Page 9 - Gen Mag Online November 2020

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MURDER MOST FOUL

The Frances Kidder Story

[This article is reproduced with the kind permission of Richard Clark. To find out more about
other cases he has researched please visit www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/contents]

Frances Kidder – The last woman to hang in public.
Frances Kidder made history by becoming the last woman to
be publicly hanged in Britain, when she was executed at
Maidstone at midday on Thursday, the 2nd of April 1868.

25 year old Frances had been born in 1843 to John and
Frances Turner of New Romney in Kent. She married William
Kidder in 1865 as she was pregnant by him and she gave birth
to the baby daughter they named Emma before the marriage.
What Frances did not know at the time was that William had
two children by a previous relationship with a woman called
Staples. The younger child was sent to live with relatives after
its mother died but his daughter, Louisa, who was about ten
years old went to live with Frances and William at Hythe in Kent.

From the outset things did not go well between Louisa and
Frances. Although corporal punishment in the home was
considered normal in the 1860’s, Frances inflicted wanton
cruelty on the little girl who turned from being a typical lively
ten year old into a withdrawn and sullen girl, over the next two
years. Frances beat the child with anything that came to hand,
made her wear rags and often deprived her of food. She was
also frequently excluded from the house, irrespective of the
weather, or was made to sleep in the cellar with old sacks for
bedding. Such was the abuse that their next door neighbour
William Henniker reported William and Frances to the police
who charged Frances with cruelty for which she was fined.
William Calfraft (1800 -
Louisa was sent to live with a guardian. However William did
not make his regular maintenance payments to the guardian 1879) 19 th century
and Louisa was returned to them. Louisa’s presence re-kindled hangman
France’s resentment and the abuse of the little girl resumed.
William and Frances began to quarrel over her treatment of his daughter but it was her who bore the
brunt. At least once he threw Louisa out of the house.

Frances helped William in his work as a potato dealer, and in July 1867 was quite seriously injured
in an accident when she was thrown from their horse and cart when the horse bolted. The accident
may have caused brain damage. In any event, she took some time to recover, but it did nothing to
reduce her enmity towards Louisa. On the 24th of August 1867, she had taken Louisa (and her own
daughter, Emma) to visit her parents in New Romney. She was to tell her parent’s neighbour, Mrs.
Evans, of her feelings towards Louisa and that she intended to get rid of her before returning to
Hythe.

On the Sunday Frances told her parents that she was ill and would not be going out for a walk with
them, preferring to stay at home with the children. Once they had left she suggested to Louisa that
they visit a nearby fair and told her that it would be sensible to change into their old clothes before
going. This. they did, and then started out on foot for New Romney. They came to Cobb’s Bridge
and it was here that Frances grabbed Louisa and forced her into the stream that ran under the bridge.