. Some of the clothes Marmon had packed were kept, while the rest were taken to be sold at a pawnbroker.
On 2 April, Dyer placed both bodies into a carpet bag along with bricks to weigh them down. She then made her way to Reading and went to a spot near Caversham Lock where she was familiar with a weir. There, she pushed the carpetbag over the railings into the River Thames.
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Three days before the discovery, a bargeman pulled a package from the Thames in Reading. It had been dumped by Amelia Dyer and wasn’t weighted well enough to stay underwater. Inside was a baby girl’s body, later named Helena Fry. A label from Bristol Temple Meads railway station was found by Detective Constable Anderson of the Reading Borough Police. Microscopic study of the wrapping paper revealed a faintly legible name: “Mrs. Thomas,” along with an address.
The evidence pointed toward Dyer, but not clearly enough to tie her to a major crime. As more details came in from witnesses and Bristol police, Anderson and Sergeant James decided to watch her home. They believed she would run if she knew she was under suspicion. So they used a young woman as a fake client, hoping to catch Dyer in a conversation about her services.
On 3 April, Dyer expected a decoy client to visit, but instead found detectives waiting at her door. They entered to find a overwhelming stench of decay. Though no human remains were discovered, the house was filled with signs of her crimes: white tape used for binding, telegrams concerning placements, tickets from pawn shops for children’s garments, documents for ads she placed, and correspondence from mothers searching for their missing kids. Police later linked this evidence to a woman known as “Mrs. Thomas,” revealed to be Amelia Dyer.
Amelia Dyer was arrested on 4 April and charged with murder, with her son-in-law Arthur Palmer also charged as an accessory. That month, six more bodies were found after dredging the Thames, including the remains of Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons. Both had been strangled with white tape, which Dyer told police was how she knew the killings were hers. Eleven days after handing her daughter over to Dyer, Evelina Marmon identified her own daughter’s remains, a name that had surfaced in documents Dyer had kept.
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In early May, an inquest was held into the deaths, but there was no proof that Mary Ann or Arthur Palmer had helped Amelia Dyer. Arthur Palmer was let go after a confession written by Dyer herself. In Reading Gaol, she wrote (with her spelling and punctuation preserved):
Sir, I ask you to present this statement to the magistrates on Saturday the 18th instant. I have written it because I may not have that chance later. My time on earth grows short, yet I feel compelled to speak. I know I must answer before God for the crimes I’ve committed. As my judge in Heaven and on Earth, I solemnly declare that neither my daughter nor her husband had any part in this. They never knew I planned such a wicked act until it was too late. I tell the truth and nothing but the truth—may I be forgiven. I alone must stand before my Maker to answer for all of it. “Witness my hand Amelia Dyer.”
On 22 May 1896, Amelia Dyer stood in court at the Old Bailey, admitting to the murder of Doris Marmon. Testimony from her own family and friends revealed growing doubts about her behavior, while details emerged that she had avoided detection multiple times before. A key witness came forward—a man who had seen and spoke with Dyer after she dumped two bodies at Caversham Lock. Her daughter provided damning testimony, offering graphic details that sealed Dyer’s fate.
The only defence Amelia Dyer offered was that she was insane, claiming she had been twice committed to asylums in Bristol. But the prosecution argued otherwise, saying her displays of mental instability were just a trick to avoid suspicion. They pointed out both committals happened around times when Dyer feared her crimes might be discovered.
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Amelia Dyer was found guilty in just four and a half minutes by the jury. During her three weeks in the condemned cell, she wrote out a full confession in five exercise books. When a chaplain visited her the night before her execution and asked if she had anything more to confess, she handed him the books, saying, "Isn't this enough?" Curiously, she was called to testify in Polly's murder trial, scheduled for the week after Dyer's execution date. But since Dyer was already legally dead once sentenced, her testimony was ruled inadmissible, so her execution went ahead as planned. On the eve of her hanging, she learned that the charges against Polly had been dropped. Dyer was hanged by James Billington at Newgate Prison on Wednesday, 10 June 1896. Asked if she had anything to say on the scaffold, she replied, "I have nothing to say," before being dropped at 9:00 a.m. precisely.
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Inquiries made by mothers, along with testimony from other witnesses and items discovered in Amelia Dyer's residences—such as correspondence and numerous babies' garments—suggested that she was responsible for many more deaths than those officially recorded. The exact number of additional victims remains unknown, but the evidence gathered pointed clearly toward a much higher toll.
At the Old Bailey, the old baby farmer, the wretched Miss Dyer, stood trial. In times long ago, we'd 'a' made a big fy-er, and roasted so nicely that wicked old jade. The case drew attention across the land, a grim reminder of the trade that was death. Her wages were paid, not in gold or silver, but in infamy. The courtroom echoed with the weight of her crimes, and the public's disgust. This was no ordinary woman — she was a figure of Victorian horror, remembered for her dark dealings. The old baby farmer, Miss Dyer, had met her fate in that place where justice is served.
After Amelia Dyer was executed, adoption laws got stricter, and local authorities were given more power to watch over baby farms, hoping to stop the abuse. But even with these changes and increased attention from newspaper ads, the trafficking and mistreatment of infants continued. Two years later, in 1893, railway workers at Newton Abbot, Devon, found a parcel inside a carriage. Inside was a three-week-old girl who was still alive, though cold and wet. She had been given by a widow named Jane Hill to a woman called Mrs. Stewart for twelve pounds. Mrs. Stewart had picked up the baby in Plymouth and left her on the next train.
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Because Amelia Dyer was a murderer who lived during the time of the Jack the Ripper killings, some people have speculated that she might have been the infamous serial killer. This idea was raised by author William Stewart, though he actually favored another suspect named Mary Pearcey. There is no evidence linking Dyer to those murders, and she doesn’t appear as a major figure among the many suspects linked to Jack the Ripper.
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Overview
Baby farming was a practice in the Victorian era, when family structures changed because of industrialization. Single mothers and working-class parents couldn’t always care for their children and had no help from extended family. So, some unrelated people took in infants or young children in exchange for money. These arrangements could last a short time, like wet nursing, or go on longer, sometimes becoming permanent. The term "baby farming" was often used negatively. The practice wasn’t regulated, and baby farmers were driven by profit, taking on as many children as possible while spending as little as they could. In some cases, children died from neglect or were murdered, with deaths often hidden among high child mortality rates.
Description
In 18th-century Britain, middle-class families often used foster care, as Jane Austen and her siblings were fostered from infancy until toddlerhood, a practice that Claire Tomalin notes created emotional distance. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 made life harder for the poor, especially single mothers, who were forced into workhouses. By the late Victorian era, baby farming had become common in Britain, Australia, and the United States—accepting infants in exchange for payment, though the term itself was often an insult. Mothers, often stigmatized for illegitimacy, would place children with baby farmers, sometimes wealthier women too. Some farmers adopted many children and neglected or murdered them; Margaret Waters was executed in 1870, Amelia Dyer in 1896, and Annie Walters in 1903. The last British baby farmer executed was Rhoda Willis in 1907. In New Zealand, Minnie Dean was the only woman executed for baby farming. In Australia, Frances Knorr was executed in 1894, and John Makin in 1893. Scandinavians had a euphemism for this crime: änglamakerska or englemagerske, meaning “female angel maker.”
Decline
In 1870, an undercover investigation reported in The Times revealed that children were being murdered by baby farmers, with adoption often masking death. This led Parliament to pass the Infant Life Protection Act 1872. Later, in 1896, London coroner Athelstan Braxton Hicks testified before a Select Committee, citing cases like that of Mrs. Arnold, who was legally "sweating" infants one at a time. At another inquest, the jury said there had been gross neglect and urged further legislation, suggesting that care for one infant should be limited to five years, not just one, and that sub-farming should be illegal. The Infant Life Protection Act 1897 finally gave local authorities power to register nurses caring for more than one infant under five for over 48 hours. Over the next seventy years, further acts like the Children Act 1908 and the Adoption of Children (Regulation) Act 1939 brought adoption and foster care under state regulation.
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