Over Her Dead Body: The Newborn Daughter of Sarah Ann Beeby

The Newborn Daughter of Sarah Ann Beeby

DATE: 20^th March 1887

AGE: Newborn

Sarah Ann Beeby knew that she was pregnant in early 1887, but she kept it quiet. She was young, but no stranger to birth. Born in October 1866, the middle of ten children, she had seen her mother and sisters give birth numerous times. Perhaps she didn’t want to worry her family, or perhaps she hoped it would simply go away if she didn’t think about it. Her mother, despite her broad experience of pregnancy, did not notice that Sarah was pregnant, so it’s likely that it wasn’t obvious.

In December 1886, Sarah went home to her mother in Whittlesey, having lost or left her place in service. She was home for three months. Her mother got her a new place, working at the Talbot Inn in Peterborough. Sarah started work on 7^th March. She was employed as a domestic servant. She slept in the attic, sharing her bed with an eleven-year-old girl named Edith.

Sarah had been in early labour since around the 17^th March, complaining of back pain. Her established labour pains started in the middle of the night, as they so often do, on Saturday 19th March.  She went to bed as usual, in the darkness, and began to writhe in agony. She woke up Edith, and told her how much pain she was in. She asked her to fetch the landlady.

But it was pitch dark. There was no candle. Edith was terrified. She hid under the covers and waited for dawn.

Sarah got up, stood up, and the baby girl came. She fell to the floor with some force, and the umbilical cord tore. Precipitate labour – labours lasting less than two hours – are not common, but they are associated with haemorrhage. Bleeding profusely, Sarah fainted.

As soon as it was light, Edith gingerly stepped through the blood and fetched the landlady.  The landlady found Sarah barely conscious, and the baby dead where it had fallen, under her petticoat. She had died from exposure in the night, lying in a cold puddle of blood.

Sarah did not appear at her baby’s inquest, which was held on 22^nd March at the Board Room on Westgate. She was still too ill – on the brink of death according to her doctor – so she could not tell the inquest what had happened. Her words were reported via the doctor who attended the scene. There was no intent, no deliberately inflicted injury. The birth was unattended, and the death a natural consequence of that. “Want of care and attention at birth” was the verdict.

Sarah could have been charged with concealment of birth, but she had not concealed the birth. She had asked for help, but none was forthcoming. The coroner left it to the police to decide whether to prosecute Sarah, and they opted not to. Her unbaptised baby was buried without ceremony.

Despite her severe blood loss, Sarah survived the birth. She had another daughter in 1893, but never married. She died in Peterborough in 1941.

Join us next time for the terrible death of Bertha Green, 1901.