Rebecca Smith was the last woman in Britain to be hanged for infanticide of her own baby. But this unassuming woman, who attended chapel and prayed night and morning, had poisoned not just one but eight of her babies. Her crime shocked and puzzled Victorian Britain. So why did she do it?
Local historian and journalist, Sally Hendry, delves into the nineteenth century to unpick Rebecca’s story, looking at everything from domestic violence through to the unspeakable agonies of death by arsenic poisoning.
Victim or villain? Read this fascinating book and you decide.
