Mr George Jackson was a farmer at Masborough and so he was delighted in September 1864 when he hired a young domestic servant girl at the Sheffield Fair. His wife Elizabeth had asked him to look out for someone young enough who she could mould to her ways. So when he spotted an eighteen year old girl, he hired her on the spot. Her name was Ann Sherdin and she was so excited at her new position. As she travelled back to Rotherham with the farmer, she asked him a lot of questions about his wife and the kinds of work she would have to undertake. As George had no real idea of what his wife would expect, he just told her some light housework and to look after her.

Ann was delighted when she saw the farm which was quite big and looked very prosperous, so she could hardly wait to meet her new mistress. However, after meeting her she quickly changed her mind. Elizabeth Jackson proved to be a most demanding mistress who insisted that the housework should be done in a very particular way. So when the girls work did not meet her high expectations she chided Ann and called her names. She would also threaten that she would take some money out of her wages until the work was done to her complete satisfaction. Poor Ann felt that she would never be able to satisfy her mistress, but as she had been hired for a year at the fair, she could not leave.

There seemed to be no way out of her dilemma by Christmas of 1864, when she came to a most drastic decision. Elizabeth Jackson had been downstairs the day before and had complained bitterly to Ann about the neglectful way she had cleaned the living room. She also complained to her husband and criticised him for having hired the girl in the first place. One of the first tasks that Ann undertook every morning was that she would serve her mistress breakfast in bed, before going downstairs to light the fire in the drawing room. Accordingly, on the morning of Friday 29 December there was a timid knock on the bedroom door before Ann carried in a huge tray containing a silver teapot and china crockery, which she placed on a table at the side of the bed.

Elizabeth had always insisted in pouring out the tea for herself, so as Ann left the room she poured the tea into the cup followed by cream and sugar. However as she tasted the tea, she found it to be quite bitter. Elizabeth then tried some of the cream and found that was the source of the bitter taste. Consequently when George came upstairs some time later, his wife got him to taste the tea and the cream and he too found it not as it should be. He then went downstairs, into the kitchen where he accused Ann of attempting to poison her mistress. The girl shook her head and denied it, but the next day, a Friday, she left the farm without anyone giving her notice.

The Rotherham police were informed and Ann was arrested before being brought before the magistrates on the morning of Monday 16 January 1865 at the Rotherham Court House. Thankfully she was defended by Mr Whitfield. The prosecution described the events at the farm before Elizabeth Jackson gave her own account. Cross examined, the witness stated that the cream jug was one that she regularly used and was kept in a cupboard in the kitchen for that purpose. Elizabeth described how it would be Ann’s responsibility to to take the cream from the top of the milk in the cellar where it was kept. She told the court that after accusing her servant, she had locked the cream jug in a cupboard.

The witness described how on the Friday evening she was visited by a friend called Ann Armitage and she produced the cream and asked her friend to taste some of it. It was immediately obvious that it was not as it should be. Elizabeth said she gave the jug to Mrs Armitage and asked her to take it to a doctor called Mr Saville in order to have it tested for poison. The witness admitted that they had sometimes had problems with rats on the farm and consequently usually kept some poison in the cellar called ‘Battles Vermin Killer.’ She told the bench how her husband usually bought it from Davies Chemist in Bridgegate, and described how he would occasionally spread it on a piece of bread and butter and leave it in the cellar in order to kill the rats.

Mr Jackson was the next to give evidence that he had used some of the same cream earlier that morning in his coffee and detected nothing wrong with it at the time. He was followed by Mr Saville who stated that he had been attending to Mrs Jackson before he was given the cream to analyse. The surgeon described how he had tested the cream and found some blue powder crystals in it. Incredibly he gave some to a small kitten before watching it convulse in pain before it died. He also sent a sample of the cream to another local doctor, Mr Shearman to test and he was the next witness. He confirmed the fact that there had been strychnine poison in the cream.

Police Constable Burgin of Rotherham police force, described how he had arrested Ann Sherdin on Tuesday 10 October before the defence Mr Whitfield stated his case. He said that after listening to all the evidence, he declared that there was not one person who had witnessed his client putting the poison into the cream or administering it to Mrs Jackson. However the magistrates thought differently and ordered the prisoner to take her trial at the next Assizes. Consequently Ann Sherdin was brought before judge, Mr Justice Willes on Wednesday 30 March 1865.

Thankfully, although the same evidence was heard from the same witnesses, the judge found the prisoner not guilty and Ann Sherdin was discharged. It was clear that the only motive that could be suggested for Ann’s actions was that her mistress had chided her for not cleaning the house properly the day before. However, as no one had seen her doing it, and it was purely her mistresses word again hers, Mr Justice Willes had no option but to stop the trial. But the question remained. Had this eighteen year old servant girl taken her revenge on her querulous mistress by poisoning the cream?