The entrance to the Regent’s Canal at Limehouse in 1823

A few days ago I wrote up the case of mechanic that rescued a woman from drowning herself in the Regent’s canal. That case was from 1866 but lest we suppose that it was an isolated incident today I’ve found another attempted suicide in the canal, and this one ended being prosecuted at the Old Bailey in 1849.

In February 1849 a woman was placed in the dock at the Worship Street Police court before Mr Hammill, the sitting magistrate. Her name was Anne Mallandine and she was charged with attempting to murder her own by throwing him to the Regent’s canal. The chief witness was John Stoddart, a clerk employed by a Haggerstone builder, who was looking out over the canal from his boss’ counting house at four o’clock in the afternoon of the 6 February.

He saw Anne walking along canal tow path pulling a small boy along by the hand. The child was resisting and saying ‘don’t mother, don’t!’. Anne ignored him and propelled him towards the edge of the path clearly determined to throw him into the water. Suddenly, to Stoddart’s horror,  she picked him up and threw him in.

As the boy struggled and moved away from the bank Anne started to undress. She had taken off her bonnet and shawl before the clerk could reach her but he was able to stop her jumping in after her boy. Another man arrived on the scene and secured the woman while Stoddart bravely plunged into the water to rescue the little lad.

The clerk and the other man managed to get both parties to a nearby pub where they were cleaned up and handed over to the police. The boy was taken from his mother and placed in the workhouse while Anne was locked up for the magistrate to decide  what to do with her in the morning.

After Stoddart gave his testimony a young man named John Wilding said he had seen the incident and noticed Anne earlier. He said she had been trying to ‘lure the boy to the bank by showing him some ducks that were swimming in the water’ but he had got wind of her real purpose and tried to get away.

PC Heath (N48) told Mr Hammill that on arrest Anne had expressed regret that the witnesses had arrived as quickly as they had since ‘then she would have been spared the trouble of going before a magistrate or anybody else’.

Mr Hammil wanted to know what had brought her to do such a dreadful thing. Anne told him that she and her son were starving and had not eaten anything for at least a day. She was probably also trying to avoid the shame of going to the parish for help and clearly dreaded the workhouse more than she feared death.

Anne was committed to take her trial at the Old Bailey and imprisoned in Newgate gaol in the meantime. On the 5 March she was formally tried for attempting to kill  her little boy Mason. Anne (or Hannah as she was named in the Old Bailey Proceedings) was described as 28 years old and unmarried; she cried throughout the trial as the witnesses recounted the events of that afternoon. The court was told that the water was about five feet deep at the part of the canal and that probably helped save Mason’s life.

Her defence counsel accepted that she had done as was alleged but had only acted out of desperation. He stopped short of declaring her insane but  argued that she had been brought to do what she did from ‘wretchedness and starvation’ and suggested that at the time she was not in a state of mind that allowed her to act rationally. This probably did just enough to convince the jury , who found her not guilty.

[from The Morning Chronicle , Thursday, February 8, 1849; The Morning Post , Tuesday, March 06, 1849]