Following a series of family rows, Frances Stewart, 43, a widow, was asked to leave the house she shared with her daughter and son-in-law. She promptly packed her bags and, while no one was looking, tucked her one-year-old grandson, little Henry Scrivener, under her arm.

This was to be Henry’s last outing with his gran. Walking along Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, she threw him into the River Thames. Later his body appeared at Millwall docks, several miles down river.

At the Old Bailey on June 10th, 1874, she claimed the child fell in, but she could offer no reason for not raising the alarm. The jury recommended mercy on account of her age and also because she was suffering from “great mental excitement” at the time, but she was nonetheless hanged on Monday, June 29th, 1874, at Newgate Prison.