infant mortality – rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk

“Cradley Heath & Stourbridge Observer – 29 October 1864. Copyright BNLibrary.

This is an extended account of the lives of Matilda Ennis, her husband William Hackett and her children. I outlined this briefly in my piece on Jane Hill’s children but this gives a longer explanation of my researches into this matter. A full transcription of the newspaper article appears below, the article appeared verbatim in at least two newspapers I have found, so probaably in others, too.

“SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A CHILD

An inquest was held on Friday last, at the Shoulder of Mutton, before Mr E Hooper, Coroner, on the body of Emma Hackett, aged 6 months.

Henry Duncalfe, surgeon, West Bromwich, deposed to having received the Coroner’s precept to make a post-mortem examination; that he had found the body in a very emaciated state, but every organ of the body healthy. The stomach contained half a teaspoonful of liquid, but there was no trace of poison. There was no doubt in his mind that deceased had died from want of nutrition, and it was clear that she could not have had any food for nearly two days before death; but if she had been purged, it was possible that if she had food within two days all traces of it would have disappeared.

Jane Hoddy swore that she lodged with Miss Matilda Hackett, the mother of deceased who was living apart from her husband. She had known deceased for six weeks, and she had been very delicate. Mr Phillips, who had been attending her, pronounced her to be in a decline, so she had heard Mrs Hackett to say. Mrs Hackett went from home on Monday morning week and never returned till the following Wednesday night. Witness attended the deceased. She took a quantity of bread and milk. Up to Friday she had not been purged. She was taken much worse on Saturday and no doctor was sent for. Deceased died on Sunday morning.

Matilda Hackett identified the body as being that of her daughter Emma and proved her death. She at first denied that any woman had been in her house on the Sunday before deceased died, but on the Coroner pressing the question, she said there had been some women there.

Sarah Edwards swore that on Wednesday last she heard that Mrs Hackett had gone from home, and her child Emma was dead. She also heard they would let no person see it. She went to the house and found two women there. They said Matilda had gone to Dudley. They said Emma was in bed. She went upstairs and on removing the bedclothes she found the child lying in its own filth, and must have been in that state a long time. She had not been purged. One of the women said she had taken more care of the deceased than the mother would have done if she had been at home, for she had given her her own breast which the mother would not have done.

Thomas Bevington, Police Constable, deposed that on Monday he had received information that Hackett’s child had been poisoned, whereupon he went to Mr Philips [apparently a local doctor] and told him what he had heard. He said reports must not be attended to, but he did not give a certificate. The case caused much talk in the neighbourhood and an inquest was much desired. Consequently he reported the whole of the facts to the Coroner. On Sunday, before the death, there had been several prostitutes in the house.

The Coroner, in addressing the jury, stated that all the evidence had been laid before them that could be obtained , and upon that evidence their duty would be to find a verdict; but at the same time he must caution them against placing too much reliance on the mother’s evidence, considering the unsatisfactory manner in which she had tendered it.

The foreman said the Jury returned a verdict that the deceased had died from exhaustion, produced through want of sufficient nourishment; and they were of opinion that the n-mother’s conduct had been most inhuman, but that the evidence, in their opinion, was not quite sufficient to warrant them in committing her for manslaughter.

Matilda Hackett was called in, and severely admonished by the Coroner, who informed her that in as much as the deceased was the fourth child she had lost under similar circumstances, he considered it his duty to cause a strict watch to be kept upon her movements, at the same time informing her that she had very narrowly escaped a verdict of manslaughter. In his opinion, she had been guilty of very disgraceful conduct.”

This sad tale was a newspaper report which I found while I was researching the Hill family, and working on William, son of John and Jane Hackett (nee Hill). William Hackett had married a Matilda Ennis at Dudley St Thomas in April 1856, so his wife was Matilda Hackett. Could this be her?

The 1861 Census showed that there were three Matilda Hacketts living in the Rowley/Blackheath area at this time – but one was too old to be the mother of the child. Another was the wife of Thomas Hackett, she had been Matilda Willetts and they were living in Hyam’s Hill in 1861 with their five month old son and next door to her parents. The other Matilda was married to my William Hackett and in 1861 they were living in Blackheath with a son George who was 7 (her illegitimate son born in 1854, so some time before the couple married) a daughter Elizabeth, born in 1857 and a son John who was 1 month old. Was this the same Matilda?

I checked the 1871 Census for Matilda Hacketts to see whether these Matilda Hacketts were still in the area. I found the first Matilda mentioned above still with her husband Thomas, now in Halesowen Road with the son who had been five months old in 1861, now 11 plus three more children born in the interim. So it did not seem to be her.

What of the other Matilda Hackett with her husband William? They were not in Blackheath in 1871 and I could not find either Matilda or William Hackett of the right age nearby.

I checked what children the couple had had. I checked for birth registrations and found the birth of George Henry Ennis in the first quarter of 1854, with no MMN so probably illegitimate. This was confirmed when I found his baptism in Dudley on 3 September 1854, which listed his mother, of Queen’s Close, Dudley but no father. This also recorded his date of birth which was 17 January 1854. So he was the eldest child listed with the family on the 1861 census.

Then there was Elizabeth, born in 1857, John who had been born and died in 1858, John who had been born and died in 1861 and Eliza, born in 1862. Then there was an Emma born in 1864. Oh dear. This was sounding familiar.

Back to basics then.

Matilda, I discovered had been born in Dudley in 1835, the child of quite a big and apparently respectable Dudley family. Her father Benjamin had died in 1835, the year she was born but she had five older brothers of whom only two survived infancy and an older sister. Her uncle Joseph Ennis was a stone miner but later the gate keeper at Dudley Castle for many years.

A general search for Matilda found another marriage. Matilda appeared to have remarried in Smethwick in 1868, describing herself as a widow. But I couldn’t find a death registration for William Hackett between 1861 when he was listed in the Census and 1868 when Matilda re-married. I checked FreeREG for burials, too but couldn’t find a burial either for a William Hackett of the right age. But it was not unheard in this era, because of the expense and difficulty – and stigma – of divorce for ordinary people, for separated couples to ‘marry’ again, possibly in an area where they were not known and to pretend that they were widowed. Matilda seemed to have married Thomas Lane, a carter, at Smethwick, as Matilda Hackett and with her correct father’s name. The happy couple had a son Thomas Charles Jabez Lane in the third quarter of 1869.

But I now knew that I was looking for Matilda Lane, not Hackett in the 1871 census. But I could not find a Matilda Lane in the 1871 Census either , so where was she?

I searched the 1871 Census for the children.

I found an Elizabeth Hackett of the right age and born in Rowley Regis, living as a servant in Oldbury Road, Smethwick and the family for whom she worked, although a name I did not know, had two younger children of 7 and 6 who had been born in Rowley Regis so the family had obviously lived there at some recent point. The husband was a Railway Contractor so perhaps he had been involved with the building of the railway there – I see that the station at Blackheath had opened in 1867 so the dates for that are exactly right. So this may well be William’s daughter. And by this time, I later discovered, Matilda was also living in Smethwick…

Then I looked for George, under the surnames of both Ennis and Hackett. Nothing for George Ennis but there was a George Hacket living in Halford Street, Smethwick – the same address given as the abode of Thomas Lane, father and son in their various register entries. George was with his mother Matilda Jones, and his sister Eliza H, aged 7 and an Albert Hacket, aged 4 who had been born in Spon Lane, Smethwick and, although he had been given the surname Hackett there was no Mother’s Maiden Name, so this implied that he was illegitimate. George and Eliza appeared to be the right children. But Matilda, who was 35, was shown as being married to John Jones, aged 26, a puddler and he was noted as the father-in-law (step-father) of the children George, Eliza H(?) and Albert Hacket. Was this Eliza the Eliza Jane born in 1862? The age in this census suggests she was born in 1864 but I cannot find such a birth registration so it may be her. Or did that earlier Eliza die – or was there another baby?

And where did John Jones come from?

I then discovered that Matilda’s new husband Thomas Lane had died, aged 29 in July 1869 and was buried in Smethwick. His abode was given as Halford Street, Smethwick.

And the baby Thomas Charles Jabez Lane also died, in the third quarter of 1870, aged 11 months and his burial entry shows the same address. Oh my, another infant death and another dead husband.

Thomas Lane had only died in July 1869 – and little Thomas only in 1870, surely she had not married again so quickly? Well, yes, she had.

Matilda Lane had married John Jones at St Stephen’s, Birmingham on the 5^th April 1870, just nine months after Thomas Lane died and while the baby was still alive. In 1881 the family were still at Halford Street with another son Reuben, aged 7, son of Matilda and John Jones. Albert Hacket was also still there, aged 15.

But in 1891, although John Jones and Reuben were in Smethwick, John Jones’s wife was named Louisa and her age was twenty five years younger than Matilda. Matilda had died in 1886.

So Matilda‘s life story was that she:-

Had one child in 1854 – George Henry Ennis who survived into adulthood.
Married William Hackett in 1856 and had five children, Elizabeth 1857, John 1858-1858, John 1861-1861, Eliza Jane 1862-?, and Emma 1864-1864. At least four of her children died in very early infancy, of diarrhoea or (implied) neglect and she was separated from William by the time of Emma’s death in 1864. Reprimanded by the Coroner who was going to have a watch kept on her. There is the implication that she was – at the least – sharing a house with prostitutes and that the deaths due to neglect of her children was well known to local people who were disturbed by this.
Had a son Alfred Hackett in 1867, father unknown, born in Smethwick, who survived into adulthood.
Married Thomas Lane in 1868, he died in 1869. Thomas Lane, at least, did not die due to Matilda’s negligence. His death certificate says that he was crushed by a wagon upsetting on him – what terrible luck, after only 15 months of marriage. , their child also Thomas died aged 11 months in 1870, of diarrhoea.
Married John Jones on 5 April 1870, had a child Reuben in 1874, was still with John Jones in 1881.
Matilda died in Derby on 19 August 1886, aged 51, of Diabetes which she had suffered from for 9 years. Buried in Derby.

John Jones

It appears that John Jones had moved to Derby at some point between 1881 and 1885, where he must have worked as an iron puddler. After Matilda’s death, he married Louisa Hinton in Derby in the last quarter of 1886. They had two sons and were still living in Litchurch, Derby in 1891. Sadly both of those babies died within weeks of birth so Matilda was not the only mother whose children did not survive those early months. However, by the time of the 1901 Census the couple were back in Smethwick and in 1911, they were living in Dawley in Shropshire where John was working as a Roadman for the County Council. John had been born in Wellington, Shropshire so he had returned to his roots. Curiously, although they had married in Derbyshire, Louisa and her family came from Dudley and they had lived in Dudley until at least 1871: the link is in their occupations again – Louisa’s father had been a furnaceman, John was a puddler. I have lost track of the couple after 1911, too many John Jones around!

Matilda’s surviving children

Those children who survived infancy become difficult to trace after this.

George Ennis or Hackett does not appear to be in Derbyshire with his mother and step father and I cannot find any definite record of him after 1871.

I think I have found Eliza in service in Handsworth in 1881 so she did not move to Derby with her mother and step-father. This census entry states specifically that she was born in Blackheath, rather than Rowley Regis. She may well have married after that but I have not yet found her thereafter.

Alfred Edward Hackett must have moved to Derbyshire with his mother and John Jones as he married there in 1888, two years after his mother’s death. He had one daughter Edith Ellen in 1890 and appears to have remained in Derbyshire for the rest of his life, dying in 1922.

Reuben Jones was in Derby with his father in 1891 and may well have remained there as there is a record of a Reuben Jones of the right age being buried in Derby in 1944. However, his date of birth in the 1939 Register does not fit with the birth registration for Matilda’s son so this is unclear.

Matilda as a mother

If Emma was William Hackett’s child, he and Matilda were together – at least part of the time – until no later than 1864. But if the hints of prostitution are correct, Emma may not have been his child. Whoever her father was, however, it seems clear that Matilda did not find motherhood easy and was inclined to neglect her children. She did not even register all their deaths herself, after the first, shown below. The death of the second child called John was registered by a neighbour, the death of Emma by the Coroner.

The first infant John died aged 4 months from ‘lientery’ as shown on the partial death certificate above– a form of diarrhoea where food passes undigested through the body which had been of three moths duration. Why would a four month old baby be given food, almost from birth? Would he not be breast fed? Apparently, though, it was common for babies to be fed ‘pap’, a mixture of bread and milk, especially in orphanages where there were no wet nurses available.

The second John died aged 6 months, also of diarrhoea, this death was registered by his half-brother George Hackett, by then 16. This was in 1861 – why was the death not registered by Matilda or by William? Had they already separated by then? Was Matilda in denial or unwilling to register the death? Just as she apparently left the dead body of six month old Emma in her bed and left the town for several days.

The death of little Thomas Lane, aged 11 months in 1870 (who also died of diarrhoea after only six hours of illness) was registered by a neighbour Adeline Smith who had been ‘present at the death’. Curiously this neighbour and her husband had also witnessed the Lane’s marriage. And yet, I cannot find any trace of a woman of this name (or her husband) in the 1871 census, only a few months later, anywhere in the area.

The report in the account of the inquest mentions a comment by one of the women in the house where little Emma’s body was found had said that this woman ‘had given her her own breast which the mother would not have done” could perhaps imply that Matilda may have had an aversion to breastfeeding which could account for a lot if this had been a problem with all her babies and would account for them being fed on unsuitable food at an early age. Not every woman finds motherhood easy or natural.

Given what we also know about sanitation and water supply in Blackheath, it is not perhaps surprising that some babies died of such things but there does appear to be an unfortunate pattern in these deaths. Or perhaps Matilda was just in denial or unlucky.

What happened to William?

Another mystery. William Hackett, coming from a prolific family where children – legitimate or not- were cherished and cared for within the family group, must have found his situation after this death and inquest, appalling and shameful although no reference or reproach was apparently made to him by the Coroner, nor does he appear to have given evidence to the inquest which may be telling in itself, as it may imply that William was out of the picture by this point.

I have looked at every local burial and every death in the country of a William Hackett between 1861 and 1867 when Matilda re-married and ruled them all out on age or other grounds so I cannot find any evidence that he died. There was a William Hackett living in Cradley Heath in later censuses who was about the right age but I also found the same family in Cradley Heath in the 1861 and 1871 census so this was not our man.

And yet it seems strange for him to abandon children? Would someone from his family not have taken him in in his distress? Had all the children he knew to be his died? Did he change his name and move away, or emigrate and start a new life? Did he kill himself somewhere he was not known and was buried unknown? A brick wall I shall no doubt return to and look at again from time to time. But, of all the Hill descendants I have looked at, in all my years of family history research, this is undoubtedly the saddest story I have found.