Mother and Murderer: The Sad True Tale of Rebecca Smith, by Sally Hendry

Rebecca Smith, from Bratton near Westbury in Wiltshire, southern England, was the last woman in Britain to be hanged for infanticide of her own baby. She suffered her punishment at Devizes. 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? 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? You decide. May 2022, 117pp, illustrated paperback, £9.95, ISBN 978-1-914407-34-5