Unfitness to Plead Consultation Responses - Law Commission ...

Ann Briggs a midwife was shown the body and the head. She was of the opinion that the
head had been cut off with a blunt instrument.
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In the meantime, Esther Dyson had been taken to the Ecclesfield Workhouse. The midwife
took the body parts to the Workhouse and laid them down beside her. Esther Dyson
communicated to her brother that she had not thrown the baby into the dam but merely laid it
there. The midwife asked her to explain how she was delivered of the child and she put to her
the fact that the child’s head was cut off. On this and subsequent occasions, she insisted that
the head had just come off.
The governess of the Workhouse, Sarah Ingham, examined Esther Dyson’s breasts and found
a deal of milk in them. Esther Dyson repeated her story about how the head came off. She
showed her a knife and put it to her by signs that she had cut off the head but she threw
herself to one side and shunned the idea.
Mr. William Jackson, lecturer on anatomy, was summoned. Mr. Jackson, who was a Member
of the Royal College of Surgeons, and later one of the first Fellows, went on to lecture in
midwifery and he may also have become lecturer in forensic medicine at the Sheffield
Medical School. Mr. Jackson found that Esther Dyson had every appearance of having been
recently delivered. He was decidedly of the opinion that the head had not been torn or
screwed off. He was also in no doubt, from his examination of the baby, that it had been born
alive. Mr. Joseph Campbell, a surgeon, also examined mother and child and corroborated Mr.
Jackson’s opinion.
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