The 1844 Trial of 12-Year-Old Mary Ann Johnson: Accused of Killing Her Half-Brothers
”The rich man’s word is law and right
The poor man’s plea is lost tonight.
Though innocence be plain as day,
The gallows waits, come what may.” 1
The events of this post revolve around the Lincolnshire towns of Benington, Lincoln, Surfleet and Gedney and it is based on contemporary newspaper reports of the court proceedings that took place in 1844. The family involved is that of my third great grandfather - Christopher Farr, his first wife and their children. This story was uncovered through meticulous research by Tony and Peter Packham, descendants of Christopher Farr, so I am sincerely grateful for their efforts. 2 I am also grateful to the help Marjorie Byrne for her ideas and editing skills.
The Setting: the Fens
The towns in this account were situated within the Fens — a low-lying wetland stretching across eastern England, encompassing much of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk.
In the early 18th century, the Fens formed a distinctive landscape of marshes, bogs, seasonally flooded meadows, and scattered islands of higher ground. Though prone to flooding, the region was rich in natural resources: fish and eels filled the waterways, wildfowl nested in the reeds, and peat was cut for fuel.
Efforts to drain the Fens had begun in the 17th century, led by Dutch engineers such as Cornelius Vermuyden and financed by “adventurers” — investors hoping to reclaim fertile farmland. Yet drainage remained only partially successful. It was an ongoing struggle well into the 18th and 19th centuries, as dykes and sluices battled the tides and storms that could undo years of labour in a single night.
For those who understood the land, the Fens offered abundance. Reeds were harvested for thatching, peat for burning, and the drained pastures provided rich grazing. Communities developed specialised knowledge and a reputation for fierce independence, earning the nickname “Fen Tigers” for their resistance to outside control. Life in the Fens demanded constant vigilance, a deep familiarity with the drainage systems, and the ability to adapt quickly to a terrain that could shift from farmland to impassable marsh with the turn of the weather.
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| Illustration of drainage mills in the Fens that were in use from the late 1600’s through the 1800s (Meeres 2019) |
The Characters:
The Farrs and the Johnsons
The relationships between the individuals in this chapter are complex due to intermarriage. Intermarriage was a common occurrence in small rural villages where people rarely travelled far and the population was relatively limited.
Below is a brief outline of the key figures involved:
Christopher Farr, my third great-grandfather, was born in March 1815 in Leverton, a village near Benington in Lincolnshire. 3 By 1844, he was living in Benington Sea End, within walking distance of the village centre. He worked as a farm labourer, earning a modest living.
His first wife, Mary Johnson, was born in April 1809 in Old Leake, a neighbouring village to Leverton.4 In 1832, she gave birth to a daughter out of wedlock, Mary Ann Johnson.5
Mary and Christopher married on 1 June 1834 in Benington. 6. Two years earlier, in October 1832, Christopher’s widowed mother had married her own widowed cousin, who was also Mary’s father.7 As a result, the younger Mary was both Christopher’s wife and his step-sister.
Christopher and Mary Farr had two sons, Daniel and William who survived infancy and were baptised. They were aged seven and five in January 1844. 8 On 17 December 1843, Mary died in childbirth at the age of 34. 9 Her death left Christopher with three children to care for and marked the beginning of a series of tragic events for both the Farr and Johnson families.
Mary’s only sister, Sarah Johnson, married Charles Johnson, who was the brother of Elizabeth Johnson. Elizabeth Johnson, aged 30 in 1844, was cousin to Christopher, Mary and Sarah. She was also Sarah’s sister-in-law. Elizabeth had a five-year-old illegitimate son named Mark and she was eager to find a husband who would accept her child (Packham, 1994). Shortly after Mary’s death, Elizabeth visited a fortune teller with Sarah, seeking to learn whether she would marry a widower with three children. According to Sarah’s later testimony, Elizabeth declared:
“She wanted a home, and a home she would have, and the first man who offered (come from where he might) she would take.”
Three weeks later, she became Christopher’s housekeeper. Sarah testified that Elizabeth agreed to work without pay if Christopher allowed her son to live with them. However, there is no evidence that Mark ever moved in; at the time of the murders, he was living with his grandparents.For the Mice
On 30 January 1844, twelve-year-old Mary Ann Johnson walked the muddy lane from Benington Sea End to the village, likely bracing against the wind off the North Sea. Her wooden clogs would have struck the frozen ground with dull thuds. This image of her haunts me, a young girl, recently motherless, walking that lonely stretch of land with a sense of unease and a penny in her pocket.
Elizabeth Johnson had instructed her to visit Mr Overton’s shop to check for letters and to ask for “a pennyworth of white mercury” — the common name for arsenic. If questioned, she was told to say it was “for the mice”. Mary Ann knew there were no mice in the cottage and the request must have unsettled her.
The shop was a warm refuge from the cold. It likely smelled of tea, tobacco and lamp oil. Mr Overton told her no letters had arrived. Mary Ann left the store, but after walking a short distance down the road, she returned, too afraid to go home without the arsenic. She asked Overton for the arsenic. He reluctantly sold her a quarter pound which was clearly labelled “Poison.” He warned her it was dangerous and not to leave it lying about. He recorded the sale in his ledger.
The Mug
Upon return, Elizabeth scolded Mary Ann for taking too long, then sent her to fetch water. Later, Mary Ann would testify:
“At about 4 o’clock (Elizabeth) took a blue and white mug, got some water, and emptied the paper of arsenic into it, stirring it up with a broken spoon. She then put it aside, and told me that when the two children asked for some drink after she and Father had gone to chapel, I was to give it to the boys to drink, and then to take them next door to Mrs Chevins. I asked her if it would hurt the boys and she replied, ‘No, it will only poison mice.’”
At dusk, Daniel and William returned from school. The cottage would have been dim, lit only by rush-dipped candles that sputtered and smoked. When they said they were thirsty, Mary Ann gave them the mug as instructed. She then took them next door to Mrs Chevins. Soon, her cottage was filled with the sounds of retching and moaning, the air thick with the sour stench of vomit.
When Elizabeth and Christopher returned from chapel around 9 pm, Mrs Chevins banged on the wall. They went next door and seeing William, Elizabeth said, “Poor fellow, I know what it is, and he shan’t have any more.”
She told Mrs Chevins the boys had drunk sweetened tea and broth, which must have made them ill. Christopher and Elizabeth took the boys home to bed. Alone with Mary Ann, Elizabeth leaned in and said quietly, “Do not say I have given them anything to drink.”
At 11 pm, Mrs Chevins was called to the Farrs’ house. Mary Ann, crying and agitated, was holding William. “Willy is dying,” she said.
Despite Elizabeth’s urging to fetch a doctor, Christopher believed the boys would recover so he waited until 1 am before going to fetch Dr Cammack.
On their return Elizabeth was pale, her lips bloodless. Her hands trembled so violently that Dr Cammack feared the candle would drop from the candlestick when she picked it up. He suspected poisoning and asked to examine the vomit. Elizabeth said it had been thrown away. He asked a second time and a full chamber pot was found under the bed. When asked if the boys could have accessed poison, Elizabeth said she was certain they could not have. Shortly after the doctor arrived, William ‘took his last gasp’ and died.
The doctor’s treatment had no effect on an exhausted Daniel, who died two hours later. By dusk, two boys were gone and the lives of those involved would be changed forever.
The Next Day
At four in the morning, Elizabeth and Mary Ann went to fetch Christopher’s Uncle and Aunt. On the way, Elizabeth told Mary Ann that if Mr Overton or the Coroner asked her about the poison, she was to say that she did not take it home but gave it to a woman on Wrangle bridge. Elizabeth told her to say the woman had a brown cloak, white bonnet and reddish coloured ribbons. Elizabeth was clear, if she told them this, the matter would be settled, but if she didn’t, it wouldn’t.
The next day, Christopher took Mary Ann to Mr Overton’s shop. He asked, “Did this girl get any poison here?” Overton confirmed she had. Christopher then asked Mary Ann what she had done with it. As instructed by Elizabeth, she replied, “I gave it to a woman on the road who sent me for it.”
The Funerals
A post-mortem confirmed that Daniel and William Farr had died from arsenic poisoning. Although the coroner delayed the inquest for several weeks, the boys were buried on 3 February 1844. Working-class families typically buried their dead quickly, as embalming was unaffordable and homes lacked the means to preserve remains. After the examination, the boys’ bodies would have been made presentable and returned to the family for preparation. Women usually undertook this task, so it is likely that Elizabeth washed and groomed the bodies, dressing the boys in their Sunday best. She may have been assisted by neighbours or by Sarah Johnson, her sister-in-law and the children’s aunt.
The funeral was likely modest. The average cost of a child’s burial at the time was around 30 shillings, equivalent to two weeks’ wages for a farm labourer. This would have covered the coffins, pallbearers, and basic fittings, but not burial fees. The coffins were probably made by a local carpenter. White was the traditional colour for children’s funerals, symbolising innocence and purity. If the family had white cloths, they would have been draped over the coffins. For those who could afford it, a white hearse, rather than black, was customary.
However, for the Farr boys, it is more likely that pallbearers carried the coffins on foot, followed by family and neighbours. The vicar would have read from the Book of Common Prayer, including passages that emphasised innocence and divine mercy. Working-class children were often buried in unmarked graves or in sections of the churchyard reserved for paupers and children.
Contemporary accounts suggest that when children died under suspicious circumstances, community response was mixed. Some neighbours would have mourned sincerely; others may have whispered about arsenic and murder. The atmosphere at the funeral may have been tense. The usual custom of neighbours providing meals and comfort in the days following a death may have been muted or absent.
What is known from testimony is that Sarah and Elizabeth attended the funeral and Sarah spent the night at Christopher’s cottage. Sarah had heard rumours that the boys had been poisoned, but both Christopher and Elizabeth insisted there was no poison in the house. When she asked Mary Ann what she had done with the arsenic she had purchased from Mr Overton, Elizabeth and Christopher replied that she had given it to a woman on the road. Elizabeth then told Mary Ann, “to stick to what she had said, as they were all innocent.”
That night, Sarah saw Christopher and Elizabeth in bed together following the boys’ funeral. This would likely have shocked her, as he was not long a widower and it was customary for parents to remain in deep mourning for six months.
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| Burial Records for Mary, Daniel & William Farr |
The Coroner’s Report
Mr R. Cammack Jr., surgeon of Benington, was directed by the coroner, Mr Mastin, to perform post-mortem examinations on Daniel and William. He removed the stomachs and took them to his surgery, where he found them highly inflamed and mottled with red patches. After conducting several tests, he confirmed the presence of arsenic in both samples. The coroner interviewed Christopher Farr, Sarah Johnson, Mary Ann Johnson, Mr Overton, and Elizabeth Johnson. Elizabeth underwent a severe and prolonged cross-examination, but nothing could be elicited from her or Christopher to incriminate anyone other than Mary Ann.
The coroner asked Mary Ann whether she could describe the woman to whom she claimed to have given the arsenic, and whether she would recognise her again. Mary Ann replied that she had never seen the woman before or since. She described her as tall, wearing a brown cloak, a white straw bonnet with coloured ribbons, and carrying a reticule-basket. According to Mary Ann, they walked together along the high road as far as the guide-post leading to Butterwick — a distance of 200 to 300 yards from Mr Overton’s shop. The woman then continued in the direction of Boston, and Mary Ann returned home.
Despite vigilant enquiries by police, no such woman was ever found. A witness later refuted Mary Ann’s account. The witness had been walking along the high road to Boston and saw a woman near Overton’s shop who then took the footpath toward Boston. About ten minutes later, the witness met Mary Ann near the guide-post — alone. She was confident that Mary Ann could not have spoken to the woman, as she had never lost sight of her.
The coroner adjourned the inquest several times before concluding it on 12 February. The courtroom was crowded; interest in the case was high and newspapers across England were reporting on the events. Faced with two compelling facts — that arsenic had been sold to Mary Ann, and that the boys had died from arsenic poisoning that same night — the coroner fulfilled his legal duty and committed Mary Ann to stand trial at Lincoln Castle for the murder of her two half-brothers.
According to newspaper accounts, she remained unmoved, indifferent, and silent as the indictment was read. The case was described as “one of the most intricate and painful investigations which has occurred in this part of the country for a great number of years.”
The Journey to Lincoln Castle
The twenty-mile journey from Benington to Lincoln would have taken most of a winter day in 1844. Travelling by cart or coach, Mary Ann was likely handcuffed to a constable. They travelled along muddy roads that wound through fenland villages where gossip travelled faster than wheels. Each hamlet they passed might have provided an audience of curious onlookers. For a twelve-year-old who had rarely ventured beyond the familiar boundaries of her parish, each mile carried her further from everything she had ever known.
The arrival of new prisoners at the castle was typically a subdued affair. Unlike the public spectacle of executions, which drew crowds of hundreds, the delivery of remand prisoners was handled with bureaucratic efficiency rather than theatrical drama. Mary Ann would have been processed through the castle’s gates by warders who had seen countless frightened faces, though few as young as hers.
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| Ancestry.com.(2009). England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892. Class: HO 27; Piece: 73; Page: 241. |
Month Awaiting Judgement
In the 1840’s Lincoln Castle served as a local jail for those awaiting trial, as well as holding debtors and criminals awaiting execution or transportation to Australia. In 1844, Lincoln Castle prison still operated under the old system, before the reforms that would later introduce the harsh regime of separate cells and the segregated chapel. The women’s quarters were reached through a series of narrow passages, each darker and colder than the last, creating an atmosphere that was both oppressive and disorienting.
Contemporary accounts describe an overwhelming stench that clung to such places—a mixture of human waste, damp stone, and unwashed bodies, only partially masked by the sharp tang of carbolic disinfectant. It was a smell that no amount of cleaning could fully erase.
The Physical Environment
Reports from this period paint a grim picture of daily life inside the prison. The women’s wards, built to accommodate fewer than sixty inmates, sometimes held more than one hundred, resulting in severe overcrowding and poor sanitation. Although the prison would begin transitioning to the “separate system” just a few years later, the early 1840s remained a time of uneasy overlap between old communal confinement and newer, more restrictive practices.
Ventilation had been considered in the design, but in reality it proved inadequate. Overcrowding turned many spaces into stifling, foul-smelling environments where disease spread easily and conditions were difficult to control.
The castle was never silent. Just 380 metres away, Lincoln Cathedral dominated the skyline, its vast presence looming over the prison walls. Each hour, the great five-ton bourdon bell—known as Great Tom—sounded from the central tower, its deep, resonant toll rolling across the castle and the town beyond. On clear days, it could be heard for miles.
For those confined within, the bell marked the relentless passage of time. Between its hourly strikes came the closer, harsher sounds of prison life: coughing that echoed through the night, the shuffle of feet along stone corridors, the rattle of keys, and the scrape of bolts drawn back and slammed home. Decades earlier, prison reformer John Howard had visited Lincoln and been appalled by its conditions—but meaningful change had come slowly.
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| Lincoln Prison is currently preserved as a prism museum. Photo courtesy of Johson, D., Distinguishing Fact from Fiction in British Prison Museums, Doing History in Public. https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2025/08/12/distinguishing-fact-from-fiction-in-british-prison-museums/ |
For historical analyses of Lincoln jail, watch the following youtube video: by OpenLean by the Open University channel: The Birth of Modern Prison.
The Daily Routine
Prison routine at this time followed a strict pattern. A bell would ring around six o’clock to wake prisoners, being winter it would have still been dark. At half-past six, guards distributed the first meal: a wooden bowl of gruel; thin, grey, and tasteless served with a hunk of coarse brown bread. A tin cup of water completed breakfast. Remand prisoners awaiting trial for serious crimes were typically kept separate and not required to work. This meant long, empty hours with nothing to occupy the mind or hands. There was no reading material, little or no conversation, nothing but the slow movement of light across stone walls.
At midday, another meal arrived: more bread, sometimes accompanied by thin soup or watery stew. The prison diet was deliberately austere, calculated to sustain life but offering no comfort or variety.
On some days, weather permitting, a brief period of exercise was allowed in a walled yard. This would have meant walking in circles under a guard’s watchful eye, with walls too high to see beyond. Most days, however, prisoners remained in their cells, marking time by the movement of shadows and the ringing of bells.
What Historical Accounts Tell Us
Female remand prisoners were held separately from convicted criminals and from male prisoners. A matron would have supervised the women’s section, though interaction would have been minimal. The Victorians were increasingly concerned about proper treatment of female prisoners, but actual conditions lagged behind reformist ideals.
For a child prisoner like Mary Ann, there would have been no special provisions. Victorian justice often treated children as small adults, particularly in cases involving serious crimes. There was no psychological support, no child welfare system, no one to explain what was happening or what would happen at trial.
Contemporary accounts suggest that prisoners awaiting trial could receive visitors in theory, though in practice few came. For a working-class family like the Johnsons and Farrs, visiting would have meant lost work time and the social stigma of association with someone accused of murder. The same clothes worn at commitment would have been worn throughout the month, growing progressively dirtier with no means to wash properly.
The Weight of Uncertainty
Perhaps the greatest hardship documented in accounts of pre-trial imprisonment was the uncertainty. Prisoners awaiting the Assizes did not know precisely when they would be tried, what evidence would be presented, or what the outcome might be. For someone accused of involvement in murder, the gallows stood as a very real possibility within these same walls.
The month between early February and the March Assizes would have been marked by cold, hunger, isolation, and fear. A twelve-year-old girl who had witnessed her mother’s death, seen her half-brothers die in agony, and been torn from everything familiar would have experienced trauma on multiple levels. Whether she experienced guilt, confusion, terror, or resignation, we cannot know with certainty. All we know is that the circumstances themselves were devastating.
The Approach of Trial
As the Assizes approached, with no counsel or preparation for the trial, the prison chaplain was likely her only sourced of comfort. He would have offered her spiritual counsel and conversation. If she had no visitors, he was likely the only person that showed her compassion during her time in the prison castle.
On the morning of trial, Mary Ann would have been taken from her cell to face whatever the Assize court would decide about her fate. The month of imprisonment had been, in its way, a sentence before the sentence—a period of physical hardship and psychological isolation that marked her regardless of the eventual verdict.
Assizes
The Assizes were periodic criminal courts that travelled throughout England and Wales, representing the highest level of justice outside London.
In 1844, the country was divided into six judicial circuits, with Lincolnshire falling within the Midland Circuit. Royal judges from the superior courts in Westminster would journey on circuit twice yearly—for the Lent Assizes (typically March/April) and Summer Assizes ( July/August). They stopped at designated assize towns to hear the most serious criminal cases. These included murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, arson, and other capital offences that were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Quarter Sessions courts.
The Assizes operated with considerable ceremony and authority, as the arrival of the royal judges signified the Crown’s justice reaching into the counties. More than a legal proceeding, the Assizes were a kind of civic spectacle. Prisoners like Mary Ann Johnson would be held in county gaol, often for weeks or months, until the judges arrived on their scheduled circuit. Once the court convened at Lincoln Castle, cases were heard with remarkable speed compared to modern standards, often multiple trials in a single day. Grand juries first reviewed indictments to determine if cases should proceed to trial, and only those deemed to have sufficient evidence would go before a trial jury of twelve men. For the accused, the Assizes represented both hope and terror—the possibility of acquittal, but also the very real prospect of execution, as many offences still carried the death penalty in 1844.
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| Cathedral Service on the Sunday of the Assizes, Lincoln. (Illustrated London News) |
Mary Ann’s Trial
March 9, 1844 marked the beginning of the Assizes. Judges arrived in parade, horses clattering over the cobbled streets, followed by dignitaries in formal dress, solemn processions, and services that filled Lincoln Cathedral with incense and ceremony. Across the city, crowds gathered to witness justice in motion. Inside the castle walls, the Grand Jury was sworn in with considerable formality. This group of landed gentlemen from across the county included knights, members of parliament, and magistrates. They were tasked with reviewing the evidence and deciding whether each case should proceed to trial.
Justice Sir John Gurney described Mary Ann’s case as the most painful of all. A twelve-year-old girl stood accused of one of the gravest crimes imaginable: the deliberate poisoning of her two half-brothers.
But when Mary Ann’s name was called, the case fell to pieces; not from mercy, but from the kind of technicality that defined Victorian justice. For a murder trial to go ahead, the formal charge (the indictment) had to be worded in the strict legal formula of the day, with certain key terms such as “feloniously,” meaning “with criminal intent.” That single word was missing from the coroner’s indictment, and without it, the law could not recognize the charge as murder, no matter the circumstances. The judge called the error “fatally defective”.
Even if all the evidence suggested guilt, the law would not let a case continue to trial for murder if the official paperwork was not drawn up correctly. This was a fundamental protection, intended to prevent wrongful convictions in a system that could be harsh and unforgiving.
Mary Ann’s prosecution ended not with a declaration of innocence, but with a strict adherence to the letter of the law. She was released and the public spectacle that had so weighed upon her ended in an instant.
Sarah Johnson, her aunt and her mother’s only sister, met her at the gates of Lincoln Castle and brought her home to Surfleet. Alongside her husband Charles, Sarah offered a haven where Mary Ann was able to rebuild a life from the ruins left by that winter’s disaster.
A month after her release on the 10th April, the deaths of the two little boys were formerly registered by the coroner with the cause of death given as ‘murder by arsenic’.To be continued…
This isn’t the end of this tragic tale. You can now read part 2, which continues with the murder investigation, a future trial and the impacts the muder had on the Farr and Johnson families. What I uncovered about what happened to young Mary during her life-time reads like a Charles Dicken’s story If you wish to be advised when the next post is published, please subscribe.
1 The Prisoner’s Lament” (Anonymous, c. mid-1800s) Ballads like this were often printed and sold near courtrooms or execution sites, being part of the entertainment of executions, and part political commentary. ↩
2 Packham, T & P. The Benington Child Murders of 1844, (1994). Wandle Valley Research & Qunatock Geneology.↩
3 Free UK Genealogy, “ Parish Register, St Helen Church, Leverton, Lincolnshire” database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/68424777865574f30525eeb8) : accessed 12 May 2026), [data about Christopher Farr 19 Mar 1815 ]; citing Register number↩
4 Free UK Genealogy, “ Parish Register, St Mary Church, Leake, Lincolnshire” database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/5f25244df493fd124a68b8af) : accessed 12 May 2026), [data about Mary Johnson 30 Apr 1809 ]; citing Register number↩
5 Free UK Genealogy, “ Parish Register, St Helen Church, Leverton, Lincolnshire” database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/68424738865574f30525d68b) : accessed 12 May 2026), [data about Mary Anne 17 Feb 1832 ]; citing Register number 347↩
6 Free UK Genealogy, “ Parish Register, St Helen Church, Leverton, Lincolnshire” database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/67da9ff6b18f7cccb0db09e9) : accessed 12 May 2026), [data about Christopher Farr to Mary Johnson 01 Jun 1834 ]; citing Register number 98↩
7 Free UK Genealogy, “ Parish Register, All Saints Church, Benington, Lincolnshire” database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/69aafebfb18f7c900d844a4a) : accessed 12 May 2026), [data about Christopher Farr to Mary Johnson 13 Oct 1801 ]; citing Register number↩
8 Daniel: Free UK Genealogy, “ Parish Register, St Andrew Church, Butterwick, Lincolnshire” database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/684114d1865574f305a6d4d5) : accessed 12 May 2026), [data about Daniel Johnson Farr 02 Aug 1835 ]; citing Register number 284
William: Free UK Genealogy, “ Parish Register, All Saints Church, Benington, Lincolnshire” database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/6840c348865574f3058a7b46) : accessed 12 May 2026), [data about William Farr 21 Sep 1838 ]; citing Register number 342
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9 Free UK Genealogy, “ Parish Register, All Saints Church, Benington, Lincolnshire” database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/69baf6b1b18f7c168332d678) : accessed 12 May 2026), [data about Mary Farr 17 Dec 1843 ]; citing Register number 241 ↩
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