Two things proved deadly back in Victorian England: the wallpaper, and a woman who only wanted men for their life insurance. In this two-part series, come with me as I explore the life, crimes and bizarre debate surrounding Britain’s prolific female serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton.
Victorian wallpaper held a unique eloquence in its floral designs and bright hues of green and yellows and neutrals. Yet the colours and vibrant patterns adorning the walls of homes all over England in the 1800s were also deadly to the families who lived there. The colours contained a fatal amount of arsenic. This also became a focal point in the murder trial of Mary Ann Cotton in 1873. Mary Ann is believed to have killed 21 people; husbands, children and her own mother. Today, let’s explore the timeline of Mary Ann Cotton’s life. Next week’s post will discuss her psychology and the plausibility of the arsenic wallpaper controversy.
October 31, 1832 - She was born as Mary Ann Robson in Durham County, England to Margaret and Michael Robson. This was an area known for coal mining, treacherous working conditions, restless and unhappy workers, poverty, alcoholism and ill-health. Gastric fever and cholera rampantly took lives while the men worked in dreadful conditions beneath greedy coal mine owners. Michael Robson, Mary Ann’s father, was one such miner. It would have been somewhere here where Mary Ann’s perception of the world would have been rooted; resentment against poverty, a need for a better life and watching the tragedies and adversities taking place before her.
Mary Ann Cotton
Copyright: Credit: ART Collection / Alamy Stock Photo
July 28, 1834 – Mary Ann’s sister, Margaret was born, though she only lived for a few months.
October 5, 1835 – Mary Ann’s brother Robert was born.
February 1842 - Michael Robson died on the job, leaving his wife, Margaret, with two kids, facing eviction from the family home, and a loss of income. Margaret remarried another miner in 1843, George Stott, with whom Mary Ann apparently didn’t get along with. Keep in mind, this was an era where women had few opportunities to maintain their independence, and marriage was often the only way to keep an income and roof over a woman’s head, especially if she had children.
At 16, Mary Ann left home to work as an under-nurse for Edward Potter, a viewer in the mines, who knew her father. There is no report of anyone being harmed when Mary Ann was working for the family. In 1851, When the Potter kids went to boarding school, her post with the family ended. She returned to her stepfather’s house and found work as an apprentice dressmaker.
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July 18, 1852 – Mary Ann married William Mowbray, who was 26 at the time. She was 19, and pregnant. She went on to have two more children: one in 1856 and then in 1858. It isn’t known exactly how many children she had with him, since records were sporadic and not well kept and they moved frequently. This lack of records leaves holes in this era of her life. It is speculated that she had eight or nine children with Mowbray. They finally settled in Durham County in 1856. William took out a life insurance policy on himself and the three surviving children. Gastric fever took William’s life in 1864, and then the lives of two of the children. Mary Ann took the life insurance payout, left her daughter with her mother, and moved on to Sunderland to work as a nurse.
1865 – Mary Ann married George Ward, one of her patients. He died the following year, and Mary Ann collected the life insurance.
1866 - She began working for James Robinson as a housekeeper. He was a widower with five kids. Within weeks of Mary Ann starting her employment with him, one of his kids died of gastric fever. According to Martin Connolly’s book, “Mary Ann Cotton, Dark Angel”, Robinson’s young son had been sick prior to Mary Ann’s arrival. Medical records indicate that the baby, John, died of natural causes. This death isn’t attributed to Mary Ann.
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1867 - Mary Ann visited her mother and daughter, Isabella. Her mother died within a week. According to records, Margaret was ill with hepatitis, which meant her death was inevitable. Mary Ann was close with her mother, and had no real motive to kill her if she did. After the death on March 15, she took Isabella with her back to the Robinson home. In April, Isabella and two of the Robinson children died. James received the life insurance money for his own kids. Mary Ann would have received only the payout from her daughter’s death. In August, Mary Ann and James married. Once again, she was pregnant at the time of the wedding.
November 29, 1867 - Margaret Isabella was born. She died on February 28 from “Convulsions – Not Certified” (meaning the doctor couldn’t confirm the true cause of death).
June 18, 1868 – Mary Ann gave birth to a baby boy, George.
1869 – James caught his wife stealing from him, and grew suspicious when Mary Ann pressed him to take out a life insurance policy. Either she left on her own or he threw her out. Either way, she took George with her. Mary Ann returned to leave George with a friend and left once more, never to retrieve her son. George went back to James.
1870 – Mary Ann met Frederick Cotton. Later in the year, his sister and his youngest child both died. In September, Mary and Frederick married, despite her still being legally married to Robinson. Within months, Cotton and two more children died. Mary Ann received the life insurance payout. After this, she became involved with former lover Joseph Nattrass, though she fell pregnant by a man named John Quick-Manning.
1872 – Nattrass died and left everything to Mary Ann. Frederick's death also left her with his seven-year-old son, Charles Edward Cotton. Mary Ann couldn’t work with a young kid at home, nor could she marry John Quick-Manning. Charles was an inconvenience to her moving on with her life. A local official later described Mary Ann telling him she “won’t be troubled for long.” The official went to police after the death of Charles. Arsenic was found in Charles’ stomach.
After, the bodies of Nattrass and two of the Cotton children were exhumed and found to be poisoned with arsenic.
During Mary Ann’s trial, the defense claimed the arsenic came from the wallpaper in the houses. But too many other deaths had happened around her, and she never got sick.
January 1873 – She gave birth to her final child, and only the second of her children to outlive her.
March 24, 1873 – Mary Ann was hanged but it was a bungled attempt. The trap door was not high enough to break her neck, so the executioner had to press down on her shoulders. After three minutes, she finally died. She never confessed to anything.
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A few things are clear about Mary Ann: she was exposed to death at a young age, looked upon the hardships and poverty of her childhood and wanted more, and left behind a trail of death and poisonings. Her father died when she was young and that little girl had to watch her mother remarry for survival. The coal mine owners also owned the homes in which their employees lived, so when Michael died, Margaret and her kids would have been evicted. With no income, except for whatever life insurance Michael may have had, Margaret would likely have been a homeless single mother. Instead, she married George. Mary Ann would grow up to survive on the life insurance payouts she continually received and didn’t seem to be interested in the responsibilities of marriage or children. She merely wanted money. She wanted independence in an era where women only had one option to move up in life and have any value: marriage.
Turns out, marrying for death could be a decent business, if one didn’t get caught.
The question isn’t whether she actually killed Charles Edward, the two other Cotton children and Nattrass, as the evidence is quite telling. It becomes a matter of wondering how many people she did killed. Gastric fever has symptoms very similar to arsenic poisoning, and they only exhumed three bodies to test. In the matter of James Robinson, he never got sick, while three of his kids and Isabella succumbed to illness with Mary Ann present in the home. It appears getting rid of Mary Ann was the only thing that saved him. Abandoning George is reminiscent of how she left Isabella with her mother. So, how many deaths were by the hand of Mary Ann and how much was from the amount of arsenic used in products at the time?
Next week, we’ll explore the history of arsenic in wallpaper in Victorian England, how common of a product arsenic was at the time. We will question Mary Ann’s guilt or innocence in each case while analyzing her criminal psychology.
Thanks for joining me! Take care!
Sources: "Mary Ann Cotton, Dark Angel", book by Martin Connolly, and the Britannica page.
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