Mary Ann Cotton

 Mary Ann Cotton was one of Britain’s worst serial killers. It’s not certain how many people she killed. She may have poisoned up to 21 people.

Mary Ann was born in Durham County in 1832. Her father was a miner, but he died in an accident when Mary Ann was 10. When she was 16, Mary Ann became a domestic servant. In 1852 she married William Mowbray. The couple moved to Cornwall, where William had a job on a railway. The couple had 4 or 5 children in Cornwall but only one of them lived (unfortunately, due to a lack of documentation many of the details of Mary Ann’s life are uncertain). Infant mortality was very high in the 19th century, and the loss of several children was not unusual.

In 1857 Mr and Mrs Mowbray returned to County Durham with one surviving child. The couple soon had more children. However, the only surviving child from their years in Cornwall died in 1860.

Mary Ann persuaded her husband, William, to take out a life insurance policy. Soon afterward, another of their children died. William himself followed in 1865. His death was ascribed to an infectious disease and Mary Ann Cotton gained £35 (a large sum of money at that time). Mary Ann was left with two daughters. Sadly, one of them died, apparently of an infectious disease. Mary Ann then sent her only surviving child, a girl named Isabella, to live with her mother, leaving her free of children and with no husband.

Mary Ann soon remarried. She met a man called George Ward and they soon married. The unfortunate man died in 1866, once again seemingly of an infectious illness. Mary Ann then became the housekeeper of a man called John Robinson, a widower. Shortly after she moved in one of Robinson’s children died. 

In 1867 Mary Ann went to visit her mother, who died shortly afterward.

Mary Ann then moved in with Robinson. Her daughter with William Mowbray, Isabella, also moved in. Sadly, Isabella died in 1868. 

In 1867 Mary Ann married Robinson and they had two children, but only one survived. Fortunately, Mr Robinson discovered that Mary Ann had stolen money from his building society account. 

He also reportedly became suspicious when Mary Ann kept trying to persuade him to take out life insurance. Robinson threw Mary Ann out of the house.

However, in 1870, she met a widower called Frederick Cotton. Soon afterward, Cotton’s sister and one of his children died. 

Yet, he married Mary Ann in September 1870. By the end of 1871, Frederick Cotton and two of his children had died. Once again, Mary Ann benefited handsomely from a life insurance policy. But she was left with a stepson, Frederick’s child.

Like so many murderers Mary Ann became foolishly overconfident. Having got away with murder several times she seems to have started feeling that she was invincible and she would never be caught. In 1872 Mary Ann took a lover named Joseph Natrass. However, he soon died, leaving his possessions to Mary Ann. Meanwhile, she became pregnant by a man named John Quick-Manning.

Mary Ann then tried to send her stepson Charles Edward Cotton to a workhouse. She told a workhouse official that she could not marry because of her stepson. Unwisely, she also told him ‘I won’t be troubled long. He’ll go like all the rest of the Cottons.’ Soon afterward the boy died and the official went to the police.

The body was exhumed and was found to contain arsenic. The bodies of Frederick Cotton and two of his other children were also exhumed and were found to contain arsenic. So was the body of Mary Ann was charged with the murder of the boy, Charles Edward Cotton. However, her trial had to be delayed because she was pregnant again. It did not begin until she had given birth for a final time in January 1873.

She went on trial on 5 March 1873. Not surprisingly, the jury found her guilty. Mary Ann Cotton was hanged in Durham jail on 24 March 1873. However, her neck was not broken, and she took about three minutes to be strangled to death.

It will never be known exactly how many people Mary Ann Cotton poisoned.