Murderous Monday - Women who Kill - Williamina (Minnie) Dean, The Only Woman Executed In New Zealand

"Minnie Dean is part of Winton's history.  Where she now lies is now no mystery"


Williamina Dean nee McCulloch was the first and only woman to be hung in New Zealand.

Williamina was born in West Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland on 2nd September 1844.  The second of four daughters to John and Elizabeth McCulloch nee Swan.  The 1851 Census shows Williamina living with her parents and siblings at 65 Ann Street, West Greenock.  At some point after the death of her mother in 1857, Minnie travelled to New Zealand.  She turns up in Invercargill in 1860 with two daughters Ellen and Isabella, purporting to be a widow of a physician from Tasmania.  However no records of such a marriage or the birth of her two daughters can be found.

On the 19th June 1872 Minnie married innkeeper Charles Dean at Etal Creek, a flourishing waggon stop in the 1860s, yet by the end of the gold rush in 1872 it had become a backwater.  In 1878 the Deans took up farming only for the collapse of the land boom in 1884 to leave them facing financial difficulties.  In 1887 the couple adopted a daughter Margaret, before moving to Winton to raise pigs.  Around this time Minnie started taking in unwanted babies for payment.  Babies were taken in for 5s - 8s or 'adopted' for a lump sum of £10 - £30.  At any one time Minnie had up to nine children and infants in her care.  With the high infant mortality rate in New Zealand at the time some deaths were expected.

Williamina at the time of her marriage in 1872

In 1889 a six month old infant died of convulsions after an illness and in 1891 a six week old infant died of heart and respiratory problems.  An inquest was held into the deaths but it was decided that the remaining children were well nourished and cared for even though the house was deemed to be inadequate.  Minnie was advised to reduce the number of children she cared for but she carried on as before.  In 1894 another child was to die from drowning while under her care, to avoid another inquest Minnie decided to bury the child in her backyard.  Earlier in 1893 Minnie had had a three week old baby removed from her care. 

The detective wrote in his report,

'I believe this woman would have killed or abandoned this child before she got to Dunedin, if it had not been taken from her.' 

Frustratingly for the police there was little they could do with the inadequate child welfare laws of the time.

Police digging in Minnie's garden

May of 1895 saw Minnie boarding a train with a young baby and a hat box, only to disembark leave the train with just the hat box.  After a search of the railway line turned up nothing the police began to excavate Minnie's garden where they unearthed the bodies of three children, one year old Dorothy Edith Carter,  one month old Eva Hornsby (the baby from the train) and the skeletal remains of a four year old boy.  Dorothy was found to have died from a overdose of laudanum, an opiate used to quieten babies and suppress their appetite.  Poor Eva died from asphyxiation.  Minnie was arrested and charged with infanticide.  During Minnie's trial dolls in miniature hatboxes were sold to the public outside the courthouse.

Dolls in miniature hatboxes sold at Minnie's trial

On 12th August 1895, three months after her arrest Minnie was hanged at Invercargill gaol.  Five healthy and well cared for children were found to be living at Minnie's house at the time of her arrest.  It is thought some 26 children passed through the hands of Minnie between 1889 and 1895, the fate of seven of those children was never known.

Remaining children at under Minnie's care

Due to public concern over Minnie activities New Zealand passed the Infant Life Protection Act 1893 and the Infant Protection Act 1896

Minnie Dean's headstone

Murderous Monday - The Finchley Baby Farmers

On February 3rd 1903 the first women to be hanged at Holloway Prison met their maker at the end of executioner Henry Perrepoint's rope.

They were Amelia Sach, 36 and Annie Walters, 54.  Finchley's Baby Farmers.

Baby Farming was a term used in Victorian Britain, to mean the taking in of an illegitimate infant or child for payment with the view of 'adopting the child out' or caring for the child for an agreed weekly fee. 

Illegitimacy in Victorian Britain was a huge stigma, not only for the child but also for the child's mother, who would find herself shunned by society.  The stigma of being an unmarried mother could cause her to lose employment and even make it difficult for her to gain further employment.  With no welfare system, save the local work house, unmarried mothers were faced with a difficult decision.  Enter the feared Victorian work house, or give up her child.

Baby farming soon became a profitable business for those less scrupulous members of society. A high infant mortality rate was part of daily life during the Victorian Era, so the death of one or two bastard children was unlikely to raise any eyebrows. Many baby farmers would take in infants, leaving them to die of starvation or neglect.  Other baby farmers found it far more profitable to dispose of the infants as soon as possible.

Little is known about Annie Walters background.  It is thought that she was married at one point and may have had a drinking problem.  It is believed she may have also been feeble minded.

Amelia Sach was born Frances Amelia Thorne in Wimborne Dorset in May 1867, the fourth child of Francis and Georgiana Thorne.  In 1896 Amelia married builder Jeffery Sach.  On the 1901 Census they are listed as living at The Walks Cllanview House with their young child.

By 1902 Amelia was running a 'lying in' house at Claymore House.  A place where unmarried women could have their babies and for a fee leave them behind to be adopted or fostered out.  The charge for these services was usually around £25 - £30, a vast amount when you consider a labourer at the time might be paid 3s 9d a week.  Many of these women left their babies behind dreaming of the loving families that would adopt and care for them, giving them everything their mother could not.  Unfortunately this was far from the truth.

Once an infant had been left in the care of Amelia Sach, Annie Walters would be called upon to collect it.  She would then murder the hapless infant by means of administering Chlorodyne, a morphine based drug that causes asphyxia in babies or if the drug was unsuccessful, smothering the child.  Their bodies were then dumped in the Thames or left in rubbish heaps.  It is thought that Amelia and Annie may have disposed of up to 20 infants in this manner.  However their enterprise was soon to come to an end.

One evening Annie Walters decided to take one of the babies home with her to her rented room.  She told her landlord, a police officer, that she was looking after the little girl while her parents were away on holiday. The landlord's wife helped Annie change the babies nappy and noted that the baby was in fact a boy.  A few days later Annie told her landlord and his wife that the baby had died.  she seemed genuinely upset about the babies passing, but her landlord's suspicions were aroused when a few months later Annie returned with another baby, who was to die a few days later.

Amelia Sach pictured at Holloway prison 1902

Annie was arrested and charged with the murder of a male infant by the name of Galley.  Soon more bodies where discovered and with the information volunteered by Annie, the police arrived on the doorstep of Amelia Sach.  A search of Amelia's house turned up several items of baby clothing, some of which were identified by mourning mothers whose children had vanished without a trace whilst in the care of Amelia.  The police now have enough evidence to arrest and charge Amelia with murder too.

Their trail took place on the 15th and 16th of January 1903 before Mr Justice Darling.  They jury took just 40 minutes to find them both guilty.  They were taken to Holloway prison to await execution.  Mr Perrepoint noted in his diary.

"These two women are baby farmers of the worst kind and they are both repulsive in type.  One was two pounds less than the other (in weight) and there was a difference of two inches in the drop, for which we allowed.  Once (Sach) had a long thin neck and the other (Walters) a short neck, points which I was bound to observe in the arrangement of the rope."

Amelia Sach had to be carried to the scaffold, while Annie Walters remained quite calm, is is said that she called out, "Goodbye Sach" when hooded on the trapdoor.  It was to be the last double female hanging in Britain.

The bodies of Amelia and Annie were buried in unmarked graves inside the walls of Holloway prison.  In 1971 during a extension work at the prison their bodies where exhumed and reburied in plot 117 in Brookwood Cemetery along with the bodies of two other women who were executed at Holloway, Styllou Christofi and Edith Thompson.

Picture by Connie Nisinger, findagrave.com

It is because of baby farmers such as Sach and Walters that we have our child protection laws today.