Child
murder: the case of Lucy Lowe
A
case study for Key Stage 3, Britain 1750 – 1900 and GCSE History
This case study deals with the treatment of Lucy Lowe, also known as Lucy Ellis, who was convicted in 1876 of killing her infant child. Lucy was sentenced to death, although the jury had pleaded for this not to happen. She was reprieved, served a prison sentence then in 1886 was released into the care of her sister.
It deals with major issues surrounding the treatment of poor women in the 19th century:
- The position of widows or women abandoned by their husbands
- The treatment of the children of such women
- The treatment of women who had babies outside marriage
- Changes in attitude to the punishment of such women
Objectives:
·
To examine the situation that made women like
Lucy Lowe likely to kill their new-born children. (history nat
· To work out how typical was the situation and the behaviour of Lucy Lowe.
· To see the extent to which the web site story of Lucy Lowe was based on the available evidence. (history curriculum 3b)
There
are excellent records of Lucy Lowe showing how people felt about the case,
including the written evidence of Lucy herself.
Here
are the main questions that we want to think about:
The
story of Lucy Lowe:
What exactly happened?
What was Lucy like as a person?
Does the evidence from during and after the trial prove that Lucy intended her baby to die?
19th
century attitudes and circumstances:
In which ways does the life of Lucy Lowe show the problems faced by poor women during the 19th century?
What does the treatment of Lucy by the authorities show about 19th century attitudes to the crime of infant murder?
Extension task 1: What does the story of Adam Bede by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), written in 1859, show us about how 19th century women felt? This was a very popular best seller – what impact could it have had on people’s views at the time?
Click here for a template for making notes Lucy's gaol record (MSWord file)