In a trial held at Nottingham Assizes on Wednesday 18 July 1906 a forty-seven year old housekeeper of Bulwell, called Sarah Wardle was brought before the judge. It seems that the scandal caused by the distribution of diachylon pills in Sheffield was now spreading to other counties. Sarah Wardle was indicted on four occasions of selling diachylon pills to women ‘for an unlawful purpose’. More concerning was the fact that at the same Assizes, a second woman, twenty-six year old Hilda Atkins was also charged on the same count. Both women’s defence was that because the pills were not scheduled as a poison, they had no idea that the substance in the pills contained lead.
After hearing all the evidence, His Lordship summed up for the jury. He told them that they had to decide whether or not the pills were sold in order that they would bring on an abortion. Wardle was found to be guilty and was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment with hard labour. However no evidence was offered against Atkins and she was discharged. Nevertheless, back in Sheffield things were hotting up as once again as more and more local women were accused of selling diachylon pills. In the afternoon of Wednesday 3 October 1906, two Sheffield magistrates heard three such cases, including a charge against a certified midwife, fifty year old Sarah Elizabeth Carford.
She proudly told the bench that she had given birth to twenty one children and had been a practising midwife for the past twenty five years. The witness claimed that a married woman called Barbara Davies had visited her on 2 April 1906 and told her that she was pregnant again and could not afford another baby. She begged the midwife for help. Carford reluctantly admitted that she had sold her the pills and told her how to use them. Dr Scurfield, the Medical Officer of Health for Sheffield stated that at that time, there were still a great many women in the city of Sheffield that were suffering through the extensive use of diachylon pills.
The same prisoner also admitted giving the same pills to two other local women named Mary Anne Bagshawe and Eliza Anne Somerset. The prosecution on behalf of Sheffield Council, a Mr H. Lang Coath readily admitted that the two named women had purposely been sent to the house of the midwife in order to procure these pills. He stated that upon their return, the city analyst, Mr George Scott Smith had been given the box containing 14 diachylon pills to examine. Mr Scott Smith appeared as the next witness and he told the bench that the box of pills had been obtained from the midwife, Sarah Carford. He found that each contained lead.
He stated that any woman taking two of these pills, one at night and one in a morning would most certainly give rise to lead poisoning. He added ominously that it would also definitely procure an abortion in any pregnant woman. The surgeon admitted that he himself had witnessed the deaths of Sheffield women through the taking of this poison. Another local surgeon, Dr Carter gave evidence that in one case, the woman concerned had been told to take four diachylon pills a day, which obviously acted as a virulent metallic poison from which she died. His evidence was backed up by Dr Arthur Hall and both women were committed to take their trial at the next Sheffield Quarter Sessions.
Accordingly Sarah Elizabeth Carford appeared at the sessions on Tuesday 23 October 1906 where the prosecution Mr T Ellison condemned the habit of supplying such drugs. He told the court that ‘the proceedings had been brought with the object of checking the pernicious habit of supplying drugs of this kind. He pointed out that the practise was only too prevalent in the city of Sheffield at that time.’ He too admitted that Barbara Davies and Mary Anne Bagshawe had been engaged by the Chief Lady Sanitary Inspector of Sheffield. Her purpose was to uncover the sale of the pills in Sheffield.
The defence Mr Waddy condemned the practise of employing women to ‘act as spies’ who would then go on to influence another woman to commit a crime. Nevertheless the jury found Carford guilty before hearing a similar case of Mary Ellen Styring. She too had admitted selling diachylon pills to two women, a Mrs Davies and a Mrs Mary Ellen Fletcher. An unnamed assistant at the shop of J T Dobbs and Co., a pharmacist of Sheffield was the next to give evidence. He told the court that he had been supplying Mrs Styring with packets of diachylon for the past four years. The assistant admitted that he had sold her a pound and a half of the substance, just in the last three or four weeks alone.
However, the previous April he had refused to sell her any more once he established that she was making pills out of it. Mrs Styring told the court that for years her family had been involved in making up diachylon pills for people. She said that her uncle and then her aunt had made the pills which later bore her name. The witness stated that she had followed the same prescription and had called them ‘Nurse Oakley’s Female Corrective Pills’ which she supplied to the two women in May. However she was found not guilty and discharged. But if the Sheffield legal authorities hoped that she would be the last woman to deal in this obnoxious practise, they were wrong. The following day a forty-three year old woman called Polly West was brought before the bench.
She claimed that she had bought the diachylon pills from a man who sold tapes and cottons door to door. He had told her she was quite safe to sell them, as he had got the recipe from a doctor. Once again the two women Davies and Fletcher to whom she had sold the pills gave evidence. They told the court that when handed the pills she had told them to ‘keep it quiet, as they are not registered by the Government, and I’m not allowed to sell them.’ Once again the City Analyst gave evidence that the pills had each contained diachylon. After hearing from witnesses Polly West was found guilty and sentenced to prison for twelve months with hard labour.
It was reported that the prisoner seemed to be most surprised at being sentenced. The Recorder at this point reduced the sentence to six months as he believed that the prisoner truly thought that the pills were not dangerous. However nationally, the question about the diachylon pills would not go away. The subject of why the pills were not just listed as a poison was once more was raised in the House of Commons by the Home Secretary Mr Gladstone. He asked Mr Samuel Roberts the M.P. for Ecclesall why this had not happened. He was told that to have the substance declared a poison ‘would entail great inconvenience’ without going into any detail. Mr Roberts concluded therefore that heavy sentencing at the Assizes for women found selling the pills, would serve as a deterrent.
However this hope was doomed to failure, as the sale of diachylon continued to be reported. The following year on 7 August 1907 a case was found in Mexborough. The coroner Mr D Wightman held an inquest into the death of Matilda Crummack, a married women of Swinton who had died in the Mexborough Montague Hospital a few days previously. Following her death, a post mortem had been held and lead poisoning had been found. However, at the time the inquest was adjourned until Wednesday 7 August 1907 when Dr Ram, who had treated the deceased woman returned from his holiday. Despite the delay, Dr Ram was unable to state where the poisonous pills had come from.
Police Sergeant Matthews had also made enquiries, which had also drawn a similar blank. As a result the coroner was forced to conclude that he could throw no further light on the case. However he added that he only hoped that publicity around the diachylon pills would stop the practise of supplying them altogether. But if it was to be hoped that would bring and end to Rotherham and Sheffield’s terrible scandal, people were in for a great disappointment. Just a few days later another inquest on a woman called Mary Robotham who lived in Wadsley Bridge Sheffield was held.
The inquest was conducted by the coroner at Wadsley Asylum where the deceased woman had recently been admitted. After her death the Asylum surgeon, Dr William Vincent told the jury that he had conducted a post mortem where, once again lead poisoning was the cause. He reported that Mary Rowbotham had been admitted to the Asylum hospital in a feeble and exhausted state. However it was clear from the contents of her stomach that she had been taking the poison for some time before her death. Needless to say the verdict was that she had died as a result of lead poisoning.
Thankfully that was where the scandal around the distribution of diachylon pills fizzled out in Sheffield, although they continued to be reported in other parts of the country. It seems that Mr Samuel Roberts M.P. for Sheffield’s prediction that heavy sentencing would form a deterrent to Sheffield midwives, was enough to put an end to this terrible plague of deaths.