Amelia Dyer

Amelia Elizabeth Dyer (née Hobley; 27 November 1837 – 10 June 1896), popularly dubbed the Ogress of Reading, was a British serial killer who murdered infants in her care from 1869 to 1896.

Dyer's downfall came when the bagged corpse of an infant was discovered in the River Thames, with evidence linking back to her. She was arrested on 4 April 1896. In one of the most sensational trials of the Victorian period, she was found guilty of the murder of infant Doris Marmon and hanged on 10 June 1896.

Dyer's case led to stricter laws for adoption and child protection, and helped raise the profile of the fledgling National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), which formed in 1884.

Early life Amelia Elizabeth Hobley was born the fifth of six children (with three brothers Thomas, James and William and two sisters, both named Sarah Ann) in the small village of Pyle Marsh, just east of Bristol. She was the daughter of Samuel Hobley, a shoemaker, and Sarah Hobley (née Weymouth). Her childhood was marred by the mental illness of her mother, caused by typhus. Sarah would have violent fits, and Amelia was obliged to care for her until her death. Historians later speculated on how this experience might have affected her mental health, and what it might have taught her about the signs exhibited by people affected by mental illness.

Amelia had an older sister, Sarah Ann, who died in 1841 at age 6, and a younger sister, also named Sarah Ann, who died in 1845, aged a few months. After her mother died in 1848, Hobley lived with an aunt in Bristol for a time before serving an apprenticeship with a corsetmaker. After her father died in 1859, her eldest brother, Thomas, inherited the family shoe business. In 1861, at the age of 24, Hobley became permanently estranged from at least one of her brothers, James, and moved into lodging at Trinity Street in Bristol. They had two children together, but she eventually left her husband.

Murders After a few years in the baby farming business, Dyer decided to forgo the expense and inconvenience of letting the children die through neglect and starvation. Instead, she murdered the children soon after receiving them, thus allowing her to pocket most or all of the fee. these always coincided with times when it was convenient for her to "disappear". Being a former asylum nurse, Dyer knew how to behave to ensure a relatively comfortable existence as an asylum inmate. Asked on the scaffold if she had anything to say, she said "I have nothing to say", just before being dropped at 9:00a.m. precisely. There is, however, no evidence to connect Dyer to the Jack the Ripper murders, and she does not figure prominently among the Jack the Ripper suspects.

In popular culture Amelia Dyer appeared in the short story "Lost and Found" by Peter Wise in Disturbing the Water, his collection of themed original ghost stories set around rivers and lakes.

Dyer was portrayed by Joan Sims in the Granada Television series Lady Killers.

The character of Amelia Dyer also appeared in the short story "The Baby Farmer" by Philip Fracassi in his horror collection Behold the Void.

English folk singer Reg Meuross wrote a song about Dyer called "The Angel Maker", which is a track on his 2018 album Songs About A Train.

The Amelia Dyer case was partly dramatised on an episode of the 2022 BBC Radio podcast series Lucy Worsley's Lady Killers.

Amelia Dyer is the inspiration for the character ‘Mrs Bright’ in the short story ‘Confinement’ by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. The story is included in the Sunday Times bestseller ‘The Haunting Season’ published in 2021.