Dorothea Waddingham
Encyclopedia
Dorothea Nancy Waddingham (1899 - 16 April 1936) was a nursing home matron and convicted murderer in the United Kingdom
.
England. In actuality she had no right to the title nurse. Born on a farm near Nottingham, the only medical training she may have been able to get was as a ward-maid at an infirmary near Burton-on-Trent. She married a man named Thomas Willoughby Leech in 1925. He was twice her age and dying of cancer
. During their marriage she served two prison terms, for fraud
and for theft. Leech died in 1930, at which time Waddingham was seeing another man named Ronald Joseph Sullivan. Sullivan had fought in World War I
and actually won the Military Medal
for gallantry and also served in Ireland
after the war. They would marry and have four children. While married to Sullivan she began to take in elderly and infirm patients, and turned her home at 32 Devon Drive, Nottingham into a nursing home.
. Plenty of the drug remained on the premises of Waddingham's nursing home.
Ada Baguley had made out a will leaving her estate of £1,600 in trust for her mother after her death, and with the rest to be divided between two cousin
s, Lawrence Baguley and Fred Guilbert after her mother died. Ada had been informed that it was likely she would precede her mother in death. However, this will was destroyed by Ada in May 1935, and a new will created that left all the money to Dorothea Waddingham and Ronald Sullivan when Ada and her mother both died (it being in recompense for the nurse's care of them). The elderly Mrs Baguley died in the second week of May.
Ada lasted through the spring and summer of 1935. Later it was said that Waddingham was quite attentive to her. In September 1935 Ada received a visit from an old family friend, Mrs. Alice Briggs, who spent an afternoon cheering her up. Mrs Briggs told Waddingham that she would have Ada over for tea at her home in a couple of days. But on September 11 (the next day) Sullivan called Dr. H. H. Mansfield that his patient Ada was in a coma
. Mansfield came and found Ada was dead. As this was expected the doctor was not suspicious, and after getting further details from Waddingham he filled out a death certificate
that Ada died of cardiovascular degeneration.
Ada had given her permission to be cremated and if the cremation had gone through it is probable that Waddingham could not have been proved guilty of Ada's death. But for the body to be cremated needed two doctors to sign the certificate, and this could only be done after the family of the deceased was notified. Ada, for some reason, had put into her will a request not to notify her relatives. This was odd by itself. Then Waddingham said there were no relatives. This was known to be a lie.
Unfortunately for Waddingham, the man in charge of cremation
s (known as the "cremation referee") was Dr. Cyril Banks, who was also the Medical Officer for Health
in Nottingham
. Banks had never thought highly of Waddingham's establishment as a so-called "nursing home", and knew there was no State Registered Nurse on the staff (as there should have been). He became suspicious at the note from Ada Baguley that authorised cremation and ordered a post-mortem. The post-mortem found no traces of anything connected to Ada's physical conditions that could have immediately caused death. This led to an analysis of the organs of the deceased by Dr W. W. Taylor, Senior Assistant to the Nottingham Analyst. He found considerable traces of morphine (over three grains
) in her stomach
, liver
, kidney
s and even her heart.
Suspicions were now raised about the death of Mrs Baguley, and an exhumation ordered by the Home Office
occurred. This was handled by Dr Roche Lynch, who found the mother had also died of morphine
poisoning. This led to the arrests of Waddingham and Sullivan for the two murders.
in 1936. Her barrister was Mr.Eales, who did the best job he could. But the prosecution was in the hands of Norman Birkett (a rarity, for Birkett was normally handling criminal defence). Birkett brought out much damaging testimony, including how Ada Baguley's last meal was incredibly heavy and rich for a woman in her condition: Waddingham admitted that she gave Ada pork, baked potatoes, kidney beans and fruit pie - and gave her two portions of this. It suggested an effort to disguise the cause of death, and a lack of concern for the patient's welfare. The result was that Waddingham was convicted of using morphine to poison Mrs. Baguley and Ada. The purported motive behind the murders was to gain the Baguleys' estate. It was also revealed that Waddingham claimed that Dr. Mansfield gave her surplus morphine
tablets for Ada Baguley, which that doctor denied. In trial, Sullivan was discharged for insufficient evidence, despite the fact that the so-called note from Ada Baguley regarding cremation was written by him. Waddingham, however, was found guilty on the 27th of February, and, despite recommendation of mercy, due to her being a mother of several young children, she was hanged on the 16th of April 1936, having confessed to the crime shortly before her execution. Her execution was carried at Winson Green Prison and her hangman was Thomas Pierrepoint
, assisted by his nephew Albert Pierrepoint
.
Waddingham was a mother of five and was still breastfeeding
her 3-month old baby at the time of her execution. 10,000 people gathered outside the gaol to demonstrate against the execution, chanting "Stop this mother murder!".
The fiancé of Ada Baguley, the daughter, committed suicide
after her death.
, in which Waddingham is played by Elizabeth Hopley
. Although the film shows Timothy Spall
as Albert Pierrepoint
carrying out the execution, in actual fact the hangman was Thomas Pierrepoint
(Albert's uncle); Albert acted as his uncle's assistant. Furthermore, the execution took place at Birmingham
's Winson Green prison
, not Holloway Prison in London
as is implied in the film.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Life
Dorothea Waddingham is usually referred to as "Nurse" Waddingham, because the two murders she was accused and convicted of were committed in a nursing home she ran near NottinghamNottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
England. In actuality she had no right to the title nurse. Born on a farm near Nottingham, the only medical training she may have been able to get was as a ward-maid at an infirmary near Burton-on-Trent. She married a man named Thomas Willoughby Leech in 1925. He was twice her age and dying of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. During their marriage she served two prison terms, for fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
and for theft. Leech died in 1930, at which time Waddingham was seeing another man named Ronald Joseph Sullivan. Sullivan had fought in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and actually won the Military Medal
Military Medal
The Military Medal was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other services, and formerly also to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land....
for gallantry and also served in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
after the war. They would marry and have four children. While married to Sullivan she began to take in elderly and infirm patients, and turned her home at 32 Devon Drive, Nottingham into a nursing home.
Activities
It appears that prior to the arrival of the Baguleys the nursing home was doing fairly well in a small way. A Mrs Blagg, the Honorary Secretary of the County Nursing Association, approved of Waddingham's work, and arranged for a Mrs Baguley who was 89 and her daughter Ada (who had disseminated sclerosis or "creeping paralysis") to become patients. In February 1935 another patient named Mrs Kemp died from an illness which required large dosages of morphineMorphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
. Plenty of the drug remained on the premises of Waddingham's nursing home.
Ada Baguley had made out a will leaving her estate of £1,600 in trust for her mother after her death, and with the rest to be divided between two cousin
Cousin
In kinship terminology, a cousin is a relative with whom one shares one or more common ancestors. The term is rarely used when referring to a relative in one's immediate family where there is a more specific term . The term "blood relative" can be used synonymously and establishes the existence of...
s, Lawrence Baguley and Fred Guilbert after her mother died. Ada had been informed that it was likely she would precede her mother in death. However, this will was destroyed by Ada in May 1935, and a new will created that left all the money to Dorothea Waddingham and Ronald Sullivan when Ada and her mother both died (it being in recompense for the nurse's care of them). The elderly Mrs Baguley died in the second week of May.
Ada lasted through the spring and summer of 1935. Later it was said that Waddingham was quite attentive to her. In September 1935 Ada received a visit from an old family friend, Mrs. Alice Briggs, who spent an afternoon cheering her up. Mrs Briggs told Waddingham that she would have Ada over for tea at her home in a couple of days. But on September 11 (the next day) Sullivan called Dr. H. H. Mansfield that his patient Ada was in a coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
. Mansfield came and found Ada was dead. As this was expected the doctor was not suspicious, and after getting further details from Waddingham he filled out a death certificate
Death certificate
The phrase death certificate can describe either a document issued by a medical practitioner certifying the deceased state of a person or popularly to a document issued by a person such as a registrar of vital statistics that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death as later...
that Ada died of cardiovascular degeneration.
Ada had given her permission to be cremated and if the cremation had gone through it is probable that Waddingham could not have been proved guilty of Ada's death. But for the body to be cremated needed two doctors to sign the certificate, and this could only be done after the family of the deceased was notified. Ada, for some reason, had put into her will a request not to notify her relatives. This was odd by itself. Then Waddingham said there were no relatives. This was known to be a lie.
Unfortunately for Waddingham, the man in charge of cremation
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
s (known as the "cremation referee") was Dr. Cyril Banks, who was also the Medical Officer for Health
Medical Officer for Health
The Medical Officer for Health is a title usually given to the head of the health department at a municipal level.In the United Kingdom, the municipal position was an elected head of the local board of health, however the term has also been used to refer to the Chief Medical Officer...
in Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
. Banks had never thought highly of Waddingham's establishment as a so-called "nursing home", and knew there was no State Registered Nurse on the staff (as there should have been). He became suspicious at the note from Ada Baguley that authorised cremation and ordered a post-mortem. The post-mortem found no traces of anything connected to Ada's physical conditions that could have immediately caused death. This led to an analysis of the organs of the deceased by Dr W. W. Taylor, Senior Assistant to the Nottingham Analyst. He found considerable traces of morphine (over three grains
Grain (measure)
A grain is a unit of measurement of mass that is nominally based upon the mass of a single seed of a cereal. From the Bronze Age into the Renaissance the average masses of wheat and barley grains were part of the legal definition of units of mass. However, there is no evidence of any country ever...
) in her stomach
Stomach
The stomach is a muscular, hollow, dilated part of the alimentary canal which functions as an important organ of the digestive tract in some animals, including vertebrates, echinoderms, insects , and molluscs. It is involved in the second phase of digestion, following mastication .The stomach is...
, liver
Liver
The liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals. It has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...
, kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
s and even her heart.
Suspicions were now raised about the death of Mrs Baguley, and an exhumation ordered by the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
occurred. This was handled by Dr Roche Lynch, who found the mother had also died of morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
poisoning. This led to the arrests of Waddingham and Sullivan for the two murders.
Trial
Waddingham's trial started on the 4th of February 1936. She was tried by Judge Rayner GoddardRayner Goddard, Baron Goddard
Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1946 to 1958 and known for his strict sentencing and conservative views. He was nicknamed the 'Tiger' and "Justice-in-a-jiffy" for his no-nonsense manner...
in 1936. Her barrister was Mr.Eales, who did the best job he could. But the prosecution was in the hands of Norman Birkett (a rarity, for Birkett was normally handling criminal defence). Birkett brought out much damaging testimony, including how Ada Baguley's last meal was incredibly heavy and rich for a woman in her condition: Waddingham admitted that she gave Ada pork, baked potatoes, kidney beans and fruit pie - and gave her two portions of this. It suggested an effort to disguise the cause of death, and a lack of concern for the patient's welfare. The result was that Waddingham was convicted of using morphine to poison Mrs. Baguley and Ada. The purported motive behind the murders was to gain the Baguleys' estate. It was also revealed that Waddingham claimed that Dr. Mansfield gave her surplus morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
tablets for Ada Baguley, which that doctor denied. In trial, Sullivan was discharged for insufficient evidence, despite the fact that the so-called note from Ada Baguley regarding cremation was written by him. Waddingham, however, was found guilty on the 27th of February, and, despite recommendation of mercy, due to her being a mother of several young children, she was hanged on the 16th of April 1936, having confessed to the crime shortly before her execution. Her execution was carried at Winson Green Prison and her hangman was Thomas Pierrepoint
Thomas Pierrepoint
Thomas William Pierrepoint was one of the United Kingdom's executioners from 1906 until 1946. He was the brother of Henry and uncle of Albert....
, assisted by his nephew Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint is the most famous member of the family which provided three of the United Kingdom's official hangmen in the first half of the 20th century...
.
Waddingham was a mother of five and was still breastfeeding
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
her 3-month old baby at the time of her execution. 10,000 people gathered outside the gaol to demonstrate against the execution, chanting "Stop this mother murder!".
The fiancé of Ada Baguley, the daughter, committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
after her death.
Popular culture
The execution is dramatised in the 2005 film PierrepointPierrepoint (film)
Pierrepoint , is a 2005 British film directed by Adrian Shergold about the life of British executioner Albert Pierrepoint....
, in which Waddingham is played by Elizabeth Hopley
Lizzie Hopley
Lizzie Hopley is a British actor and writer.She appears in several audio plays based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. Her first appearance was as the Eighth Doctor’s companion Gemma Griffin in Terror Firma. She also portrayed the sister of Davros in the I, Davros...
. Although the film shows Timothy Spall
Timothy Spall
Timothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.-Early life:Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London. His mother, Sylvia R. , was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker...
as Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint is the most famous member of the family which provided three of the United Kingdom's official hangmen in the first half of the 20th century...
carrying out the execution, in actual fact the hangman was Thomas Pierrepoint
Thomas Pierrepoint
Thomas William Pierrepoint was one of the United Kingdom's executioners from 1906 until 1946. He was the brother of Henry and uncle of Albert....
(Albert's uncle); Albert acted as his uncle's assistant. Furthermore, the execution took place at Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
's Winson Green prison
Birmingham (HM Prison)
HM Prison Birmingham is a Category B/C men's prison, located in the Winson Green area of Birmingham, England. The prison was formally operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service...
, not Holloway Prison in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
as is implied in the film.
See also
- Dr John Bodkin AdamsJohn Bodkin AdamsJohn Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...
- doctor suspected of killing patients with morphine in order to obtain bequests - Catherine WilsonCatherine WilsonCatherine Wilson was a British woman who was hanged for one murder, but was generally thought at the time to have committed six others. She worked as a nurse and poisoned her victims after encouraging them to leave her money in their wills...
- nurse who killed patients who favoured her in bequests