A SEETHING mob jeered and pelted a woman who had to be given a police escort from an inquest, the hostile crowd yelling and hooting before smashing her windows and defacing doors and shutters.

The rabble had been incensed by the horrific death of two-year-old Elizabeth Cheater which a circulating rumour attributed to the cruelty and neglect of her step-mother.

Though the jury stopped short of blaming Mary Cheater’s actions for her demise, the coroner Edward Coxwell denounced her treatment towards the child who had been deprived of medication and had suffered serious head injuries, either through blows or falls, while under her care.

She had loving parents, her father working arduously as a carpenter while his wife tendered their family of which the eldest was ten.

Tragically the woman succumbed to a virulent attack of cholera in the autumn of 1849 and some 12 months later he married his present wife who was in her mid-20s.

Sadly she was anything but a decent mother, though it was said in her favour that when her husband found work difficult to find during the winter, she left their humble home in Cossack Street, Southampton, to help supplement their meagre income.

One night in March, 1851, Cheater roused her neighbour, shoemaker George Sparks, and asked for his wife to look at the child.

“She had the child in her arms and I said it was dying. She gave the child to my wife while she went for her mother. The child died a few minutes later in my wife’s arms.”

Sparks told the court the girl had not been well for some time but he had not heard of her being ill-treated.

The step-mother was then called and warned she need not answer any questions which might incriminate her. Instead she delivered a statement in which she declared Elizabeth had not been well for six months and she had consulted two doctors, the second being the parish doctor, Mr Cheeseman, who had last seen her step-daughter two months before her death when he prescribed medicine.

Perhaps it is is an indication of her feelings towards the child that virtually throughout the statement Elizabeth was seldom called ‘she’ but ‘it’.

“He said it was dropsical. It seemed to get better but was dropping away fast but I never gave it the medicine because I thought it had bad medicine enough.”

Cheater then related how the family moved and she saw another doctor who gave her some powder.

She said Elizabeth had suffered “a bad head” since Dr Cheeseman saw her and was apt to pick it.

“It had always had some victuals if it did not have sufficient. It was suddenly taken worse yesterday and fell while sitting the floor. I picked her up and took her to Mr Sparks and she died in his wife’s arms.”

She concluded: “I never saw the child ill-used. My husband knew I did not give it the medicine. I gave her the powder which Dr Steed gave me to be divided into two parts.”

The hearing was then adjourned for three days and on its resumption the case took a dramatic turn.

Sparks was recalled, contradicting much of his earlier evidence and now scathing in its character.

“I have seen the deceased and another child in the yard for three and four hours at a time. They were not properly clothed. I have seen the stepmother come out and take the child by the arm, beat it and take it indoors, and have afterwards heard the child cry. The last time was only a few days before the child died.”

However, the coroner, commenting on the contrary fresh evidence, said he could not “reconcile” with what he had heard on the previous occasion and warned jurors they could not place much reliance on it.

“Either what he has now said was false or he had withheld a part of the truth,” he pointedly remarked.

Dr Cheeseman told the court how he had prescribed medicine for Elizabeth who had suffered dropsy after scarlatina. “It was essential the child should have taken the medicine but I do not think the child would have died for want of it.”

He subsequently carried out the post-mortem which revealed she had died from effusion of blood in the brain, observing she had suffered marks in the region of the left temple and bruising on the right cheek and above the right ear.

“I consider these marks were the result of violence and it possible they were the cause of the appearances I observed in the brain,” he stated, adding he also noted discolouration on the limbs which might have arisen from debility and strumous disease which showed themselves in eruptions on the skin.

He then delivered the cause of death: “My decided opinion is that the child died from the effects of violence and not from disease or want of food, and there were no symptoms of exposure.”

Mrs Sparks, who had been unable to attend the first day of the inquest through illness, had recovered sufficiently well to tell the court how she had seen Elizabeth walking up and down the garden two days before she died, shivering in her summer clothing.

But she insisted: “I never saw anyone beat or ill-treat the child.”

In his summing up, the coroner said it was clear Elizabeth had died from the effects of violence, inflicted by either blows or falls.

“The question for you to consider is whether it was accidental or wilfully inflicted by any party.”

Crucially he commented: “In my opinion, there is no evidence to prove that any party had inflicted wilful violence. Undoubtedly the child was very much neglected, the non-administration of medicines proved it was wrong and the stepmother deserves strong censure. But censure is one thing. To charge her with criminal violence and the death of a child is another.”

The room at the Eagle Tavern in Victoria Street, Woolston, was then cleared while jurors deliberated for half an hour before returning a verdict that Elizabeth had died from effusion in the brain but there was insufficient evidence to determine whether the blows were accidentally or otherwise sustained.

Coxwell however condemned Cheater for ill-using her step-daughter, telling her in no uncertain terms she was fortunate there was no evidence to accuse her of causing her death.

“But you have by your own showing, withheld the medicine prescribed for her, the blows had evidently been inflicted while under your care, either by a fall or purposely done, and the child has been exposed to cold.”

Her only excuse for the neglect was her need to find work and money.

“I express in my conclusion my hope and warning that any other children under your charge will be more kindly attended to, and you will take care in future by your conduct not to lay yourself open to any such observations as duty had called for in this present instance.”

Despite the atrocious weather of wind and driving rain, a large crowd had attended the hearing and they gave vent to their fury to such a degree Cheater needed a police escort to prevent her being attacked, though her home was later seriously vandalised.