Felicia Dorothea Kate Dover

Felicia Dorothea Kate Dover (1855 – 26 March 1925) was an English woman who was tried for murder and convicted of manslaughter in 1882 following the death of Thomas Skinner from arsenic poisoning. She was trained as an artist at Sheffield School of Art and was skilled in drawing flowers. She was popularly known as the Queen of Heeley due to her artistic interests and her standard of dress.

In 1880, at age 25, she become the housekeeper of etcher Thomas Skinner, aged 61. Despite the difference in age, he was considered her "sweetheart" and said to be courting her "with a view to marrying her". Her sentencing was in line with a trend against the use of the death penalty, in which the defendant's character was seen as relevant in determining sentences. The making of carved sycamore bread and butter platters and wooden knives had been introduced to Sheffield around 1851 by Prince Albert.

The Dover family, then, fit a pattern common to the Sheffield area. In 19th-century Sheffield, manufacturing in skilled trades such as wood carving was family-based: most family businesses were 'born small and remained small' and often employed both sons and daughters. and specialised tools, including woodworking tools. Sheffield also supported a well-established woodworking and furniture industry.

Charles Dover's place of business was Oak Street in Heeley in 1865. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph said of him that "there was not a more respectable man in the neighbourhood." Around 1880 Charles Dover published a "small volume of prose and poetry – not a little of it very meritorious indeed."

Kate's mother was Catharine Nunn (Snape, Suffolk, 1827 – Rotherham, 1894), daughter of Jonathan Nunn (Snape, ca. 1791 – Norwich, 1866), a candle rush manufacturer and later a grocer. Kate had two elder sisters: Mary Ann Sarah (Knightsbridge, 1848 – Rotherham, 1923) and Amelia Henrietta Charlotte (Sheffield 1851 – Rotherham 1918).

Early life and education In 1851, before Kate was born, the family was living at 29 Jessop Street, Sheffield. Kate Dover was born in Sheffield in 1855. From at least 1861 until 1883 the family was living at 4 Thirlwell Terrace, Heeley, Nether Hallam, Sheffield. At the age of nine years, she wrote a "small book called God's Love." She was a student of Sheffield School of Art, and many of her flower pictures showed "considerable merit". She was "a prominent member of the Good Templars", at the Excelsior Lodge, Sheffield.

She was known as the "Queen of Heeley", due to her taste in cosmetics and paints, and her liking for fashionable clothes. "The keynote to her character [was] extreme excitability ..." Before her appointment with Skinner, "she was accustomed to dress well, and sometimes with a good deal of taste; and she came to be popularly known as the Heeley Queen," but by the end of their acquaintance her clothes had "become very shabby".

Employment In 1880, Dover was managing a confectioner's shop, or a spice shop, in London Road, Sheffield.

In autumn 1880, she became housekeeper to widower Thomas Skinner (1819–1881) of Sheffield, who was a well-to-do inventor, etcher, and painter.

Crime and trial

On 6 December 1881, Dover killed her employer and "sweetheart", and Skinner's former housekeeper Jane Jones disapproved of Dover's behaviour in the house,

She was a working-class but well-educated artist in an industrial town, with the virtues of regular employment, temperance and an attractive and fashionable appearance. and letter-writing skills suggested that she was intelligent.

At the same time, she was apparently ignorant of the potential effect of up to an ounce of arsenic in a dish of onion stuffing, and ignorant of the amount of arsenic which might safely produce only harmless symptoms. Moreover, she did not attempt to find out either of these things. No evidence was shown regarding any plans for the outcome of her use of arsenic, should Thomas Skinner become ill or should he die, and when Skinner appeared to be dying she panicked. The Court case did offer explanations and gave a pronouncement on some of these matters.

She went home from the house of her "old sweetheart", Skinner, to her parents every night, apparently leading a socially respectable life.

Verdict and sentence

Lockwood was successful in convincing the jury to view Kate Dover sympathetically. The jury returned a verdict convicting Dover of manslaughter because intention to murder could not be proved, rather than murder. This result was considered to be "surprising".

When determining her sentence, Mr Justice Cave expressed his clear disagreement with the jury's decision, by giving her the most severe possible sentence, penal servitude for life. It was stated in the British Medical Journal that "Coupling the sentence with the verdict, the conclusion is irresistible, that the judge thought the jury had taken a very lenient view of the matter." He described her actions in as follows:

Imprisonment and remaining years Dover served her sentence at Woking Female prison. She was released some time after 1895. After leaving prison, or at least by 1901, Kate lived with her sister Mary and her brother-in-law Edwin Sissons, a baker-confectioner, at 19 Carlton Avenue, Rotherham. By 1911, Kate had moved and was living at 423 Badsley Moor Lane, Rotherham, with her widowed sister Amelia H.C. Eden.

Kate Dover never married. She died aged 69 years on 26 March 1925, of bronchitis and heart failure, at 25 St Ann's Road, Rotherham. She had been living there with her widowed brother-in-law Edward Sissons, who was in attendance at her death. She was buried on 29 March 1925 at Masbrough Cemetery, Kimberworth, West Riding of Yorkshire.