Frances Bennett / Thomas Yapp c1840 (General)

by cmfenton , Ferndown, Dorset, Sunday, February 09, 2014, 19:34 (3941 days ago)

Can anyone add to this gruesome tale, reported in several newspapers in 1842:

The Tablet, 12th November 1842

"HORRIBLE AND SYSTEMATIC INFANTICIDE. — A Gloucester paper states, that a woman, named Frances Bennett, residing at Ruardean Hill, in the Forest of Dean, being very ill, and probably fearing to die with the undivulged guilt of murder upon her conscience, communicated to the Rev. Henry Formby, curate of Ruardean, that about 12 months since she became the mother of a child by a man named Thomas Yapp, with whom she has been cohabiting for about eight or ten years, which child, after it had lived a few days, she destroyed by poisoning it, after which she and Yapp buried it beneath the pavement of the brewhouse. The wretched woman further added that she had been the mother of five other children by the same man, all of whom she had murdered at their birth, and, with Yapp's assistance, had buried their bodies at separate spots beneath the floor of the brewhouse, and near a barn adjoining her cottage. On searching the place the skeletons have been found to confirm the confession of the deranged mother."

and also (The Tablet, 3rd Dec 1842)

" . . . she was brought to gaol on the 17th, and on the 18th died—happy, as she said, in having made confession of her guilt. The unnatural mother was only in her 38th year. Before her intimacy with Yapp she had several children by a husband whose name she bore. The inducement to commit the murder was no other than a desire to retain property which would have been forfeited had her second marriage been known."

There appears to be a matching 1841 census entry:
FoD, Hundred of St Briavels

Fanny Bennett 35 (widow crossed out)
Edwin Bennett 15
William Bennett 12
Thomas Yeapes 30

Among the neighbours were (I believe I am related to at least three of these):
George Marfell 55
Levi Marfell 65
Thomas Marfell 45
Amos Yemm 20

A Thomas Yapp was acquited of murder as accessory at Gloucester Assizes in 1843.

-Colin