Women in the Victorian era had few options to maintain themselves if they were left widows with small children. They would only have two choices, one was to would be find a job, bearing in mind they would need childcare, or throw themselves on the mercy of the guardians of the workhouse and claim parish relief. Mary Elizabeth Heaps, aged 30 found herself in such a predicament in 1886 when having lived at Canal Wharf at Parkgate with her husband, he died and left her without any money The workhouse guardians granted her relief of 3s a week and agreed to educate her two children. Heaps decided that she would need to supplement this meagre income and applied to Mr Robert Hill, a landlord to ask if she could rent one of his houses on Kenneth Street, Rotherham. He told her that she could and the rent would be 3s 9d a week. Heaps and her children moved in, but what the landlord (or the guardians) did not know, was that Heaps intended to run it as a brothel with another woman, a prostitute called Mary Park, otherwise known as ‘Poll Pitt’. However it was not long before Heaps decided that she would need to involve other women to work for her, and that’s when she came up with the idea of using her own niece. Maud Hancox was a pretty girl, who had just turned 15 years of age on 18 March 1886 and lived with her mother at Sheepbridge, near Chesterfield.

Heaps visited her sister Bertha on Monday 12 July when she was told that her sister had struck Maud following a row. When she decided to return back to Rotherham a few days later Heaps asked the girl to walk with her to the nearby train station at Chesterfield. She  then suggested that Maud come and spend a few days with her in Rotherham. Heaps told her that she was so lonely after the death of her husband, and was pleased for Maud to come and stay and keep her company. The girl wanted to go back and tell her mother where she was going, but Heaps talked her out of it and gave her the money to buy a ticket to Sheffield. On the return journey back from Chesterfield they got to talking about love and Heaps told Maud that she knew of a young man that ‘would suit her nicely’. She told her niece that she would take her to meet the young man and added ominously that ‘if he wanted to do anything to her, she was not to be afraid’.  When they arrived at Rotherham, Heaps spoke to two men outside the Effingham Arms in the town centre, before going to the house on Kenneth Street. Later that evening the two women went to the Clarence Music Hall in Rotherham where they met again the two men who had been outside the Effingham Arms. When they returned to the house on Kenneth Street, Heaps went upstairs with one of the men called Scott, leaving the other unnamed man downstairs in the front room with her niece. After a short while Scott returned downstairs and soon after Heaps asked Maud if Scott had given her anything, to which she replied that he hadn’t. Maud was then instructed to go and ask Scott for money for her aunt, and he gave her 5s which she quickly handed over.

The next day Heaps took the girl with her again to the Rotherham Theatre and whilst they were there, she pointed out a man called George Wilkinson, who she waved at and he came over. Heaps introduced Maud to Wilkinson and told him ‘George you have asked me several times to get you a young woman, well here is one for you’. Wilkinson bought them several rounds of drink, before they all returned back to the house on Kenneth Street where they continued to party. On 17 July prostitute Mary Park and her aunt went to a public house called the Low Drop Spirit Vaults in Rotherham with Scott and stayed there till closing time. Wilkinson, who was a barman there, returned back to Kenneth Street with the others. He spoke to Maud and they made arrangements to go out the following night to the Crown Inn on Greasbrough Road where they met Heaps and another man she did not know. Wilkinson asked Heaps for the key to her house in Kenneth Street, which she gave to him. Maud and Wilkinson then went back to the house where, what was described as ‘improper intercourse’ took place. On her return Heaps questioned the girl on what had happened and told her that she would get her some contraceptive medicine. The following day Heaps then took Maud to a druggist shop in the town centre run by Mr Robert Laycock, and had a conversation with him while Maud waited outside. Later that day Laycock came to the house with the medicine and tried to have intercourse with Maud, but she resisted his advances. Later she complained to her aunt, who told her that Laycock had been a good friend to her and that he would have given her 5s for a kiss and a cuddle.

The following night, 19 July Wilkinson went to the house and took Maud and her aunt to the theatre and once again he paid for everything. After returning back to the house on Kenneth Street, he promised to pay a dressmaker to make Maud a new dress. On 24 July Wilkinson arrived at the house to take Maud, her aunt and her daughter Amy to the Chesterfield Races. They were accompanied by the man called Scott and Maud’s mother Bertha joined them later in the day. Heaps and Maud spent the night at her sister’s house and after some conversation with her daughter, Bertha told her she was not to go back to Rotherham with Heaps. However when she told her aunt, Heaps replied that she must do so. The following morning Heaps had gone, and soon after Scott arrived in her mothers absence to take Maud back to Rotherham. Maud was disconcerted when she arrived at Kenneth Road and found her younger sister Florence, aged 14 years with Heaps. About midnight Maud was disturbed by the sound of her mother and her aunt shouting at each other, and soon after a constable arrived. Both Maud and Florence were removed by the constable and placed back into her mothers care. Shortly afterwards the mother and her two daughters returned back to Chesterfield where Maud received a ‘good thrashing’. The following day she disappeared and Mrs Hancox reported the case to the Chief Constable of Rotherham asking him to find her daughter.

Mary Elizabeth Heaps was arrested and brought before the magistrates at the Borough Police Court, Rotherham on Wednesday 11 August 1886 charged with three offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act. This Act had been brought into effect the year before, which raised the age of consent in Britain from the age of 13 to 16 years. Heaps was charged that on 17 July she had kept the girl Maud Hancox, under the proscribed age, unlawfully on her premises. She was also charged with procuring the girl for an unlawful purpose with George Wilkinson and aiding and abetting Wilkinson. Wilkinson of Millgate was also in court and he was charged with a felonious assault on Maud Hancox, a girl under 16 years of age. Mr H H Hickmott was the prosecution under instruction from the Treasury and the hearing of the case took several hours. It seems that Heaps was well known in the town as a prostitute. Maud Hancox gave evidence, proudly wearing the new green dress which Wilkinson had paid for. She told the court that whilst staying at her aunts house, she had seen several different men coming to the house. Her aunt had tried to persuade her to ‘go with them’, but she refused. Her evidence lasted for the whole of the morning. After lunch, Maud was cross examined by Mr Pawson who defended the two prisoners. He asked the witness if she had told Wilkinson that she was 18 or asked him to buy her a present, all of which she denied. The girl disingenuously told the court that she and Wilkinson were now sweethearts and were very fond of each other. She admitted that she had recognised all the badness in her aunts house, but did not wish to go back to live at her mother house. Maud appeared to be been quite satisfied with the life she was leading.

Prostitute Mary Park was the next witness and she entered the court with a black eye. She told the court that she was the wife of Henry Park a labourer of Millgate Rotherham and that her maiden name had been Pitt. She admitted to knowing Heaps, and said that she had stayed at the house on Kenneth Street and therefore was well aware that it was being used as a brothel. She stated that in a conversation with Heaps the woman had told her that her niece was under 16 years of age, and the witness told her that she would get into trouble as the girl was too young. Maud’s mother Bertha Hancox next gave evidence and she told the court that she had no idea that her sister was a prostitute in Rotherham, or she would not have let her daughter stay with her.  She said that on 12 July her sister was staying at her house when mother and daughter had quarrelled. Later she said she saw Maud and her sister going to the railway station which was quite near to the house and when her daughter did not return, just presumed that Maud was spending some time in Rotherham with her aunt. Mrs Hancox said that she had joined Heaps at the Chesterfield Races and from what she saw on the racecourse, she told her sister that Maud was not to go back to Rotherham. Later that day she realised that her daughter was missing and she went to the railway station where she saw Maud and her sister in the company of the man Scott. They ran away when they saw her approach. Mrs Hancox went home to pack some things and arrived at Rotherham just before midnight, where she brought both her daughters away. Wilkinson told the court that the girl had assured him that she was 18 years of age and that he had believed her. Mr Hickmott for the prosecution told the court that the prisoners Heaps and Wilkinson had endeavoured to make the girl believe that he was ‘courting’ her when in fact it was a foul conspiracy to bring about the girl’s seduction. At this stage the two prisoners were remanded for a fortnight.

On Thursday August 26 1886 the case came up for another hearing. There had been so much publicity which had attracted much interest, that the area around the courthouse and the court itself were crowded with local people. The magistrates agreed that the case into Heaps should be heard first. Mr Pawson the solicitor for the defence made a point that under Section One of the Criminal Law Amendment Act all statements should be corroborated, and as a result the birth certificate for Maud Hancox was produced. The certificate proved that the girl was exactly 15 years and 5 months old. However Mr Pawson could produce no actual evidence that the prisoner had procured the girl for immoral purposes. On the contrary he claimed that Maud had told him that she wanted to stay in Rotherham and did not want to go back to Sheepbridge to her mother. He claimed that the girl ‘was not as virtuous as she might have been’ and her conduct ‘was not that of a modest girl’. The chair of the magistrates ordered that the court would now hear the case against the male prisoner. George Wilkinson’s statement to the court implied that he was not as beguiled by his young sweetheart as she claimed to be with him. He stuck to his statement that Maud had told him that she was 18 years of age and having seen her in the company of Heaps, a known prostitute, he had naturally assumed that she was in the same position. Both prisoners were found guilty before being formally sent for trial at the assizes. They applied for bail, which was granted, Wilkinson in the sum of £20 and Heaps in the sum of £50.

On Wednesday 17 November 1886 the two prisoners were brought before judge Mr Justice Hawkins at the Crown Court at York Castle. Mr Beverley was the defence for Wilkinson and Heaps was undefended. The prosecution, Mr Lofthouse went over the evidence of the way in which Heaps had brought the girl to Rotherham, and stated that he had no doubt that she had brought her back ‘for the purpose of introducing her to men’. Maud gave evidence that her aunt had wished her to have intercourse with other men and that when she refused, her aunt had used abusive language towards her. Heaps in her own defence stated that she had a lot of financial trouble since her husband died and she was left with two children to maintain. Mr Beverley on behalf of Wilkinson stated that from the girls demeanour, his client had reasonable cause for believing that Maud was more than 16 years of age. After hearing all the evidence both prisoners were found guilty, but the jury asked for mercy on behalf of Wilkinson. In passing sentence Mr Justice Hawkins told Wilkinson that he had no doubt that Heaps had offered the girl to him, and if he had used any force he should have punished him with more severity. He could not overlook the fact that Wilkinson knew that the house on Kenneth Street was being used as a brothel, that Heaps was a prostitute and that he had asked her to get a girl for him. His lordship then sentenced him to four months imprisonment with hard labour. Turning next to Heaps the judge said that her offence was a wicked and abominable one and that people like her were about the most dangerous pests which were allowed to exist in society. He told her:

‘Your offence was exaggerated by the fact that the poor child who was debauched in your own house, was your own sister’s little daughter. You have fraudulently induced the child to leave her mothers house to go to an infamous brothel. I hope the sentence I am about to pass will be a warning to other wicked women, who like yourself have endeavoured to beguile poor unprotected children into a life of prostitution. I cannot find words to express my  great indignation at your conduct’.

He then sentenced her to 18 months imprisonment with hard labour.