At around 5.15pm on the evening of Thursday 27 December 1888, Sergeant Hepworth of the Rotherham Police Force was called out to a house by some neighbours. They were concerned as they could hear children crying inside, although they knew that their mother had gone out drinking. The house was on Oil Mill Fold, a notoriously squalid courtyard off Westgate. The sergeant asked Police Sergeant Warrington to accompany him and the two officers found the door to the house was unlocked. As they entered they detected a really bad smell which emanated from a table where a foul, stinking blanket lay. Lying on top of the blanket was on was a naked male child aged around six months.

Going upstairs they found a second female twin in a cot with dirty sheets and noted that the only clothes the child was wearing was a dirty chemise. Both children looked starved and emaciated and seemed to have their bones protruding through their flesh. Neighbours soon informed the two officers that the children’s mother was a woman called Catherine Hazel, although she now called herself McHugh as she was now living with a man of that name. They said that she would be found drinking at the nearby Wellington Hotel on Westgate. Accordingly, Sergeant Hepworth went immediately to the public house and brought the negligent mother back to the house. It was evident that she was in an advanced state of inebriation.

Sergeant Hepworth immediately asked Sergeant Warrington to inform the Chief Constable of Rotherham and to his surprise, Captain Burnett arrived a few moment later. He had come himself to see the state of the house and the children. The chief constable indicated to the drunken woman an old dirty pillow which had lay under the little boy’s head. He said that it looked as if the pillow and the child had been laying there for over a week. Catherine did not reply or indicate any shock or remorse at the state of her little son. Now angry, Captain Burnett instructed her to bring down her daughter from the bedroom, but the woman was so drunk she could not remember which bedroom the little girl was in.

Even though it was by now eleven thirty pm, both children were immediately removed to the Rotherham Workhouse in a cab accompanied by the police surgeon Dr Cobban. Their removal had been delayed because he had refused to remove them in their dirty bed linen. Instead the surgeon had sent for clean sheets from the workhouse, in which to wrap the twins in, ready for their removal. Once at the workhouse, they were both weighed by the workhouse master. He found the girl weighed only 9lbs and the boy 8lbs. Instead of the 15lbs to 16lbs they should both weigh at that age. Dr Cobban also found that the twins were both suffering from bronchitis

Needless to say Catherine Hazel was arrested and brought in front of the magistrates the following day. She was charged with ‘unlawfully and wilfully neglecting to provide adequate food, lodgings or clothing and medical aid for her two infant children.’ Described as ‘a middle aged woman’ the prisoner was placed in the dock from where she pleaded guilty to the charge. She was prosecuted by Mr Neal on behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children who outlined the case for the bench. He warned the magistrates however that this case was ‘as bad as it could possibly be, worse than any brought previously before the court’. The prisoner told the court that the children had been born on 14 July 1888 and were five and a half months old.

Mr Neal pointed out that that the prisoner had lived in a house, but that was hardly deserving of such a name. He said that she had got into the habit of begging children’s clothing from charitable persons in the town, which she then promptly pawned in order to buy drink. In searching the house where the children had lived, twenty nine pawn tickets had been found, all of them for children’s clothing. Mr Neal emphasised that such dealings led to the prisoner being in a constant state of drunkenness and that was the reason why the children had been neglected. Dr Cobban told the court that he had undertaken a post mortem on the children and stated categorically that:

‘Both children were in an emaciated state, however he had found no organic disease or wasting state to account for the lack of weight. The children were therefore in emaciated condition purely from neglect and want of food.

He told the court that ‘they were in a state of danger to their lives when I ordered their removal and I suspected that at least one would not recover.’

He showed the bench bottles which had been removed from the house which were ordinary pint beer bottles, each having a teat of sorts attached in order to feed the children. Dr Cobban stated that these bottles had been washed since coming from the house, as previously one had contained black sediment about two inches thick in the bottom. He said that the mixture smelt so bad that ‘it was enough to knock a person over.’ When he called the prisoners attention to the state of the children’s feeding bottles, she said that she would clean them. Catherine had also claimed that the children had been provided with plenty of fresh milk, although it was clear that few attending court would have believed this statement.

However then the reason for the neglect became very clear. The prisoner admitted to a horrified courtroom that the children had both been insured with the London, Edinburgh and Glasgow Insurance Company. Mr Neal said that he had found the insurance documents in the house and from which he deduced that the lives of the children would be worth around 30s each. When it was time for the prisoner to defend herself, she claimed that both the children had been suffering from ‘thrush’ which the medical officer soon discounted. Next, she said that the reason the children had no clothes on, was because she had been washing that day. However there were no signs that any washing had being done.

Dr Cobban also reminded the court that she had to be fetched from the public house and was drunk when he saw her. Police Sergeant Hepworth said that he knew the family and knew that McHugh allowed her on average around 18s a week to keep herself and the children. He said that she spent this money on alcohol and was accustomed to drinking every day. Charles Edwin Parkin the Nuisance Inspector reported that the prisoner had lived in the same house for about thirty years. He went onto described the filthy condition of the building, which he rendered as being unfit for human habitation. He informed the court that since the woman’s arrest, the landlord had ordered bedding to be burned, every room scoured, whitewashed and cleaned.

Police Sergeant Hepworth was recalled and he told the court that the prisoner was not married, but although she had adopted the name of McHugh, as the couple had been together for ten years. The Bench considered what to do with the prisoner, but they could do no more than sentence Catherine Hazel to four months imprisonment. The Mayor added that they regretted that they could do nothing as regard to the system of Infant Life Insurances ‘which was becoming a perfect pest.’