My 3xgreatgrandmother, Jane Cheeseman, was allowed to plead not guilty to murder at the Old Bailey in July1836 because she had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of her 14 year old niece, Sarah Jane Cheeseman. Sarah Jane and her younger sister Susanna Isabella (aged 11) were forced by Jane to sew two pairs of 5d stays (women's corset-type underwear) each, often working from six in the morning to late at night, every day except Sunday on piecework for a local agent. Sarah Jane had TB (and this was given as the official cause of death by the workhouse doctor who attended her the day before she died) but she had not received any medical attention as Jane believed she was feigning illness to avoid the sewing, for which she was regularly severely beaten by Jane. The local paper had extensive details of the case under the headline "Shocking Case of Cruelty", which made shocking reading and the case had apparently caused an outcry in the Deptford area at the time with Sarah Jane's widowed father being forced to leave the inquest "under the protection of the police, amidst the yells and execrations of assembled hundreds, who had surrounded the house from six o'clock the commencement of the enquiry til past one o'clock this morning".
Jane was sentanced to two years imprisonment with hard labour, meanwhile her teenage daughter, my 2x greatgrandmother, had two trials herself at the Old Bailey for theft and deception and admitted to working part time as a "lady of the night". I must admit it forced me to revise my previously rosy picture of my ancestors as "horny-handed sons of toil" of which I had been so proud and to admit that some had obviously suffered from ignorance and emotional poverty as well as material poverty.
Ermy
