Ann Foster. On Tuesday, the 25th of July, a tragical termination of life occurred at Guestling, a village which had lately earned an unenviable notoriety for its scenes of crime, the wholesale poisonings by Mrs. Geary[1] being the worst case of all. The circumstances of the event now to be described were as follows: — A gardener of the name of Daniel Foster, in the employ of Mr. Mouck, of Guestling Cottage, and himself living at Friars Hill, became a widower with 7 children, in 1843, and was soon afterwards married again, but had no family by his second wife. On the 18th of February, 1848, one of Foster’s boys hanged himself in Mr. Rollason’s barn at Rock farm. On the day of this later sad affair, two of the girls (Ann and Charlotte) were sent by their step-mother for a pail of water from a spring, nearly half a mile distant. This was a repetition of previous errands, but on the day before, to save toiling up the hill, the girls filled the pail from a nearer pond, for which the elder one got a beating, and was threatened, with more punishment if she did it again. The two girls were respectively, 14 and 11 years of age. On the present occasion they obeyed the mother’s behest by going to the spring, and on their return, rested at a spot near to the said pond. The elder sister then asked Charlotte to mind the pail a few minutes, soon after which the latter heard a splash in the water, and on going to the pond saw her sister’s bonnet on the ground. She immediately ran home and gave an alarm. The elder girl could not be found, and the pond on the side of the road was dragged without effect. All search and enquiries proving of no avail, on the following morning, George Jeffery, of the East-Sussex Constabulary, dragged the opposite side of the pond, overhung by trees, and there discovered the girl’s lifeless body. At the inquest several witnesses deposed to the heavy loads of wood and water that the girls were made to carry, and to the complaint of the deceased of being beaten by her mother; also that she had threatened to destroy herself, the mother having said that if they were tired of it they might go and drown themselves, and that would be the way to get out of it. The jury, while recording a verdict that the deceased committed suicide, expressed an opinion that extreme severity had been used by the father and step-mother towards the two girls.
Martha Walder. On the 18th of July, an inquest was held on the body, of this woman nearly 70 years of age, who died suddenly on the preceding day. She had occupied a room in All Saints’ street for seven years, was of very regular and temperate habits, and got her living by cleaning gentlemen’s coats and making trousers. She had not been known to be ill for three years, except the last few days, when she complained of pains in her head. Finding that she was not about that morning and her door fastened, Mr. Reeves, the landlord was sent for and the door was forced open, when the poor woman -
- ↑ Mary Ann Gearing, convicted at Lewes of poisoning her husband at Guestling, was hanged in 1849. Before her death, she confessed that she had murdered two of her sons and attempted to murder a third.
