WEEPING, Florence Smith took a swig from a bottle and cried out: “They are all against me.”

Seconds later, the 16-year-old crashed to the floor unconscious – it had contained carbolic acid.

Her brother, William – with who she had been happily playing only minutes earlier – forcefully knocked it from her hand and administered warm salt and water, as his wife summoned a doctor.

The teenager was rushed to nearby Royal South Hants Hospital in Southampton where prompt action from nursing staff saved her life.

In due course she was released but warned she must return as an out-patient.

Attempted suicide was on the statute books at the time and two weeks later on November 13, 1909, she appeared before Southampton magistrates.

“This is a very sad case,” lamented C J Whittaker, prosecuting. “She has either left home or, as I understand it, been turned out and came to live with her brother.”

Smith’s sister-in-law, Ellen, told the court she had turned up at their door at midnight because she said her mother had thrown her out.

But the young maid lent forward from her seat in the dock and shouted: “My mother did not turn me out. I ran out because she hit me.”

Resuming her evidence, the sister-in-law said Smith had made it clear that if she was returned to her mother’s home, she would kill herself.

“The carbolic acid had been in our house for disaffecting purposes, and I think she must have got some that had been left over.”

The magistrates held a short discussion before adjourning proceedings for a week on the understanding she would be transferred to the prison infirmary in Winchester.

“You do not appear to me to be a very good state of health,” explained the concerned chairman, Sir James Lemon.

Seven days later, Smith returned to court, this time in the presence of both parents.

“I feel much better,” she confirmed with a smile.

The town’s chief constable read two letters from the the prison visitor at Winchester before Smith was asked whether she would like to return home.

“Yes,” she replied, the parents nodding in agreement.

And that appeared to be that.

The magistrates consulted with the court clerk and the chief constable over her immediate future.

“We have decided that you should be handed over to Miss Carpenter, the court missionary, for a time,” the new chairman, Mr G Dominy said.

Her mother bristled: “No, you shall not.”

Dominy replied: “We have decided so.”

The mother would not back down: “No, you shall not.”

Before the row could intensify, her husband asked if he could address the court and was directed to the witness box.

Explaining explained his wife’s condition – it was not revealed in the court report – he said he was willing to hand her over to the court missionary in the hope she could find her a situation.

The chairman then advised him: “You must behave kindly towards her. What we are doing is in her best interests, but if there is any trouble, we will have to deal with her in a different way.”

The father nodded in agreement and his daughter left court in the missionary’s company.