This is a story of many broken homes. It is the story of a frightened, miserable pair of children. It’s not a homicide, so it doesn’t belong in the Friday Murder Club, but it is still heartbreaking. This is the story of Leah Eliza Bothamley.
But Leah’s story is not the start of the tale, because as anyone who knows about intergenerational trauma is aware, these stories are deeply rooted. Leah’s story begins in Newark, a tiny village on the outskirts of Peterborough. Edmund Whittington was born there in 1845, the illegitimate child of Leah Whittington and Frederick Bothamley. Leah and Frederick lived together from about 1840, but Frederick had a wife living eleswhere. It’s not clear how this marriage ended, but Frederick retained custody of his legitimate children. So, Edmund lived with his large blended family: four sisters from his father’s marriage, plus another seven siblings. It’s not clear what kind of childhood Edmund had – he was sufficiently literate to run a business, so much have had some formal schooling – but this was a lot of people to feed on a shepherd’s wages.* Edmund, who was always known as Edmund Whittington Bothamley, left Peterborough at his earliest convenience and headed for Dudley.
Frances Favell Garn had a similar childhood. Her mother, Ann Thompson, was born shortly before her parents’ marriage in 1797 at Farcet. Ann then married a man named Henry Garn, another shepherd, and spent some time living in Yaxley. However, between 1825 and 1829 (the timeline is shaky), she left Henry to live with Robert Sisman Favell. Robert was born in Buckworth near Alconbury and swept Ann away to er… Spalding Common. Robert ran the Green Man pub there, and also practiced butchery on the side. Henry Garn must have died in the 1840s, because Robert and Ann married in Alconbury in 1847.
Frances was well aware of her illegitimacy, although it’s unclear whether she minded. She grew up in a large household, with ten siblings. Again, we cannot tell if the house was a happy one.
Edmund married Caroline Pearson in Old Swinford in 1869, and they lived in Dudley where Edmund was a butcher. Seven children followed. One died at birth, and four of the others lived barely to their first birthday. Two survived: Henry Edmund was born on 16th December 1872, and Leah Eliza was born on 6th December 1873. Irish twins.
Caroline died shortly after the birth of her last child, in March 1878. Edmund returned to Peterborough where his father was still living, and he had numerous siblings who could help out.
Meanwhile, Frances was having a dreadful time. She married Thomas Beech in June 1857, when she was around twenty. They lived in various places, including Southwark and Derby, as Thomas worked as a valet. However, when Frances’ father died in 1865, Thomas took over the Green Man pub. They had two daughters together, but one died young. The survivor, Thirza, was born in 1868.
Thomas was an incredibly abusive man. The abuse started within a few months of the marriage. He beat Frances constantly, and his behaviour escalated as time went on. He knocked her teeth out. He threatened her with a large knife. He told her he’d like to rip her up like a sheep. In July 1878, he knocked her out cold by punching her in the back of the head, and a few months later beat her until she was black and blue. He committed adultery throughout the marriage, but had a long term relationship with Sarah Stennett, commencing in mid-1871. Thomas was thirty-five at this point, and Sarah was fourteen. In August 1878, Thomas and Sarah ran away to Horncastle to live together: he beat Frances when he briefly returned.
At this point, Frances had had enough. She filed for divorce on Christmas Eve 1878, a procedure that was eye-wateringly expensive. It’s not obvious how she could afford it, but it’s possible one of her many brothers helped out. The petition got as far as the nisi stage, granted in March 1878, but the divorce was never completed. In 1881, Thomas was living with Sarah Stennett in Spalding, and was listed as married. Sarah was listed as his housekeeper. She gave birth to two of his children but married elsewhere in 1883, and coincidentally, moved to Peterborough. Thomas died in Spalding in 1892.
Although Frances was not free to marry, it appears she believed she was. It’s not clear how she met Edmund but one of Edmund’s sisters worked in Farcet where Frances had aunts, so it’s possible they met that way. They married on 2nd November 1879. Edmund was working as a butcher in Gladstone Street, and Frances lived in Cobden Street.
By 1881, the new family – Edmund and Frances, thirteen-year-old Thirza, eight-year-old Henry and seven-year-old Leah – were living on Cobden Street, a large house close to Cromwell Road. Edmund was a butcher, and also sold milk. The children were expected to help out in the business, taking orders round to people and collecting money.
Both Henry and Leah ran riot, according to Edmund and Frances. Henry was a particular bother. Every school in the city had blacklisted him, and one one occasion he’d run away as far as Boston. Edmund had approached the magistrates and other local solicitors for help with the boy, the the magistrates declined to help, saying it was a family matter, not a criminal one.
Edmund and Frances disciplined the children in the only way they knew how – they beat them. And the more they were beaten, the more the children ran away. They did not want to ‘catch it’. Such was the pattern of behaviour established. Leah was fearfully unhappy, and on one occasion, told a friend that she’d cut her throat before she went back home. She was seven.
In the first week of December 1881, Leah stole sixpence and Frances beat her with a cane. According to rumour, Leah was seen with blood running down her face. A few days later, on Saturday 3rd, Leah was in trouble again: she took some meat to a neighbour, lied about the cost and pocketed the change. She was quickly found out – the neighbour complained about the cost of the meat. Frances swore that she had not beaten the child again only ‘chastised’ her. Leah cheered up, and met her father in town. He asked her to take some butter home. She did, and asked her stepmother to make a cake for her birthday with it. Leah left the house after lunch and was not seen alive by her parents again.
She was, however, seen. A young boy playing down by Mr Little’s Pond on Cromwell Road, behind St Mark’s church, saw her standing knee-deep in the water, in her shows. This was no minor duck pond, it was a large body of water. He asked her what she was doing and she told him that she was going to run away. The boy left her there, in the dark.
Her body was not recovered until the 14th December, and only then by accident. A basket maker had soaked some willow branches above the spot she died, and found her body when he pulled them out. It was cold, and her body was well preserved. She had a bruise on her forehead, and her hands were clenched, but all evidence suggested that she’d gone into the water under her own steam.
But why?
Leah’s disappearance caused an outcry around Gladstone Street. Everyone knew her, everyone knew she was a tearaway, and everyone blamed her parents. The rumours said that Frances had killed her, that her parents were tyrants. And so the inquest was as much about exonerating them from blame as establishing how Leah came to drown in a pond.
Frances and Edmund were puzzled by the behaviour of his children. Thirza – who we may recall was raised in the house of a thug – was a quiet and obedient girl. Leah and Henry, who lost their mother aged five and four and were then dragged away from the only home they knew to Peterborough, were not. Frances and Edmund kept a ‘comfortable’ house: the children were well clothed and fed. But were they loved?
Frances told the inquest she believed the children were naturally bad.
Henry, who was about to turn nine, gave evidence at the inquest too. He told them that sometimes, he got distracted running errands and then ran away rather than go home late and be beaten. Henry told them that his father only hit him when he was a naughty boy.
Leah was too young to legally commit suicide, which was still a crime in 1881 as it would remain for another eighty years. But it seemed unlikely to be an accident, so her death was ruled “found drowned”. She was three days shy of eight years old.
The Bothamleys left Peterborough soon after this, perhaps because of shame or maybe grief. They made their way to Birkenhead so Edmund could work on the ships as a cook. He died at sea from malaria in July 1884. Thirza died a month later.
Frances remarried in October 1885, but died herself in 1892. Henry married, and emigrated to Canada. He died in Nanaimo in 1962, aged eighty-nine, the only person in this story who saw old age.
***
It does not do to psychoanalyse the children of the past. There is too much difference in social expectation, in living conditions, in understanding, and indeed the very concept of childhood. But I am the neurodivergent parent of three neurodivergent childen, and I recognise some of Henry and Leah’s behaviour. You might too.
We could speculate that Frances was numb to the needs of the children from her own two decades of terror, that she didn’t want to upset the applecart because she’d found a safe haven with Edmund (although we have no evidence he was a decent husband). We could speculate that Edmund was tired of his children, tired of the lack of support, tired of trying and failing to discipline these kids he didn’t understand. We could speculate that the highest priorities of these two adults was meeting the basic needs of the children, but they lived in a kind of emotional austerity, where parental love was transactional, not a right.
Leah died, whether by accident or by design, because she was a terrified little girl who feared the bollocking she was going to get when she went home. She died in the dark, on a freezing night, three days before her birthday.
Did anyone love these children, this boy and girl who (as the coroner said) were “naturally inclined to do wrong”? It seems not.
*Frederick Bothamley also worked as a butcher, but his primary occupation was given as shepherd on the census and his children’s baptisms.
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Sophie Michell 