Mary Ann Cotton

Mary Ann Cotton (born October 31?, 1832, Low Moorsley, Durham county, England—died March 24, 1873, Durham county) British nurse and housekeeper who was believed to be Britain’s most prolific female serial killer. She allegedly poisoned up to 21 people before being executed in 1873.

Mary Ann grew up in Durham county, northeastern England. According to some sources, she left home at age 16 to work as a nurse but returned three years later and became a dressmaker. In 1852 she married William Mowbray, and over the next decade or so, the couple had eight or nine children. (The lack of documentation—such as birth and death certificates—leaves many details of Mary Ann’s life open to dispute.) After moving frequently, the family settled in Hendon, Durham county, in about 1856. At some point William took out a life insurance policy that covered both him and their three surviving children; the others had died from “gastric fever,” a common ailment that had symptoms similar to arsenic poisoning. Gastric fever also claimed William’s life in 1864 and the lives of two other children soon afterward. Mary Ann received the insurance money, and she then left her daughter in the care of her mother.

Britannica Quiz

Famous Serial Killers

Mary Ann subsequently worked as a hospital nurse in nearby Sunderland, and in 1865 she married a patient, George Ward. However, he died the following year, and Mary Ann reportedly collected money from another insurance policy. She then found work as a housekeeper for James Robinson, a widower. Reportedly just weeks after her arrival in 1866, one of his five children succumbed to gastric fever. The following year Mary Ann went to visit her ailing mother, who died about a week after her return. Mary Ann and her daughter with Mowbray then went to live at the Robinson home. However, in April 1867 the girl and two of Robinson’s children died. In August, Mary Ann married Robinson, and the couple had two children, though only one survived. In 1869 Robinson discovered that Mary Ann was stealing from him, and he grew suspicious of her repeated requests that he take out a life insurance policy. She soon left—or was thrown out—and was for a time homeless.

However, in 1870 Mary Ann met another widower, Frederick Cotton, who was the brother of a friend. That year both Cotton’s sister and his youngest child died. In September 1870 Mary Ann and Cotton were married—though she was still wed to Robinson—and she later gave birth to a son. By the end of the following year Cotton and two more children had died; again Mary Ann reportedly received an insurance payout. Around this time she took up with a former lover, Joseph Nattrass, but later became pregnant by another man, John Quick-Manning. In 1872 Nattrass died, leaving his meagre belongings to Mary Ann. She then allegedly told a local official that she could not marry Quick-Manning because of her seven-year-old stepson, Charles Edward Cotton. However, she added, “I won’t be troubled long.” After the boy died, the official notified the police. An examination ultimately revealed the presence of arsenic in his stomach. Authorities also exhumed the bodies of Nattrass and two other Cotton children, and all were determined to have been poisoned with arsenic.

Mary Ann was charged with the murder of Charles Edward Cotton, and while she was in jail, a daughter was born in January 1873; that infant—who was reportedly her 13th child—and another offspring were the only ones to outlive their mother. Mary Ann’s trial began two months later, and the defense claimed that the deceased had inhaled arsenic dust from wallpaper dye, a conceivable explanation given that arsenic was then common in many household items. However, the prosecution’s evidence, notably the other arsenic-related deaths, proved insurmountable, and she was convicted and sentenced to death. On March 24, 1873, Mary Ann was hanged in a bungled execution. It was performed by a “notoriously clumsy hangman,” and the trap door was not positioned high enough to break her neck, forcing the executioner to press down on her shoulders. Some three minutes passed before she finally died.

Mary Ann never confessed to any of the deaths, and the number of her victims is uncertain, though most sources believe she killed upwards of 21 people. While some claimed that she was Britain’s first female serial killer, other women had previously been hanged for poisoning multiple people. However, Mary Ann was widely regarded as the country’s deadlist killer until Harold Shipman, who was thought to have murdered as many as 260 people in the late 20th century.