Arrest Warrant for a single mother for neglecting her five children, 1871

Ainsworth, Elizabeth (defendant). Robert Farrow (complainant)

[SINGLE MOTHERS AND CHILD NEGLECT, England 1871]. Arrest Warrant For Elizabeth Ainsworth For Child Neglect

Leek, Stafford County, England: 1871. Single sheet (340 x 210 mm), printed on pale blue paper, completed in MS, folded 3 times and docketed in MS, signed by. Item #3853

PUBLIC "SANITATION," CHILD NEGLECT, AND IMPOVERISHED SINGLE MOTHERS IN 1871.

Striking Arrest Warrant for Elizabeth Ainsworth for child neglect, executed in October 1871, after damning information was provided by Robert Farrow, Sanitary Inspector, for "unlawfully and wilfully neglect (sic) to provide adequate food clothing and lodging for her five children John, Isaac, Mark, George & Holland being her custody all respectively under the age of fourteen years whereby the health of such children is likely to be seriously injured." At the time the present arrest warrant was issued, Elizabeth Ainsworth was a 34-year old "silk winder," and four of her children were between 1 and 7 years old (according to the 1881 Census for Leek, Staffordshire which notes that she was a "widower"; John had not yet been born; and her other children were "silk twisters helpers."

Evidently Ainsworth did not reform, and nine months later (August 1872) she was issued a Public Health Enforcement Summons for keeping "a bedroom so foul [cancelled] filthy as to be a nuisance and injurious to health." Once again the complainant was Robert Farrow, this time on behalf of the Leek Improvement Commissioners for contravening the Nuisance Removal Act (the bespoke document was formerly with Deborah Coltham and Amanda Hall).

Price: $250.00