Further reading
Some further reading on the Potton Poisoner and Victorian era.
Mentioned at the end of the episode here’s a link to the story about the macabre auction item relating to the execution:
About half way down this blog entry you’ll find an examination of some of the newspaper stories I’ve used for this episode.
A new book just out on Victorian women’s confinement before and after birth can be found here at Waterstones.
Gender roles in the 19th Century are explored by the British Museum here.
Victorian Women by Joan Perkin is a book I read 30 years ago at university which covers women from all backgrounds and positions in society.
Show Transcript
Content Warning
Hi, Nat Doig, here, just a heads up that although this episode is about a poisoning that happened 180 years ago it deals with some distressing topics that are just as relevant today such as, domestic abuse and violence as well as murder including the death of an infant. I wanted to let you know so you can decide when and how you listen to this episode.
Dramatic Intro
It’s the evening of Thursday 23rd March 1843. A coach is making its way into Biggleswade after a long journey from London. We’re still 7 years away from the railway coming to Biggleswade. Travellers arrive by horse drawn coach or carriage, clattering up and down the great north road, rocked and bumped, especially in poor weather. The passengers in this particular coach have had an unusually, uncomfortable journey and it is only going to get worse.
Although space in the carriage is cramped one young woman and a slightly older man are being given some considerable space by their fellow passengers, who are huddled as far away as they can be from the pair. Why is this couple being shunned? The young woman who by all accounts is used to being stared at for her good looks has never faced such obvious rejection. Yet, she has remained composed throughout the journey, staring resolutely about her, daring her fellow passengers to meet her gaze. But they won’t, they take fleeting, furtive glances then look away, they grumble to themselves about having to share a carriage with someone such as she. They huddle deeper into their cloaks and hats away from her.
Their eyes turn from her companion for different reasons. They don’t want to invite his gaze, they don’t want him to notice them at all. Because he’s the police super intendent for Biggleswade. Edwin Blunden, we’ll find out more about him later but all you need to know now, is he is 37 years old, cut his teeth as a police constable on the streets of London and is escorting this young woman, his prisoner, back to Biggleswade after giving chase to her across the country.
Blunden has been impressed by the woman’s composure. He had her up in front of the Lord Mayor of London at Mansion House just this very morning. And she was cool, collected and clear in her manner. Many would say she was indifferent to the august surroundings. She seems oblivious to the predicament she is in. He wonders how long this confidence will last, can last under the circumstances, but then again she has no idea what is about to happen to her, whilst he has seen this played out before, even if he can’t guess just how big and terrifying her case will become. But he has an inkling. The number of newspaper men scurrying out of the Mansion House after she appeared was one tip off.
As the carriage makes it way up London Road towards the centre of Biggleswade they hear it. A roar of people. Blunden sees a slight twitch on the young woman’s brow, a slight frown. Then her skin smooths again her eyes clear.
“What is that noise?” a lady in a fur hat demands.
Blunden pretends to listen as if he has only just heard the sound.
“A crowd Ma’am.” Blunden does not want to alarm anyone by saying it is a mob.
The young woman in his custody, Sarah Dazeley speaks up.
“A crowd? What for? it’s not market day, there’s no fare planned? What is the crowd for?”
“The crowd is for you Mrs Dazeley.” Blunden meets Sarah’s gaze and is shocked to see something like hope on her face, not the fear he expected.
Then he knocks on the carriage to alert the driver. The horses are already becoming spooked and the voices of the towns folk and those from the wider county who have slunk into town that afternoon, is getting louder. Blunden hears the shouts of those positioned to watch for them.
“They’re here! They’re here! The carriage from London is here!”
Blunden knows that now the cry has gone out, more people will stumble out from the taverns and the inns, and the drinking dens from the market square onto the High Street, moving like one large beast rather than individuals, along Stratton Street towards them. Filling the road with their shouts, their stink, and their overwrought emotions. He has seen this before too though never outside London.
The carriage trundles to a stop.
“You can’t stop here!” the woman in the fur hat flaps her hands in panic.
Blunden ignores her, he is out of the carriage and conversing with the coachman. He has left Sarah by herself in the carriage though he is standing on the plate just outside the door blocking her escape.
She wouldn’t try to escape. She shakes her head as she sees the fur hat woman and her younger companion lurch even further away from her now that the policeman is outside.
Sarah listens to the distant voices. They are getting louder though she can not make out any further words now that the shouts announcing their arrival have stopped.
Sarah Dazeley doesn’t know it, but she is on the cusp of one of those moments in your life where everything changes in an instant and forever. She has experienced one once before, when aged 11 her father was taken away to Bedford Gaol. She lost everything, her father, her mother who had to start working for a living, her siblings who went to live with an uncle, her home, her identity, how she saw herself in the world a respectable young girl with a glowing future. All gone in a day.
She doesn’t know it, but she will lose everything again this time in a matter of minutes. And what makes it worse is that Blunden just told her that the crowd was for her, and somewhere deep inside her she feels a thrill of hope just a flicker. That the crowd is here to support her. Here for her. To take her side. To call her name and defend her! Part of her for a tiny fleeting whoop of a moment believes this. And that’s her undoing.
Blunden is back in the coach and it is lurching forward towards the noise, towards the bodies and the shouts.
It is not long until they can all hear the cries and make out the words.
“Murderer!”
“Witch!”
“Sinner!”
“Shameful!”
“Criminal!”
“Devil!”
“Murderer!”
“Poisoner!”
The carriage slows and lurches through the people as they clamour and clatter!
The carriage does not stop but Blunden is out of the door again and clambering up next to the driver.
whistle
“Let us pass!” whistle “Let us pass” whistle “In the name of the law let us pass”
The shouts continue, the bodies seem to be pressing into the very carriage itself. The shutters are down but it somehow makes it worse not being able to see who is out there. But Sarah can hear their voices and she recognises some, she’s certain of it!
“strumpet!” shouts a woman, and she’s sure that’s Mrs Harbird from the bakers in Potton, the one her mother uses.
The carriage is crawling at a snails pace now, Sarah’s fellow passengers are fidgeting and fretting as if they can not decide if they are more afraid of Sarah or the mob outside.
“Yer can’t hide from the law!”
“Nor from God’s eyes!”
She recognises these two voices as well. Workers on the same farm as Will her late husband. They think she killed him, do they? They were happy enough to drink with her just a month ago.
“Let us see her! Let us see her this Potton Poisoner!”
Then the carriage comes to a halt and it feels like the crowd is upon them, tearing at the door ready to devour them all.
Whistle “Back! Back!”
Blunden is back in the carriage. Outside another whistle is being blown and two of Blunden’s constables are shouting, moving people away.
The other passengers are bundled out of the coach. Shouts raise then groans when the mob realises that it is not Sarah.
Blunden turns to his prisoner and sees in her face the change that has come over her. Even if she is not fully aware of it herself just yet, he can see that she is marked, she is different, she has broken. For the first time since he apprehended her she looks scared.
The same newspaper reporters who saw her at the Mansion House in London on Thursday morning will remark on Friday how her countenance has changed. They seem disappointed that the spirited lass who stood her ground against the Lord Mayor of London has disappeared. Gone is the indifferent almost impertinent young woman and in her place stands a wretched, broken creature. It’s harder to be scathing of her nor to root for her when she looks so pitiable and pathetic.
The law could not break Sarah Dazeley but the accusing voices of her neighbours, the towns folk of Biggleswade, the gossip shouted across the streets that was soon to be repeated and read across not only the county, and country but across the English speaking world, well that was what broke Sarah Dazeley.
Introduction
Welcome to this episode of Weird in the Wade: The Potton Poisoner. Today we’re going back to the early Victorian age. Our subject is Sarah Dazeley a young woman born in Potton just a few miles away from Biggleswade. Who in 1843 became the last woman to be publicly executed in Bedfordshire. On 5th August this year it will be 180 years exactly since she was hanged. Her crime was poisoning with arsenic her second husband, though she was suspected of poisoning her first and her infant child too. Some say she is the UK’s first female serial killer denied that infamy because of a technicality (she was only tired for one of the three murders she was suspected of.) Other’s say she is innocent, a victim of a miscarriage of justice. We’ll investigate her life, the lives of her husbands and baby, the dramatic police chase across the country that led to her arrest, the two inquests and the murder trial she faced, and her execution. It’s a remarkable story that was an utter sensation at the time. The Potton Poisoner as she was dubbed, was famous not only in Bedfordshire but across the country and the English-speaking world. I have found contemporary articles about her in as far flung places Adelaide in Australia.
Thanks to the internet her story is still being told today, there are blogs, Wikipedia pages, TikTok and YouTube videos all dedicated to her story. They cover the whole spectrum of opinions from salacious true crime story telling and moralizing, that the Victorian’s would be proud of. One recent academic has even labelled Sarah Dazeley a serial deviant and she devil. Stating a case that Sarah was bad to bone and should be allowed to be remembered as such. To earnest denouncements of the Victorian legal system where misogyny was rife and standards poor, declaring her innocence because she could not have received a fair trial. I’ll try to steer a course through all of this to present her story in as balanced way as possible. This is a case which is often used to bolster a very black or white opinion of the Victorian age and our interpretation of it. But as always there are so many shades of grey in this case it’s far more complicated and interesting than most accounts give credit to.
I’ve mainly used as source material contemporary sources rather than going to recent retellings, as very early on I spotted inaccuracies in some of the main reports, more on that later. Yet the newspapers and records of the time are also fraught with inconsistencies, inaccuracies, bias (in terms of newspaper reporting) and gaps that just can’t be filled. But after sifting through pages of information I think I’ve created a compelling story that is very much of its time but equally strangely relevant to ours today.
I’m Nat Doig and welcome to this episode of weird in the wade all about Sarah Dazeley and the victims of the Potton Poisoner.
The haunted cottage
But wait, this is a podcast about history with a pinch of the paranormal I hear you say! Don’t worry I came across the story of Sarah Dazeley because of a ghost story. So, let’s start at the end rather than the beginning and the tale of the haunted cottage…
I’ve come across two versions of this story and I’ve blended them together here because I think that’s how the story has developed over time.
In the tiny village of Wrestlingworth, which is nestled just below Cockayne Hatley and Potton Wood that we covered in our last episode, there is a white cottage. This story about the white cottage was being told 30 years ago, before the internet was a thing, before the tendrils and filaments of the world wide web had reached out and snared these old stories, twisted them round and made them new again. This story as it was told back then had been passed along for 150 years by the children of the village to each other and so kept alive.
The white cottage is a pretty, little house, with a thatched roof and a beautiful garden. It’s old, at least 200 years old possibly older. Thirty years ago, there weren’t other houses opposite it, like there are today. Back then it felt like it was on its own. An outlier for the village. And the local children and teenagers would dare each other to walk up to the cottage and walk past it. They’d say to each other:
“That house is haunted. If you hang around outside it long enough you’ll hear a baby crying. And not because there’s a baby in the house, because there isn’t. There are no children in that house, no babies. But you’ll hear a baby crying especially at night.
It’s the ghost of a baby that lived in that house and it’s mother was a murderer who killed her husband. She haunts the cottage too with her phantom baby. You can see her at the window in the dead of night when the baby cries. She stares out at you. Her white face all bloated from the hanging. Because she was executed for the murder of her husband in Bedford in front of the gaol for everyone to watch. Hanged by the most famous Victorian hangman William Calcraft. And now she watches you as you walk past. So don’t linger, don’t stay too long in front of that cottage or she’ll see you and she’ll catch you!”
So many villages and towns have these kinds of stories of ghosts or witches, wicked women who don’t want children prying into their business. At one time they were a useful reminder to not stray too far from home, to know your geographical boundaries. Don’t go past the haunted house late at night.
Now I don’t even know if the cottage that has attracted these stories is even the cottage that Sarah, Willian Dazeley and little baby Jonah Mead lived in. I see no reason why it isn’t. The 1841 census has Sarah and William living together in Wrestlingworth, just months after Jonah’s death. But there are no addresses given in that census other than Wrestlingworth. So, all we know is that they lived together as a family unit not sharing their home with anyone else on the night of the census.
It was stumbling across that ghost story, which was attached to that pretty cottage, that I learnt that there had been a real woman who had been executed for murdering her husband and that, that part of the ghost story was based on a kernel of truth.
The Potton Poisoner
Obviously, I can’t easily prove whether any cottages in Wrestlingworth are haunted, but I could find out more about this woman that the Victorian press called the Potton Poisoner. who children in the past had decided haunted a cottage which may have been her old home. My first search of the newspaper archives gave me an article all about the trouble her arrival into Biggleswade caused on Thursday 23rd of March 1843 and after reading that I was hooked. Police chases across the country, the towns people out like a mob I wanted to know more. I wanted to know why.
Before I tell the story of the Potton Poisoner I need to explain a few things.
If this was a modern true crime story, I’d hope that I’d place the emphasis of the story on the victims of the crime. That I’d take time to build a picture of the victims’ lives, to humanise them, to make the story about them and their families. Though only a decade ago that wasn’t the approach most often taken when reporting on true crime. And the Victorian’s attitude to crime and how it was reported was different again. They were both fascinated by the murderer and yet strangely uncurious about her as well. And if you think you know what “Victorian attitudes” are then this case will show you just how varied and diverse those attitudes could be. But if there is one thing you can guarantee about the Victorian’s it that they always had attitudes which they were always ready to share them!
This story is a sad one that touches on many modern themes. Sadly, the information left to us about her victims is scant but what there is I have included, and I have tried to treat the material with respect and dignity. There is no getting around the fact that this is a difficult story to tell. That the issues that feature still plague us today. That the pernicious harm caused to families by debt and poverty are still very real. Unhappily domestic abuse, and violence still blight many people’s lives. Infant death is still a tragedy which can affect any family. Our attitudes to these issues have changed and evolved over the last 180 years and are still evolving, but we are yet to solve the causes or comprehensively support those affected. And so again here’s a reminder to consider how and when you want to listen to the rest of this episode.
Sarah’s early life
Sarah was born Sarah Reynolds, in 1815 in Potton Bedfordshire, though you’ll read online most often, that she was born in 1819. This mix up is largely due to some newspaper reports lopping 4 years off her age when she went to trial. Maybe a reporter thought he was being gallant, maybe she came across as younger than she was. I’d originally pieced together her year of birth through the 1841 census record, her admission into Bedford Gaol and her appearance in front of the Lord Mayor of London which all tallied with 1815. Then just four days before this episode is due to be released, I have found Sarah’s baptism record! She was baptised in Potton on 28th May 1815. Her parents are listed as Philip and Anne Reynolds which corresponds with all the reports about her life. It’s likely then that her actual birthday was in April or early May as babies were baptised from around 4 weeks old once mothers were out of their confinement. (I talk about confinement later in the show in more detail, women who could afford to would stay at home some weeks before and after giving birth.)
Her father, Philip Reynolds was a respectable hairdresser. He apprenticed as a barber from the age 11 in 1802. Then opened his own hairdressing business in Potton some years later. In the early 18th century Potton was a bustling small town 4 miles northeast of Biggleswade, and to this day woe betide any person who calls Potton a village. It seems the Reynolds were an established and respectable family of Potton who most townsfolk would have known. It appears that Sarah’s grandfather was at least for most of his life a family butcher taking on many apprentices during the late 18th and very early 19th century an indication of success. There was another Reynold’s son, Sarah’s uncle called Joseph who became a successful tailor. Both Reynolds brothers married women called Anne and had daughters called Sarah! Both men appear on the land tax records paying property tax for their homes at a middling rate compared to other properties nearby. So, they are not the poorest nor the wealthiest, but they are living comfortably in the early decades of the 19th century.
Sarah’s grandfather was reported by the newspapers as being the proprietor of the Oliver Cromwell Inn at his death, though I cannot find this pub nor any indication that he gave up his job as a butcher. Either way, on his death all reports agree that he left a considerable sum of money to his sons. Philip decided to invest his share but pretty quickly his investment failed. And by the time Sarah is 8 he is in serious financial difficulty and cannot pay his debts. Sarah’s father becomes insolvent and as he cannot pay his debts Philip is removed to Bedford Gaol as a debtor. The Globe newspaper says, the whole situation:
“preyed so powerfully on his mind as soon to wear down his frame and cause premature death.”
I have found a death record for Philip for the 27th February 1824. But for Sarah she pretty much lost everything as soon as her father became insolvent and was sent away to gaol. Her father was gone, her mother was now forced to work as a dressmaker, no doubt working all the hours she could to support herself and her family. Some newspapers print scurrilous rumours about the widowed Anne, how she took up with multiple men during Sarah’s childhood. But there is no hard evidence other than gossip for this. And in fact the only concrete information I have about Anne’s life other than marriage and death records is that she never remarried, and worked into her 80s as a nurse. There’s no record of her even being a dress maker. If she was a jobbing nurse then she very likely was attending different men’s houses.
I know that Sarah had a brother four years her junior, so when his father dies he was only 5. Anne is left with an 8 year old and a 5 year old to raise by herself.
Sarah will have lost her family home and also any prospects she had. Any hopes of growing up middle-class, marrying up were dashed. The newspapers claim she was forced to work alongside her mother as a seamstress. She possibly undertook some training as a milliner. It’s clear that Sarah did do sewing work later in her married life to bring in extra income. Maybe trained along side her cousin Sarah in her uncle’s tailors shop, her cousin remains a dressmaker for most of her life.
As I mentioned there’s a younger Philip Reynolds, brother to Sarah, also ends up in Bedford Gaol, though only temporarily. In 1839 age 20 he is convicted of stealing a silver spoon from a family who he was in service to. After getting out of gaol his life working in service was over and he became an agricultural labouror for the rest of his life.
It paints a sad picture of the once respectable family now scrabbling to make a living and turning to desperate measures to make ends meet. Or does it paint a picture of a family prepared to do whatever it takes to get what they want? I suspect the former as Philip does not appear to have any further brushes with the law and his sentence is extremely light. Others at the time were transported to Australia for stealing less. But there is no denying that three members of the Reynolds family end up in Bedford Gaol within a matter of two decades.
The newspapers report Sarah’s fall from comfortable respectability as if it is the plot from a Dickens novel but then in the same breath unlike Dickens they seem to have no real understanding for the plight of women left destitute by imprudent husbands or fathers. They say that Sarah “was of the habit of going about as a dressmaker” as if she had a choice in the matter. So many articles mention her work in this way because it was seen as less respectable than say working in a milliners or tailors shop like her cousin. She’s providing cheaper seamstress services to the lower middle and working classes. It’s as if they blame her for making a living, for having to work in other people’s houses. Of course, there’s also an undertone to this reporting, that she is gadding about the town as a young woman, visiting homes unchaperoned. She is described as being forward in her manners and bold in her speech. It is also lamented that she is rhapsodical, which means extravagantly emotional. She is described like a character from a melodrama.
But most frequently she is described as being attractive, uncommonly so. She is tall for the times at 5 foot 5, has auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a clear voice. A black and white artist’s image of her, is that of the Victorian ideal of a handsome woman with a wide full mouth, clear skin, strong and neat. They paint a picture of a beautiful young woman who is confidently hustling to make ends meet.
Her story sells newspapers for all kinds of reasons, and the Victorians demonstrate their characteristic contrariness in the way they present her early life. One moment saying how terrible it was that her family lost their income and respectability this could potentially happen to anyone. And in the next saying how despicable young Sarah is for not just discretely accepting her lot in life and fading away in a lady like manner. Where today her early life story would be one of plucky underdog doing all she can to make ends meet. Back then as a former middle-class girl, she was criticised for her boldness and unladylike need to make a living. Even her attractiveness is treated like it’s a fault and all part of her downfall.
First marriage
It’s not surprising then that she catches the eye of a local lad just one year her senior called Simeon Mead.
We don’t know where they met, how long they courted but they married on the 22nd November 1835. We do know that Simeon was described as a powerfully built man. One of the few things that we know Sarah actually said about herself, is that she married too young. She was 19 and for the Victorian age that is a little young. Women tended to marry between the ages of 20 -24.
So again, reading between the lines, Sarah must have initially been impressed by Simeon, this tall, strong young man who worked in the fields. They must have made a striking couple, the powerfully built young Simeon and this local beauty Sarah. She left her mother and Potton to live with her new husband in Wrestlingworth.
They had been married for at least 5 years before their son Jonah was born. And during those five years it seems Sarah was still working as a dressmaker to bring in more money for the couple. Some of the newspapers imply that she was visiting other men’s homes in a way most husbands would not want their wife to do. But many working class married women would have continued to work especially before having children, whether the middle and upper classes approved or not made no difference, it was a matter of financial survival. The newspapers also reported that this outwardly attractive young couple were not quite as they seemed…
Newspapers
And about these newspapers We’ll come back to Sarah and Simeon shortly, it was a booming time for the newspaper and magazine industry. As more people were learning to read, for example we know Sarah could read, (she was reading to her husbands when they were poorly. And her prison admittance from dated 24th March states she can read but her reading is impaired.) Printing was becoming cheaper, the number of newspapers and periodicals rockets in the first half of the 19th century. In the second half of the 18th century its estimated that there were 27 new publications launched. For the first half of the 19th century the number is 1500 titles. The readership of newspapers was also expanding, for example circulation of the times grew from 5000 copies in 1800 to 23,000 in 1840 and ending that decade on a circulation of almost double that at 40,000 copies. The use of traveling reporters by London papers became more common at this time and we can see that in the way that Sarah’s case is reported. It’s clear that the leading London newspapers have someone on the ground in Biggleswade to report back on the inquest.
The more salacious a story the more copies of a newspaper are sold it’s still true today but with internet clicks instead of physical copies. Having all the details first hand from a reporter made for a much more immediate and engrossing read. The Potton Poisoner as the newspapers dubbed her, is an early example of the journalistic practice of giving a murder a moniker. Sarah Dazeley’s case sold news papers up and down the country and across the world. Letters were sent into the papers about her, her execution attracted 10,000 people because the newspapers had her case a household name. It was the equivalent of going viral today.
Like today many of the provincial newspapers were using the same source article for their stories, recycling them for their local readership. So, although a search for Sarah Dazely in the newspaper archives throws out many scores of articles the vast majority are the same article being recycled. It’s hard to find new and unique facts amongst all the repetition. It also does go a little way to explain why some facts get misquoted, misremembered, and misreported. For example, early on Sarah’s name is misprinted as Gazely in at least one newspaper. Inspector Blunden’s name gets misspelled as Blundell too. It’s like a newspaper version of playing telephone. However, there are some leaps in misreporting that spring up out of nowhere which are harder to explain, and we’ll come to those later.
How the news is reported is also something important to consider. The use of regional reporters certainly makes a difference as far as detail is concerned and consistency. I’m always fascinated by the level of detail that is recorded in these closely typed, articles that can span many columns in tiny print. For the inquests at least really detailed accounts are given of the witnesses and their evidence. In some cases where it is medical evidence, the descriptions are extremely graphic going beyond what would be reported today by a newspaper. Then there are also curious omissions. Although Sarah gives evidence at the trial and inquests, her account is probably given the least space. The reporters are more concerned with how she looks, how she deports herself, and her demeanour, than what she actually says. We read more words reported by her neighbours, and a local baker than we ever hear from Sarah herself.
But if there is one thing that is given even less space than Sarah’s own words then its any reporting on the impact of her crimes on the victim’s families. Or even basic information about her victims. The newspapers report on the great shock the whole community is experiencing. But does not dwell on how the individual families are affected. Yet as we will explore later, grief and mourning were a Victorian obsession, just not in the modern way we might approach such things. Back then crime was an affront to the community and to god more than it was seen as a blight on the victims lives. The individual experience is overshadowed by the collective.
All of this means it is hard to glean facts and impressions of many of the people involved in this story especially the victims. But where I can extrapolate information I will try.
Sarah’s life with Simeon
So where were we? Ah yes, Sarah is married to Simeon. I’m now going to report to you the facts of Sarah’s life up until mid March 1843 as they might have been viewed by an outsider. How her life was probably seen by many who knew her as a passing acquaintance and without drawing on the gossip or evidence that is directly used to convict her, we’ll come to that in the next episode. But I will include some of the facts which bring her life some colour and texture. All of this information is gleaned from evidence given at the two inquests and trial.
One thing that becomes very apparent from the witnesses and newspaper reports is just how many people come and go from each other’s houses in a course of a day in the 1840s. Everyone seems to be popping in and out of each other’s homes, walking with each other to nearby towns and villages and generally aware of each other’s lives because they’re witnessing a lot of it firsthand. I think we forget nowadays as we stay at home communicating on social media, just how physically social our ancestors were. I don’t think we’re any less social or they were any more sociable, but it’s how we socialise that is different. Just through the court reports a picture is painted of women sharing chores together, whilst the men work in the fields. Young women learning how to housekeep from older married friends and relatives. The way women mucked in to help each other out with young babies and infants, especially when they were ill. It really did take a village back then to raise a child.
And this is certainly true of how Sarah lived her life, she has a number of different young women living with her and Simeon at different times, witnessing everything that happened. Friends and neighbours are constantly coming and going from Sarah’s home and she to theirs.
The casualness of just popping by for a word, where nowadays we’d send a text or a whatsapp. It’s harder to hide though when people are seeing you in person, rather than just reading your words on a screen.
Sarah and Simeon may appear to be an attractive couple, but Simeon is a drinker and Sarah isn’t afraid to stand up to him, to try and stop him from drinking their money away. This leads to tension and there are reports of violence. I’ll explore this in more detail later.
But the couple have a baby in February 1840 and the little one is baptised Jonah Mead on the 23rd of that month.
Sarah is helped during her confinement by Simeon’s younger sisters and some village girls. Confinement is the time running up to a birth and just after it when Victorian women who could afford to, would be confined at home in preparation for birth and then closeted with their newborn afterwards. Many middle- and upper-class women found confinement insufferable, but I suspect for many working women like Sarah, who could afford to take the time, it was a blessed relief from everyday life.
Jonah by all accounts is a sickly child who is known to many of the women of the village who at times act as babysitter to him. One of the women is Elizabeth Dazeley, who appears to be a close friend of Sarah’s and who also has a son some five years younger, called William.
Simeon’s death
Only four months into his short life, Jonah loses his father. Simeon Mead, who is one day fit and strong, then suddenly falls ill. He is looked after by his wife and as well as his mother and sister. Many villagers are in the house during his illness. Sarah reads hymns and religious texts to her husband whilst he is suffering. This was not some private family affair like nowadays. There are people in and out of the house, in the sick room during his two week illness. And although his illness seems to ebb and flow in severity everyone is shocked when he dies at the beginning of June 1840. Simeon is buried on the 12th June.
Sarah is now a single mother, and I’m unsure how her living arrangements are affected but I’m guessing they are precarious as the house she lives in was likely leased as part of Simeon’s working arrangement with the local land owner. She has no rights over it as a woman even as a widow.
We don’t know how Sarah made ends meet whilst bringing up her infant son in the wake of Simeon’s death but she may have asked the village for assistance, we know she does this later. She could have asked the church and neighbours for support. However, asking for help in this way was problematic as workhouses were springing up in smaller towns and instead of being looked after in the village she may have been moved into the Workhouse in Biggleswade if she wasn’t careful. So, for any working-class woman in the 19th century in a similar position the most reliable and possibly quickest way to achieve security was to remarry. And Sarah marries William, the son of that neighbour and friend of hers, Elizabeth Dazeley. It’s possible she moved in with the Dazeley’s before she was married. The newspapers certainly claim that she was cohabiting with William but I wonder if they were living together at his parents. Still easily framed as scandalous in Victorian times.
William and Sarah marry on 11th October almost 4 months to the day since Simeon was buried. A little too soon you might be thinking.
Victorian mourning
One thing the Victorians are famous for is their mourning etiquette. Mourning for the middle and upper classes became almost an industry and when Queen Victoria went into mourning for Prince Albert in 1861 it was taken to new hights. But even in 1840 those that could afford mourning attire were encouraged to mourn formally and publicly. A middle-class woman who lost her husband would be expected to wear some kind of mourning attire for 2 years. The type and level of mourning attire would decrease over that 2 year period. Books at the time, on etiquette for such things stipulate the times and levels of showiness for mourning. For example, a mother was to wear mourning attire for a child who died aged 10 or over for 6 months to a year, whilst for an infant it was only 6 weeks. And women were expected to mourn publicly longer than a man for deaths of equivalent relatives. I think these stipulations have led to the belief that the Victorians did not grieve for their infants in the same as way we do today. That they somehow felt less about their children. But I think that’s misleading, just as it would be to assume that Victorian men did not grieve as deeply as women did for example because men didn’t have to wear mourning attire for as long. It’s far more complicated than that and tied up in stereotypes we still battle today about how men deal with emotions and mental health.
When it comes to Victorian infant deaths, the sheer number of them meant mourning for infants had to be over a shorter period because some women would have been in perpetual mourning for their lost babies otherwise.
But what was the Victorian attitude about remarrying? It was legal to remarry as soon as the death of the first husband or wife was registered, but this would have been highly scandalous at any level in society. The middle and upper classes would expect a woman to have ended her formal mourning period before remarrying, so anything from a year to two and half would usually pass between marriages. However, as I mentioned earlier for working women the choices, they had were far more limited. Many couldn’t afford to wait two years before remarrying.
It appears Sarah’s wait of four months before remarrying was considered by onlookers as mildly scandalous and possibly by a number of her neighbours too, but not scandalous enough to make her and William, pariah’s or marked out as not respectable. Not until other peculiarities were uncovered. And it seems William’s mother and father had no qualms at the time about him marrying Sarah.
Jonah
But within weeks of the marriage tragedy strikes again when baby Jonah is poorly once more but this time he does not recover. We know very little about baby Jonah other than he was a sickly boy, with a persistent cough who grizzled like all babies do when they are unwell. At ten months he was at least part weaned, as he was fed sop, a mixture of sugar, milk, water and anything that could be easily dissolved and be digested in that mix. He seems to have had a healthy appetite at times. But nothing seems to help him when he has his final illness. Jonah is buried next to his father on 26th November 1840.
Sarah and her husband William continue their married life together, though again it appears theirs is not always a happy one. Neighbours witness heated arguments and violence on occasions from the couple. Sarah appears to still be striving to be an independent woman, travelling about the local villages, working and visiting friends and attending local fares in a manner that many feel a married woman should not be.
Then in October 1842 just two years after they married, William is taken ill suddenly. His illness is another that seems to ebb and flow in severity and again many neighbours, relatives and at least two lodgers, girls who are working for Sarah around the house, witness his illness first hand. William’s sickness is a very public one as help is sought and nursing administered. But it is to no avail and by the end of the month William is dead and buried on the 2nd November 1842.
Once again Sarah is without a husband.
Yet by the start of the next year 1843, there is hope on the horizon for her. Another local man, George Waldock has asked Sarah to marry him, and the banns are being read in the local church. George appears on the 1841 census living at Cockayne Hatley just up the road from Wrestlingworth, he’s a year younger than Sarah and another farm labourer.
Except this is where things take a sudden turn.
The accusation
Someone, and it is not made clear who, tells George that Sarah Dazeley may not be what she seems. And I’m guessing to George she seemed like an attractive young widow who had faced some considerable tragedy in her life, even for Victorian standards.
It is suggested that these rumours start in church, on the very day the second banns of marriage are read out. Which makes for very dramatic story telling. The denouncement in church when the vicar asks if anyone knows any “lawful impediment preventing the couple from marrying speak now or forever hold your peace”. Did a voice call out “I do! I know a reason why they should not marry!” Were there whispers of “murderer, she used arsenic poison, lady bluebeard, poisoner, no man is safe with her, baby killer.” echoing around the church? It’s straight out of a Victorian melodrama.
I suspect there was no denouncement in church but instead someone had a quiet word with George afterwards when Sarah wasn’t with him Because George decides the best thing to do is to seek advice from the vicar. And it is George who makes Reverend Twiss or possible Twist his name is spelt both ways, aware of the rumours. Rev Twiss listens carefully as George explains that villagers suspect Sarah of killing her previous husbands and her child, and that he will be the next to be done away with. It’s unclear at this point if there is talk of poison but it would not be surprising if there was. For the previous decade the newspapers had been full of high profile stories of poisonings, accidental and deliberate, often caused by arsenic. We’ll look into this next time, but for now, it seems not impossible that the gossips had not only decided that the death’s of Sarah’s husbands and child were suspicious, but they guessed just the tool she could have used to murder them because they’d read or heard tell of similar cases across the country.
The reverend Twiss must have taken George’s concerns seriously because he advises that the wedding is called off and then calls in the county coroner, Eagles to hear the claims. And the evidence convinces the coroner that an inquest needs to be held.
If the timeline reported by the newspapers is to be believed this all happens quickly in less than a week. On the Sunday the banns are read, and the wedding called off, on the Monday Eagles says it’s suspicious and declares there should be an inquest to be held on Friday, and to do so the body of William Dazeley is to be exhumed. This is because there is a new cutting-edge medical test that can be applied to discover if arsenic poisoning has happened and there are two surgeons able and willing to do this test at Bedford Hospital just over 15 miles away. Unlike today where permission to carry out an exhumation can take weeks it seems in Victorian times if the coroner says it needs to be done then it is done.
We know nothing of what William’s family and friends thought of this and I guess they had no say in it.
I suspect the timeline is slightly longer than portrayed by the newspapers but not by much. I think it may have unfolded over a couple of weeks rather than being crammed into just one. Especially when we consider what happened to Sarah.
In her account, she is shocked to find out that her marriage offer from George has been withdrawn and that at the same time her neighbours are turning their backs on her. She also suddenly loses her work and so asks the parish for assistance. The village refuses. She’s a pariah. So, she leaves for London with a friend, another young man, in the search for work.
To the village, the coroner and the police it looks like this:
Sarah’s marriage offer is withdrawn, and she is accused of murder. Her neighbours and the parish reject her pleas for help. When the inquest date is announced and she is summoned as a witness, she can not be found. Sarah has absconded and she needs to be tracked down. Super Intendent Edwin Blunden of Bedfordshire rural police is called in. He is super intendent for Biggleswade and it’s surrounding villages. He’s a man of 37 with a wife and young children. He lives right in the heart of Biggleswade on the high street possibly opposite where Station Road now intersects what was then one huge market square. He was born in Peckham (which in 1806 when he was born was a village on the outskirts of south London. But the metropolis was encroaching fast.) We know that by 1839 he’s one of the top constables for the metropolitan police. At least a dozen Old Bailey court reports include his evidence from that year. It’s likely he’s moved to Biggleswade as the Super Intendent by 1840. A well-earned promotion after being an original Bobby or Peeler for the Met Police in its infancy.
Blunden is on the case, and locals are happy to spill the beans about their sightings of Sarah. Some say she was heading to see a lawyer. He’s told she’s in the company of a young man named Samuel Stebbings. They were seen heading towards Biggleswade. They were then spotted heading down the great north road on foot together by the landlady of the new inn near Baldock. Whilst Sp Int Blunden is ferreting out these tip offs, the exhumation of William’s body takes place. There are no journalists present for this distressing act, but it’s fair to guess that villagers, even his family members were there to watch. Hovering on the outskirts of the graveyard, knots of anxious people whispering, comforting one another. We can guess this because of what happens a month later when journalists are present at another exhumation.
The coffin is taken to a near by barn and the jury who have been convened for the inquest, made up of all men, witness the coffin being opened and identification of the body being made. Herbs are placed about William Dazeley’s body and around the coffin as a kind of offering, some kind of acknowledgement of the disturbance of William’s eternal rest. The remains of his body is then conveyed away to Bedford hospital for tests. But the Doctors already have their suspicions because of the unusual preservation of the remains. A tell-tale sign of arsenic poisoning.
Blunden meanwhile has a choice to make. Does he wait to find out the outcome of the autopsy and the tests? Or does he chase after Sarah before she has too much of a head start on him? He can’t arrest her or compel her to come with him if he has not serious suspicion that she has committed a crime. Even then in 1840 he must have a warrant. But he makes the decision to go after her to London. Whether it’s on a hunch that the evidence will be forthcoming or because he thinks he can persuade her to return with him voluntarily to attend the inquest, he decides not to wait and races down to London in search of her.
And there I’m afraid we will have to leave the tale for today. Blunden on his way to London, the doctors at Bedford hospital working with their apparatus testing for poison, William Dazeley’s parents and siblings in shock after the week’s dramatic turn of events. And Simeon’s family and friends wondering what this all means for them. Could the rumours be true?
In our next episode we’ll find out how Sarah is tracked down in London, follow her appearance in front of the Lord Mayor, and not one but the two inquests she faced followed by a murder trial. You already know how this story ends; she’s executed for a murder but not for all of the crimes she’s accused of. There are some outrageous claims made in court and her execution is attended by 10,000 people. And just three years ago a tiny macabre souvenir from the day of her execution went to auction making ten times it’s estimate. That is the power her story still holds. But what’s behind all the sensation, the moralising, the rumour? Did she really say she wanted 7 husbands in 10 years? And if she said it did, she mean it in the way it’s reported in court? Could there be an even darker tale wrapped within this already tragic story? Did Sarah Dazeley murder her second husband in revenge after he poisoned her infant son, the son of another man, who he did not want to raise?
Find out on the next episode of Weird in the Wade
End credits and Shout outs!
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Weird in the Wade.
Part 2 of the Potton Poisoner will be out on Monday 28th August. This episode has been a tough one to make, there’s so much information out there to sift through, I’ve not been very well, and the subject matter is quite dark and unsettling. But I am glad that I’ve done it and I hope you found the story so far interesting and that you want to hear more next time. If you have any thoughts, theories, or questions please do get in touch at weirdinthewade@gmail.com or on social media links are in the show description including a link to the show notes and transcript.
Also please do get in touch if you have any suggestions for future episodes, stories you’d like me to cover. I’m also looking for any witnesses to big cat sightings in Bedfordshire, especially around Biggleswade for September’s episode. I already have four witness accounts but I’m looking for more!
And for Hallowe’en I’m covering haunted pubs in Biggleswade or nearby. If you have a story about spooky goings on in a pub please do get in touch!
I want to give some shout outs to some of you who have supported the podcast over the last few months!
Firstly, a huge thank you to Rowan who after seeing my Ko-Fi fundraiser offered me his lav mic. Last week, I used the funds raised so far on Ko-fi to buy the mic off him at a really reasonable price. I’ll be using the mic to record my first big cat witness this week!
My next shout out is to those who have supported the podcast through donating on Ko-Fi to the mic fund!
So a big thank you to my Ko-fi supporters:
John Hawkes, Rodi, Riley, Cab-Sav and Eerie Edinburgh. Plus my anonymous donators too! Thank you.
By the way Eerie Edinburgh is a brilliant podcast which I really recommend you give a follow and listen to.
I’d also like to thank Owen Staton the wonderful Welsh story teller for inviting me on to an episode of his fire pit fables a spinoff of his brilliant Time between Times podcast. I’m hoping Owen will join me on a future episode of weird in the wade too. Keep an eye on the socials for info about when that will be out.
Finally if you are able to please follow, rate and review the podcast it really means a lot to me and helps other people find the show. Weird in the Wade is an independent podcast, produced by me with help from my friend Tess on music and some voice work. I do everything myself, from research, writing, presenting, and producing the podcast. I’ve taught myself sound engineering and I’m still learning loads. I do all my own publicity on social media and although clearly, I love doing this, it really helps if you rate and review because it means more people can find the podcast. So, if you are able to support by rating and reviewing I am extremely grateful.
And if you’re able, and can spare the cost of a coffee then you can also buy the podcast a coffee on Ko-fi the link is in the show description, all money raised goes into either equipment for making the podcast or production costs. Thank you again to all of you who have supported already!
Weird in the Wade is researched, written and presented by me Nat Doig
Our theme music and the Potton Poisoner theme was composed by Tess Savigear.
Additional crowd voices were provided by Savigear and McOwen
All other music and sound effects are from Epidemic Sound.
Weird In The Wade 