Murderous Monday - Women who Kill - Susan Newell, Newspaper Murder

On 10th October 1923 Susan Newell met her maker at the end of John Ellis's rope.  She had been convicted of the murder of 13 year old paperboy John Johnson.  She became the last woman to hang in Scotland and the first woman to hang in Glasgow Prison

Susan was born Susan McAllister sometime between 1893 and 1895 to Peter, a tinsmith and Janet McAllister.  Not much is known about her early life, but around the outbreak of World War I she is said to have married Robert McLeod with whom she had a daughter Janet in 1915.  Severn years later Robert McLeod was dead and Susan had married John Newell.  John by most accounts was a drunken womaniser and their relationship was volatile and at times violent.

In the May of 1923 the Newells had moved to 2 Newlands Street, Coatbridge after being given notice to quit their previous lodgings due to their noisy and violent arguments.  However within three weeks of moving into their new lodgings, they were again given notice to quit.  This caused another argument between the couple, resulting in John abandoning Susan and Janet to move in  with relatives in Glasgow.  Susan is said to have tracked her husband down and demanded that he return to the family home, when he refused she head-butted him.  A matter John reported to the police, yet it is unknown whether Susan was ever spoken to about this matter.

On the evening of Wednesday 20th June 1923 John Johnson stopped by 2 Newlands Street to enquire whether Susan would like a copy of the evening paper.  Susan invited John in and took the paper, but when John asked her to pay Susan lost control and throttled the helpless lad crushing his windpipe.  Some accounts say that John was also battered about the head resulting in several fractures and his body had extensive burns.  Was a woman really capable of such brutality?

When young Janet came home from playing in the street she found her mother with the body of John.  Susan urged Janet to help her wrap the body in a quilt before the retired for the night.  In next morning Susan and Janet loaded John's body into a old pram and set off, with Janet perched on top of the bundle, towards Duke street in Glasgow.  Susan accepted a lift from a passing Lorry driver Thomas Dickson, who dropped them off in Duke's Street.  As Thomas was helping lift the pram down from the lorry the bundle came undone a little and the top of John's head and his foot became visible.  Thomas failed to notice this, but a neighbour, Helen Elliot did notice. 

John and Susan Newell at their trial

Helen Elliot called her sister and together they decided to follow Susan to see what she was up to.  The sisters followed Susan to 650 Duke Street, where the bumped into Robert Foote and James Campbell.  Robert and James took over tailing Susan while Helen and her sister went to alert the police. 

Susan was caught clambering over a wall adjoining two greens.  Discovered dumped near a tenement in Duke Street, wrapped in a red quilt was the body of a teenage boy.  Susan and her husband John Newell were arrested for his murder.  John Newell was able to provide alibis to his whereabouts at the time of the murder and as a result was found not guilty of John Johnson's murder.  Susan was not as lucky, her own daughter's evidence against her was damning.  Despite protesting her innocence throughout her trial Susan was found guilty and sentenced to hang.

Susan was executed by John Ellis with William Willis assisting at Glasgow Prison in Duke Street, the same street John's body was dumped.  Ellis disliked executing woman and in his hurry to get the ordeal over with quickly he failed to pinion her wrists properly.  Susan was able to work her hands free and tear the white hoof off her head saying 'don't put that thing over me!'  John Ellis proceeded with the execution minus the hood.

Glasgow Prison in Duke Street

Was Susan really guilty of killing John Johnson?  Was a woman capable of inflicting the brutal wounds suffered by the boy?  Did her husband have more to do with the murder?  These are answers Susan took to her grave.

Murderous Monday - Women Who Kill - Frances Kidder The Evil Step Mother

On 2nd April 1868 Frances Kidder met her maker at the end of William Calcraft's rope.  She had been convicted of killing her step daughter Louisa Staples-Kidder.  She became the last woman to be publicly hanged in England.

Frances Kidder was born Frances Turner in 1843 in New Romney, Kent to John an agricultural labourer and Frances Turner nee Drury.  In 1861 Frances was working as a house servant for John English, a bookmaker and newsagent and his family in Folkstone.  Some time in 1865 Frances met greengrocer William Henry Kidder and became pregnant by him, they had a daughter Emma and married later that year.  However unknown to Frances, William already had an illegitimate child with his house servant Eliza Staple, 8 year old Louisa.  Eliza had died in 1863, so Louisa came to live with Frances, William and their daughter Emma.

By some accounts Louisa was a spirited child and relations with her step mother never really flourished.  Frances disliked Louisa and metered out regular beatings as well as depriving the child of food and forcing her to wear rags.  The Kidder's neighbours even reported Frances for shutting Louisa out of the house irrespective of the weather.  Frances was fined for her abuse of Louisa and the child was sent to live with a guardian.  Unfortunately for Louisa, her father fell behind in his maintenance payments to the guardian and Louisa was sent back to her step mother's house, the abuse resumed.

One day in July 1867 whilst helping William with his potato dealing, Frances was involved in a accident and fell from the back of the cart, hitting her head when their horse bolted.  According to William -

"She was in a fit for about four hours and she has been strange in her head ever since."

Some believe this accident caused brain damage and may have paved the way for what was to happen barely a month later.  In the August of 1867 Frances took Emma and Louisa to visit her parents John and Frances in New Romney.  During her stay she confessed to one neighbour -

“I mean to get rid of that bitch Kidder’s child. I hate the sight of her because she is always making mischief.  I do not like other people’s bastards.”

Whilst her parents were out Frances took the opportunity to take action on her earlier threat.  She took Louisa on a walk with the promise of visiting a nearby fair.  As they were walking over Cobb's Bridge in Romney Marsh Frances grabbed Louisa and pushed her face down into the water filled ditch and drowned Louisa less then a foot of water. When Frances and Louisa had failed to return to the Turners home her father and William went out to search for them.  A little while later Frances turned up at her parents house without Louisa and refused to tell anyone her whereabouts.  Fearing the worst William and Frances's father contacted the police.

Bridge on Romney Marsh

Constable Aspinall arrested Frances under the suspicion of murder.  It was then that Frances finally revealed Louisa's location, stating that the girl had been frightened by passing horses and fell from the bridge into the water.  She had tried to rescue Louisa but was unable to do so.  Constable Aspinall said of the search for Louisa's body -

“It was a clear star lit night and we were furnished with lamps. There was a very heavy dew on the grass. Someone noticed something white in the ditch.  I threw my light in that direction, it was the body. She was lying on her back, her head was under the water.”

Frances was taken to Kent Spring Assizes and charged with the murder of her step daughter.  Frances continued to protest her innocence but finally confessed to Rev Fraser whilst awaiting her execution in the condemned cell at Maidstone Prison. 

Maidstone Prison

Public anger towards Frances and her crime ran high and over 2,000 people turned out to watch her hang.

On 29th May 1868 Parliament passed the Capital Punishment Within Prisons bill, Ending all public hangings.

Murderous Monday - Elizabeth Martha Browne - Last woman to publicly hang in Dorset

Artist's impression of Elizabeth Browne's hanging

On a drizzly morning in August, Elizabeth Martha Browne met her maker at the end of William Calcraft's rope.  She had murdered her second husband John Anthony Browne, twenty years her junior, with an axe becoming the last woman publicly executed in Dorset, England.

Not much is known about Elizabeth before her arrest and trial.  Her place of birth is unknown and the year estimated at around 1811, but her date of death - 9th August 1856  - is cemented in history.

John and Elizabeth's marriage was not a happy one.  Some accounts say that John only married Elizabeth for her money and that John had several affairs during the course of their marriage.  It was an argument about one of these alleged affairs with a Mary Davis that sealed John's fate.  Elizabeth had struck John with a wood chopping axe several times, shattering his skull.  Upon her arrest Elizabeth told police that John had received his injuries from a 'horse kick to the head'.  However she later confessed that she had accused him of being at Mary Davis's house when he had failed to return home for supper.

"He then kicked out the bottom of the chair on which I had been sitting, and we continued quarrelling until 3 o’clock, when he struck me a severe blow on the side of the head, which confused me so much I was obliged to sit down.

He then said (supper being on the table at the time) “Eat it yourself and be damned,” and reached down from the mantelpiece a heavy hand whip, with a plaited head and struck me across the shoulders with it 3 times, and every time I screamed out I said “if you strike me again, I will cry murder” He replied “if you do I will knock your brains through the window,” and said hoped he should find me dead in the morning, and then kicked me on the left side, which caused me much pain.

He immediately stooped down to unbuckle his boots, and being much enraged, and in an ungovernable passion at being so abused and struck, I seized a hatchet that was lying close to where I sat, and which I had been making use of to break coal for keeping up the fire to keep his supper warm, and struck him several violent blows on the head – I could not say how many – and he fell at the first blow on his side, with his face to the fireplace and he never spoke or moved afterwards."

A crowd of around 3-4,000 people turned out to watch the rare event of a woman being hanged.  One of those spectators was a 16 year old Thomas Hardy.  The hanging left a lasting impression on Thomas Hardy and many believe it was the inspiration behind his novel Tess of the D'Urbvilles.  Thomas Hardy wrote of the hanging seven decades later:

"I saw — they had put a cloth over the face — how, as the cloth got wet, her features came through it. That was extraordinary. 

I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half round and back."

Thomas Hardy

Murderous Monday - Women Who Kill - Mary Ann Britland, First Woman To Hang At Strangeways Prison

On the 9th August 1886, Mary Ann Britland met her maker at the end of James Berry's rope.  The first woman to hang at Strangeways Prison


Mary Ann Britland was born Mary Ann Hague in 1847, Oldham Lancashire.  The eldest daughter of Jonathan and Hannah (nee Lee) Hague.

In 1866 she married Thomas Britland, a domestic servant.  They had two daughters together, Elizabeth Hannah in 1867 and Susannah in 1868.  The 1871 Census shows them living at Park Bridge, Ashton-under-Lyne before they moved to 133 Turner Lane where they can be found on the 1881 Census, later they moved to 92 Turner Lane.  Mary Ann worked two jobs to help make ends meet, a cotton reeler in a factory by day and a barmaid by night.

However by the February of 1886 the Britland home was not a happy one.  Mary Ann had taken up an affair with her neighbour Thomas Dixon, who lived across the street at 128 Turner Lane.  Mary Ann had purchased some Harrison's Vermin Killer from her local chemist supposedly to rid her home of mice.  Harrison's Vermin Killer contained both strychnine and arsenic and thus Mary Ann was required to sign the poisons register.

Soon afterwards Mary Ann's 19 year old daughter Elizabeth Hannah became deathly ill.  Elizabeth was to die on 9th March of 1886, her death attributed to natural causes, leaving Mary Ann free to collect the £10 life insurance policy.  Thomas Britland was to follow his daughter on 3rd May of 1886 from suspected epilepsy.  Again Mary Ann collected the £10 life insurance policy.


Feeling sorry for her recently bereaved neighbour Mary Dixon the wife of Mary Ann's love interest invited her over to 128 Turner Lane for supper and to stay the night.  The kindhearted Mary was soon to become Mary Ann's third victim, she passed away on 14th May after a sudden illness.

Three people in the same street, all dying within a few months of the exact same symptoms could not be ignored.  A paper of the time reports:

"Suspicious Neighbours Alert the Police

Mrs Britland, who worked as a reeler in a factory, lived at 92 Turner Lane, Ashton-under-Lyne with her husband Thomas, and daughter Elizabeth Ann, who died suddenly on 9th March. Mrs Britland’s husband died on the 3rd of May, suffering suspected epilepsy and the third death, that of Mary Dixon, wife of Thomas Dixon, the Britlands’ neighbours, occurred on 14th May [both couples were Thomas and Mary]. It was only after Mary Dixon’s death that suspicions were aroused and other neighbours contacted the police. It subsequently transpired that Mrs Britland claimed £10 life insurance on her daughter’s death and on the day of her husband’s death, but prior to his becoming ill, she paid up arrears on his life insurance policy."


Mary Ann was questioned by police in connection with Mary Dixon's death and the body was examined by a pathologist.  The body was found to contain lethal levels of both arsenic and strychnine, the two main ingredients in Harrison's Vermin Killer.  Mary Ann and Thomas Dixon were arrested on suspicion of murder.  As soon as Mary Ann arrived at Ashton police station she made a full confession, stating that she had first poisoned her daughter as she believed Elizabeth  suspected the affair between her and Thomas Dixon and was about to tell her husband.  She then killed her husband and finally Mary Dixon in the hope that Thomas Dixon would later marry her.

Manchester Assizes 1886  (c) Manchester Libraries

Thomas Dixon was found to have played no part in the murder of his wife and was released without charge.  How much he knew of Mary Ann's intentions is not clear, but he testified against her during her trial at Manchester Assizes.


"Mr Dixon Describes the Last Supper

On the night his wife fell ill, Mr Dixon and his wife had been together until 8 o’clock, and then gone separate ways. Mr Dixon did not get home until 10 and when he got home learned his wife had asked Mrs Britland to come and have supper and get ready for bed. For their supper they had bread and butter, tea and mixed pickles. He could not tell if his wife had anything at Mrs Britland’s house. He had known Mrs Britland for three years, and she had been at his house 10 days before his wife died. His wife was insured in two companies, and he had received more than £29 from them."


On 22nd July, after four hours deliberation the jury found Mary Ann Britland guilty of murder.  She was sentenced to death.  The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser reported on 24th July:

“Mrs Britland, whose demeanour in the dock had been remarkable for coolness and self-possession, utterly broke down under the capital sentence, and was removed from the dock shrieking loudly.”


Mary Ann Britland was hung at Strangeways Prison on the morning of 9th August 1886.  The Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, reported:

“The scene, whilst the procession was moving from the condemned cell to the scaffold, was very painful. The voice of the chaplain as he read the prayers was completely drowned by the wild appeals of Britland as she cried: ‘Oh Lord have mercy! Oh Lord forgive me!’ She was supported on the scaffold by two female warders and, when once there, everything was soon over."

Strangeways Prison 1951 (c) Manchester Libraries

Mary Ann was buried within the grounds of Strangeways, but she was not to rest in peace.  During the 1990 riots much of the prison facility was damaged and had to be rebuilt.  During this time the prison cemetery was demolished and the remains of between 60 -100 executed prisoners were cremated and interred in a communal grave at Blackley Cemetery.