My research into mug shots has led me to look at the Victorian baby farmer Amelia Dyer. A baby farmer was a woman who would take in infants for a fee. She would then arrange for the infant to be adopted or care for the child herself. No adoption ever took place. The little babies taken into Dyer’s home were then murdered by her.
Desperate young women had no choice but to give up their most precious things in an age when unmarried mothers were condemned morally and socially. As there was no effective birth control this led to a huge growth in infanticide, so baby farmers were needed in an era when tiny new-borns were commonly seen abandoned in filthy streets. The act of giving up a child for a young woman must have been heart breaking, but I wonder if deep down the mothers knew what lie ahead for their little ones when they handed them to Dyer?
Initially I have been looking at Dyer throughout her life and have made small studies on paper. Personally I feel that researching Dyer’s background and the era is important and all part of the process of creating work. Her crimes were committed in the home and it is this unsettling link with domesticity and crime I plan to focus on.
Study sheet drawings
