Famous & INFAMOUS People of Victorian

England By: Laura Cavenaugh, Casey Parker, Kaitlyn Luke, & Payton Parker

The Black WidowJack the RipperQueen VictoriaPrince Albert

People Researched

The Black Widow♠ Mary Ann Cotton is the more common

name of one of the most famous (if not THE most famous) black widows of the Victorian Era.

♠ She used Arsenic to poison 3 of her 4 husbands, and about a dozen of her own children.

♠ She killed people who got in her way, or for life insurance money; and is said to have had as many as 21 victims.

Early Life of The Black Widow

♠ Mary Ann was born in the poor mining village of Sunderland, UK in October 1832.

♠ Mary Ann was raised by a severely strict and religious father (as well as her mother).

♠ Her father died from falling down a mining shaft when she was eight, and afterwards she could never get on with her mother’s new husband.

The Black Widow’s Husbands and Children♠ Mary Ann Cotton had 4

husbands: William Mowbray, George Ward, James Robinson, and Frederick Cotton.

♠ Mary Ann also had a total of twelve children.

Black Widow’s Husbands #1 & 2♠ Mary Ann married a local collier, William

Mowbray, at age 20 in 1852.♠ She and William had 8 children together.♠ William and 7 of their 8 children were dead

apparently of “gastric fever” by January of 1865. ♠ She collected William’s 35 pounds in life insurance

money (the same amount as six month’s wages) and sent her only child left, Isabella, to live with her mother.

♠ Mary Ann then went back to Sunderland to work at the Infirmary, where she ended up marrying one of her patients, George Ward.

♠ George was dead by 1866, after a long illness involving paralysis and intestinal problems. His life insurance check was also cashed in soon after his death.

♠ After George’s death, Mary Ann became housekeeper for James Robinson, a widower.

Black Widow’s Husbands #3 & 4 ♠ Robinson’s baby died of gastric fever soon after Mary Ann moved in

and he must have sought comfort from his housekeeper because she soon became pregnant.

♠ Mary Ann killed her mother during this time, as well as her only surviving daughter, Isabella, and two of James’ previous children (all dead by April of 1876).

♠ James then married Mary Ann and their baby girl, Mary Isabella, was born. The baby died from stomach pains in March 1868.

♠ James soon became suspicious though, because of the high mortality rate in his household and Mary Ann kept bugging him to get life insurance. He discovered that she had been forcing his children to take valuable items and pawn them, as well as stolen 50 pounds from him. So, he kicked her out onto the streets.

♠ While living on the streets, Mary Ann’s friend, Margaret Cotton, introduced her to her brother, Frederick Cotton. After Margaret died from a mysterious stomach problem, Mary Ann bigamously married Frederick (as she was still married to James Robinson).

♠ Frederick and Mary Ann Cotton’s baby boy, Robert, was born in 1871, but his father died soon afterwards. Mary Ann then collected the handsome insurance payout.

The Fate of Mary Ann Cotton♠ When asked to nurse a sick woman, by Thomas Riley, a parish official

who also happened to be the assistant coroner, Mary Ann asked if Frederick’s surviving son, Charles, might go into the workhouse. When Riley said that she would have to accompany him she said that he was ill and would soon “go like all the rest of the Cottons.” Riley was shocked when five days later, the seemingly healthy Charles died. He went to the police and an inquest was held. The jury returned a verdict of natural causes and Mary Ann protested that Riley had made the accusations because she had rejected his sexual advances. 

♠ But the local newspapers soon discovered that Mary Ann had moved around northern England, losing three husbands, a friend, her mother, and a dozen children to ‘stomach fevers’ along the way. No one had cottoned on to the connection between Mrs. Mowbray, Mrs. Ward, Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Cotton before. Charles’ body tested positive for arsenic. Mary was charged with murder, although the trial was delayed until she gave birth to Quick-Manning’s child in March 1873.

♠ At the trial Mary Ann claimed that Charles had sickened after inhaling the arsenic contained in the green dye in the wallpaper of the Cotton home. But the huge stack of corpses in her past made a guilty verdict inevitable. Mary Ann was hanged at Durham County gaol on 24 March, 1873, and died a slow choking death, as the hangman misjudged the drop. Two sons, Robert and John, survived her.

Jack the Ripper• Jack the Ripper is one of the most famous serial killers

ever recorded. He has escaped at least six charges of murder, never leaving a trace on his identity.

• The women murdered by Ripper were known in police records as the ‘canonical five’, and were filed in the 8 month case of the ‘Whitechapel Murders’ of Whitechapel, England.

• Ripper was accused of more than just five murders. Files have shown that Ripper may have actually killed, or taken partial play in the killing of Emma Smith, who was attacked by a group of three men on April 2nd, 1888, and died of her injuries the day after her attack.

• Jack the Ripper wasn’t originally called “Jack the Ripper.” He was first known as the ‘Leather Apron’, a man known by the prostitutes who would extort the women of their money. No clear description was ever given of him.

• Famous people of the time were accused of being Ripper. Few examples were Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, Prince Albert Victor, or even ‘Jill the Ripper’, a serial killing woman that dressed as a midwife.

Elizabeth Stride

Annie Chapman

Catherine Eddowes

Mary Ann Nichols

Mary Jane Kelly

Mary Ann

Nichols • Mary Ann Nichols was Ripper’s first known

murder. • She was found at 3:40 am, in Whitechapel,

England.• Her neck and abdomen had been cut open,

which led to the killer’s title of ‘Jack the Ripper’. • Due to clean cuts and little blood at the scene,

investigators believe Ripper was possibly a doctor or was educated in anatomical or surgical studies.

Annie Chapman

• Found at 5:30 am, just about an hour after her death. • Found in a backyard along 29 Hanbury Street. • Her throat had been slit with a knife at about 6

inches in length, and her body was mutilated. • She had been fully disemboweled. • Had a handkerchief tied around her neck. • According to autopsies, Chapman hadn’t been killed

at the scene, but was drug there after death and cut multiple times.

• Being in a local yard, it was a surprise to people when they hadn’t heard a sound, and hadn’t seen anything suspicious in Chapman’s final hours.

Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes • Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were both murdered

within the same hour, which scared the public when the murders were reported. Both women were found early in the morning on September 30th.

• Eddowes had her skirts pulled up, her neck cleanly slit and, like others, had a handkerchief tied around her neck. Her abdomen had been cut open, half her kidney and her earlobe removed. Neither body parts were found at or near the scene, officials believing Ripper kept them as ‘souvenirs’ of his kill.

• Stride was found outside a small bar in Mitre Square, London. Her neck was cut deeply, her body still warm but unresponsive when found. She as well had a handkerchief on. Autopsies proved that she was found barely moments after death, but the killer hadn’t left a trace or a sound, no one lurking at or around the scene. Like Chapman, no one had heard any commotion with either case.

Mary Jane Kelly

• Mary Jane Kelly was Ripper’s last certain victim. • She was found on November 9th, 1888 at 10:45 am. • By far her murder was the most vicious and grotesque. • Kelly’s facial features, such as the cheeks, nose, ears,

and mouth, were cut off. Her chest, arms, and legs were mutilated, and her right arm was almost completely severed off. Her stomach had been cut open multiple times, and her neck was sliced down to the bone.

• Many believed Ripper hadn’t committed the murder due to the clean scene’s involved with the other four, much differing with the savage case involving Kelly.

Victoria’s Early Years Queen Victoria was the daughter of Edward, the Duke of

Kent and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg. She was born in Kensington Palace on in London on May

24th, 1819. Edward died when Victoria was only eight months old, upon

which her mother made a strict way of life which shunned the courts of Victoria’s uncles George IV and William IV.

In 1873 Victoria took the throne after the death of her uncle William IV.

Due to her secluded childhood, she displayed a personality marked by strong prejudices and a willful stubbornness.

Barely eighteen, she refused any further influence from her domineering mother and ruled in her own way.

By this time popular respect for the Crown was at a low point at her coronation, but she was modest and straightforward young queen and therefore won over the hearts of her subjects.

Shortly After Taking the Throne She wished to be informed of political matters, although

she had no direct input in policy decisions. The reform act of 1832 had set the standard of legislative

authority residing in the in the House of Lords, with executive authority resting within a cabinet formed of members of the House of Commons; the monarch was essentially removed from the loop.

She respected and worked well with Lord Melbourne (Prime Minister in her early years of reign) and England grew both socially and economically.

Feb 10th, 1840, only three years after taking the throne, Victoria took her first vow and married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Their relationship was one of great love and admiration, and together they had nine children- four sons and five daughters: Victoria, Bertie, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold, and Beatrice.

Prince Albert’s Influence Prince Albert replaced Melbourne as the dominant male

influence in Victoria’s life. She was thoroughly devoted to him, and completely submitted

to his will, therefore Victoria did nothing without his approval. Albert assisted in her royal duties, and introduced a strict order

in court and made a point of strict behavior. If she was to insistently interject her opinion and make her

views felt in the cabinet, it was only because of Albert’s teachings of hard work.

The general public was not fond of Prince Albert; he was excluded from holding any official political position, was never granted a title or peerage and was named Prince Consort after only 17 years of marriage.

His interests in art, science, and industry, urged him to organize the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, a highly profitable industrial convention, and he used the proceeds to purchase lands in Kensington for the establishment of several culture and industrial museums.

Prince Albert’s Effects on Victoria Reflecting back into her childhood, Victoria was always prone

to self-pity. On Dec. 14th 1861 Albert died from a typhoid fever at

Windsor Castle, and Victoria remained in self imposed seclusion for years.

This genuine, but obsessive mourning kept her occupied for the rest of her life.

Her mourning played an important role in the evolution of what would become the Victorian mentality.

The national pride connected with name Victoria - the term Victorian England, for example, stemmed from the Queen’s ethics and personal tastes, which generally reflected those of the middle class.

Early Life of Prince Albert• Francis Augustus Charles

Albert Emmanuel was born on the 26th of August, 1819.

• His parents’ names were Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Louise, daughter of Duke Augustus or Saxe-Coburg-Altenburg.

• When Albert was seven years old, his father divorced his mother because of rumors spread about Louise sleeping with other men.

• As a child, Albert excelled in gymnastics, piano, and fencing.

Prince Albert’s Adulthood• Albert studied to become

a lawyer at Bonn University and worked part-time as an innovator.

• In 1836, Queen Victoria’s uncle, Leopold of Belgium, thought Victoria should have a loving husband. Shortly after, Victoria met Albert and both fell in love.

• Victoria proposed to Albert and was married on the 28th of June, 1840. Albert was 20 and Victoria was 21.

Prince Albert Consort• Before Albert became Prince Albert

Consort, he was more of a servant to Victoria than a husband. But they still loved each other.

• In 1857, Albert gained the name Prince Consort. Victoria rejoiced and celebrated with her husband and the kingdom.

• Prince Albert had nine children- Victoria, Edward VII, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold, and Beatrice.

Prince Albert Consort (Cont.)

• In 1859, Albert began to experience stomach cramps. In the autumn of 1860, Albert was riding to Windsor on horse and buggy when all of a sudden, one of his horses got spooked. The horses bolted and collided into each other, causing the carriage to fall and one of the horses to die. He traveled back Windsor to tell his brother and oldest daughter that his time had come to die.

Albert’s Death

• Although Albert was sick, he did most of the work Victoria had to do. The Queen was full of grief and misery, finding out her husband was to die soon.

• On the 9th of December, 1861, Albert was diagnosed with typhoid fever. It did not drop and unfortunately became worse.

• Prince Albert Consort died at 10:50pm in the Blue Room in Windsor Castle on the 14th of December, 1861.

Credits• www.google.com/prince_albert_images

• www.ask.com/prince_albert• www.victoriantimes.com

• www.bbc.co.uk/history/historie_figures/albert_prince.shtm• http://us.macmillan.com/thelifeoftheprinceconsort/TheodoreMartin•http://www.serialkillerscentral.com/female-serial-killers/mary-ann-cotton•http://writingwomenshistory.blogspot.com/2010/08/mary-ann-cotton-black-widow-poisoner.html