The
group were approached by a smartly dressed man in a black coat who
offered Minnie and their friend money to leave and go get sweets, which
they did. The man then offered Fanny a half-penny if she would accompany
him to ‘The Hollow’, she refused and he picked her up and took her
anyway.
Several hours later Minnie returned
home without Fanny and told their mother about the meeting with the man
in the black coat. Worried Mrs Adams, went to look for Fanny with the
help of a neighbor, Mrs Gardiner.
Whilst searching they saw a man in a black coat walking back to the village from the direction of The Hollow...
Mrs
Gardiner accosted him and demanded to know what he had done with Fanny,
the man shrugged off her claims “Nothing, I gave the girls money, but
only to buy sweets which I often do to children.” The two women remained
unconvinced, but then the man told them that he was the clerk to a
local solicitor, William Clement, deciding him to be respectable the
women let him walk away.
A search party was
formed, and they quickly came across Fanny’s remains. Her head was found
stuck up on two poles, the eyes missing. It would take several days to
find the rest of the body which was dismembered and scattered nearby,
her eyes were later found in a nearby river (I said this was bleak…).
That
same night an investigation into the murder was launched and the
obvious prime suspect Frederick Baker, Clerk to William Clement, was
immediately arrested. Baker claimed his innocence, despite his clothes
being bloodstained and being found carrying two bloody knives.
Evidence
mounted. The entry in Baker’s dairy for the 24th August read: ‘killed a
young girl. It was fine and hot’. Bakers colleagues said that he was
missing between 1pm-3pm (the time of Fanny’s disappearance) and left the
offices again at 5pm (when he met Mrs Adams and Mrs Gardiner) returning
at 6pm when he then mentioned the meeting with the two women and
commented that if Fanny’s body were to be found it would be ‘awkward for
him’ (truly a master criminal)
The police
feared that the local community would attempt to lynch Baker and his
initial hearing and trial were carried out at top speed, with his trial
starting at Alton Town Hall on Thursday 29th August, just days after the
murder.
The judge urged the jury to take into
account Baker’s poor mental health and consider Baker irresponsible for
his action through reason of insanity- but the jury took just 15 minutes
to convict him, Guilty. The judge had no choice but to carry out a
sentence of death.
Prior to his execution on
Christmas Eve 1867, Baker wrote to the parents of Fanny Adams and asked
for their forgiveness of his crimes that he had committed at: “an
unguarded hour and not with malice or a forethought”
The
murder of Fanny Adams resonated throughout the country, with the
grotesque illustration and write ups of the murder featured across
newspaper and broadsides. The murder would also become the subject of
many a folk songs and ballad.
The murder of
Fanny Adams resonated throughout the country, with the grotesque
illustration and write ups of the murder featured across newspaper and
broadsides. The murder would also become the subject of many a folk
songs and ballad.
Then in 1869 the British Navy
introduced a new ration, mutton in a tin. The food stuff was hardly
appetizing, and sailors started a running joke that the mutton was
actually the remains of ‘sweet Fanny Adams’ (truly the height of
humor…). This joke continued and soon the contents of the tin became to
be known as ‘sweet FA’ this trickled into popular parlance and still
today people say ‘sweet FA’ as another term for ‘nothing’. Nice.
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