Mary Ann Cotton

Mary Ann Cotton
Cotton, c. 1870
Born	Mary Ann Robson 31 October 1832 Low Moorsley, Sunderland, County Durham, England
Died	24 March 1873(1873-03-24) (aged 40) Durham Gaol, England
Cause of death	Hanging
Occupation(s)	Dressmaker, Nurse, Housekeeper
Criminal penalty	Death by hanging
Details
Victims	21
Country	England
Weapons	Arsenic
Date apprehended	1873

Mary Ann Cotton (born Mary Ann Robson; 31 October 1832 – 24 March 1873) was an English murderer, convicted and hanged for killing three of her four husbands, apparently in order to collect on their insurance policies. She may have had as many as 21 victims, including eleven of her thirteen children. She chiefly used arsenic poisoning, which caused severe gastric pain and rapid decline of health.

Early life

Mary Ann Robson was born on 31 October 1832 at Low Moorsley (now part of Houghton-le-Spring in the City of Sunderland), to Michael Robson and Margaret, née Londsale, and baptised at St Mary's, West Rainton on 11 November.

When Mary Ann was eight, her parents moved the family to the County Durham village of Murton, where she went to a new school and found it difficult to make friends. Soon after the move her father fell 150 feet (46 m) to his death down a mine shaft at Murton Colliery.

In 1843, Mary Ann's widowed mother married George Stott, with whom Mary Ann did not get along. At the age of 16, she moved out to become a nurse at Edward Potter's home in the nearby village of South Hetton. After three years there, she returned to her mother's home and trained as a dressmaker.

Husband 1: William Mowbray

In 1852, at the age of 20, Mary Ann married colliery labourer William Mowbray in Newcastle Upon Tyne register office; they soon moved to Plymouth, Devon. The couple had five children, four of whom died from gastric fever. William and Mary Ann moved back to North East England where they had, and lost, three more children. William became a foreman at South Hetton Colliery and then a fireman aboard a steam vessel. He died of an intestinal disorder in January 1865. William's life was insured by the British and Prudential Insurance office and Mary Ann collected a payout of £35 on his death, equivalent to about half a year's wages for a manual labourer at the time.

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 3½-year-old daughter died, leaving her with one child out of the 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 remaining child, Isabella, to live with her mother.

One of her patients at the infirmary was an engineer, George Ward. They married at St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth on 28 August 1865. He continued to suffer ill health and died on 20 October 1866 after a long illness characterised by paralysis and intestinal problems. The attending doctor later gave evidence that Ward had been very ill, yet he had been surprised that the man's death was so sudden. Once again, Mary Ann collected insurance money from her husband's death.

Husband 3: James Robinson

James Robinson was a shipwright at Pallion, Sunderland, whose wife, Hannah, had recently died. He hired Mary Ann as a housekeeper in November 1866. A month later, when James' baby, John, died of gastric fever, he turned to his housekeeper for comfort and she became pregnant. Then Mary Ann's mother, living in Seaham Harbour, County Durham, became ill so she immediately went to her. Although her mother began to recover, she also began to complain of stomach pains. She died at age 54 in the spring of 1867, nine days after Mary Ann's arrival.

Mary Ann's daughter Isabella, from the marriage to William Mowbray, was brought back to the Robinson household and soon developed severe stomach pains and died, as did Robinson's two other children, Elizabeth and James. All three children were buried in the last two weeks of April 1867.

Robinson married Mary Ann at St Michael's, Bishopwearmouth on 11 August 1867. Their first child, Margaret Isabella, was born that November, but she became ill and died in March 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 was supposed to have put in the bank. The last straw was when he found she had been forcing his older children to pawn household valuables for her. He threw Mary Ann out, retaining custody of their son George.

"Husband" 4: Frederick Cotton

Mary Ann was desperate and living on the streets. Then 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 Margaret died from an undetermined stomach ailment, leaving Mary Ann to console the grieving Frederick Sr. Soon her eleventh pregnancy was underway.

Frederick and Mary Ann were bigamously married on 17 September 1870 at St Andrew's, Newcastle Upon Tyne and their son Robert was born early in 1871. Soon after, Mary Ann learnt that her former lover, Joseph Nattrass, was living 30 miles away in the County Durham village of West Auckland, and no longer married. She rekindled the romance and persuaded her new family to move near him. Frederick followed his predecessors to the grave in December of that year, from "gastric fever." Insurance had been taken out on his life and the lives of his sons.

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, John Quick-Manning. Soon she became pregnant by him with her twelfth child. It may well be that the name of the excise man was in fact Richard Quick Mann. There appears to be no trace of 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. Richard Quick Mann was a custom and excise man specialising in breweries and has been found in the records and this may indeed be the real name of Mary Ann Cotton's alleged lover.

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 Charles' life still awaited collection.

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. 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 would have 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 convinced the doctor to delay writing a death certificate until the circumstances could be investigated.

Mary Ann’s first port of call after Charles' death was not the doctor’s 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 a dozen children, all of whom had died of stomach fevers.

Arrest

Rumour turned to suspicion and forensic inquiry. The doctor who attended Charles had kept samples, and they tested positive for arsenic. He went to the police, who arrested Mary Ann and ordered the exhumation of Charles' body. She was charged with his murder, although the trial was delayed until after the delivery of her thirteenth and final child in Durham Gaol on 10 January 1873, whom she named Margaret Edith Quick-Manning Cotton.

Trial and execution

Mary Ann Cotton's trial began on 5 March 1873. The delay was caused by a problem in the selection of the public prosecutor. A Mr. Aspinwall was supposed to get the job, but the Attorney General, Sir John Duke Coleridge, chose his friend and protégé Charles Russell. Russell's appointment over Aspinwall led to a question in the House of Commons. However, it was accepted, and Russell conducted the prosecution. The Cotton case would be the first of several famous poisoning cases he would be involved in during his career, including those of Adelaide Bartlett and Florence Maybrick.

The defence in the case was handled by Mr. 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, in the chemist's shop, there was no other powder, only liquid, on the same shelf as the arsenic; the chemist himself, however, claimed that there were other powders. Campbell Foster argued that it was possible that the chemist had mistaken the arsenic powder for bismuth powder (used to treat diarrhoea), when preparing a bottle for Cotton, because he had been distracted by talking to other people. 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 ultimately died, not from her neck breaking, but by strangulation caused by the rope being rigged too short, possibly deliberately.

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

Theoretical explanation

Cotton's murders are most accurately classified as "Black Widow" murders, a classification which "applies exclusively to women who kill mates, generally for profit." This is appropriate as Cotton killed her husbands for monetary gain, sometimes after insisting that they take out life insurance. Cotton was not driven by emotion or lust, but only by monetary purposes. Unlike many male serial killers, who are frequently driven by sexual lust, female serial murderers tend to take a much more pragmatic approach to their killings. Cottons husbands, with the exception of one, were all in regular employment when they died and so their accumulated wages would have been worth more than the single insurance payment.

TV drama

In 2015, ITV began filming a two-part TV drama, Dark Angel, starring Joanne Froggatt of Downton Abbey fame as Cotton. The series also features Alun Armstrong, Jonas Armstrong and Emma Fielding. The first part of the dramatisation is to be shown on ITV on 31 October 2016.

Musical legacy

Cotton also had her own nursery rhyme of the same title, sung after her hanging on 24 March 1873.

Mary Ann Cotton, she's dead and she's rotten
Lying in bed with her eyes wide open.
Sing, sing, oh what should I sing?
Mary Ann Cotton, she's tied up with string.
Where, where? Up in the air.
Selling black puddings, a penny a pair.

Mary Ann Cotton, she's dead and forgotten,
Lying in bed with her bones all rotten.
Sing, sing, what can I sing?
Mary Ann Cotton, tied up with string.

Other music

• Hardnoise recorded "Serve Tea, then Murder" (1991) as a reference to Mary Ann Cotton, as DJ AJ described in a 2014 interview.
• Macabre released a song about Mary Ann Cotton, called "Mary Ann" on their Grim Scary Tales (2011) album.
• The Raveness, an English performance poet from Warwickshire,composed a spoken word piece entitled "Of rope and arsenic" about Cotton and featured the nursery rhyme in her debut extended play "The Raveness" (2003). The piece was also published in her debut poetry anthology Lavinia : Volume One (2006) - ISBN 9781502313966
• Dead Milkmen released a song about Mary Ann Cotton, called "Mary Ann Cotton (The Poisoner's Song" on their Pretty Music for Pretty People (2014) album.
• In July 2008 Martin Bowes, of the band Attrition, issued an album entitled All Mine Enemys Whispers - The story of Mary Ann Cotton.

Bibliography

• Appleton, Arthur: Mary Ann Cotton: Her Story and Trial (London: Michael Joseph, 1973). ISBN 0-7181-1184-2
• The Times, contemporary reports, 1872–3
• Flanders, Judith (2011) The Invention of Murder (London: Harper Ress) ISBN 978-0-00-724888-9
• Connolly, Martin: "Mary Ann Cotton – The North Eastern Borgia?" (West Auckland, Oakleaf Publishing 2012) ISBN 9780957465107