Frances Knorr was convicted at Melbourne in December 1893 of the wilful murder of a female infant who had been placed in her care, and she was executed on January 15, 1894. She was the first woman executed in Victoria since 1863. On her arrest in September 1893 she was charged with the murders of three infants, but she was tried for one death only. On the eve of her execution she wrote a letter admitting guilt on the two charges known in evidence as "No 1. and 2 babies". The other deaths were never tried.
She is recorded as Frances Lydia Alice Knorr, born Frances Lydia Alice Thwaites, and was called Minnie. She was born on November 6, 1867, at Hoxton New Town, Middlesex, England (some records give 1868). She was the second daughter of William Sutton Thwaites, a tailor, and Frances Janet Thwaites, born Robin, and one of seven children. Her parents sent her to Australia, and she arrived in Sydney aboard the Abyssinia in 1887. She worked in domestic service and as a waitress.
On November 2, 1889, she married Rudolph Knorr, a German-born waiter, at a Church of England service. The validity of the marriage has been questioned; she was known as Mrs. Knorr in court and in the press. The couple were repeatedly in trouble with the law over theft, and each served prison terms in Sydney. They had a daughter, and she gave birth to another child shortly before her arrest in 1893.
In the 1890s it was common for mothers who could not keep an infant, often because they were unmarried and had no income, to pay a woman to take the child, either weekly or as a lump sum. The trade was called baby farming. It was lightly regulated, and many of these children died. Victoria passed the Infant Life Protection Act in 1890, which came into force on January 31, 1891, and made the Chief Commissioner of Police responsible for registering and inspecting women who took in infants. Its regulations were published in January 1893.
The Knorrs moved to Melbourne about 1891. The prosecution later described Frances Knorr as a "broker of babies": she took a deposit from a parent, paid another woman to mind the child, and kept the difference. In 1892 her husband was jailed for selling furniture bought on hire purchase, which left her pregnant and without money, and she continued the work with a man with whom she had become involved. She was not registered as a nurse under the 1890 Act.
One agreement that came out in court shows how the arrangements worked. A mother handed her daughter to Knorr with £5 for an outfit, then had doubts and took the child back. The mothers of the other infants who came into the case never came forward, and the infants were not identified.
In September 1893 police inquiries in Brunswick led to her arrest, a few days after she gave birth. On September 6, 1893, police arrested her and charged her with the murders of three infants. After her arrest the police ordered inspections of the homes of all registered nurses across the colony.
One of the infants, a girl only a few weeks old, was later identified in evidence. She is the child whose death was the subject of the charge on which Knorr was tried. The date and cause of her death are not on record, and the other two infants were never identified.
Knorr was tried at Melbourne in late November 1893. The court and the judge are not on record. She was tried on a single charge, the murder of the female infant, and the charges concerning the other two infants were not tried.
The Crown produced evidence of her business dealings and a letter in which she had asked the man with whom she had been involved to make up evidence on her behalf; he gave the letter to police. Press coverage of the trial was hostile.
The jury was out for about 40 minutes. On December 1, 1893, she was found guilty of wilful murder. As she was taken from the dock she cried out to the man she had been involved with, and called on God to help her mother and her child.
She was sentenced to death. The case divided the public. Ten women petitioned the Attorney-General, arguing that poverty lay behind the offense and proposing imprisonment instead; a petition from the "Women of Victoria" argued that the execution of a woman by a body of men was out of keeping with the moral sense of the community. A deputation of two clergymen, a layman and several women asked for a reprieve, and a crowd of a few hundred accompanied it toward Government House. Her husband wrote to the Governor asking for clemency on the ground that she was epileptic. The appeals failed and the sentence was carried out. The Executive Council's reasons are not on record.
Her daughter visited her two days before the execution.
On the eve of her execution Knorr wrote a letter admitting guilt and asked that it be made public, in the hope that her fate would deter others. Its words were: "upon the two charges known in evidence as No 1. and 2 babies I confess to be guilty." The confession covered the murder for which she had been convicted and the death of one other infant. She also named the child in the Brunswick charge. She also left a letter to the Premier on the regulation of paid infant care.
She also accused the man with whom she had been involved in connection with a third infant. That accusation was never tried.
Rudolph Knorr was a German-born waiter who had been convicted of theft and jailed before the events of 1893. He was due to stand trial in the case after his wife, but no trial took place. The reason and his final legal outcome are not on record. He denied being the father of her youngest child.
Knorr was executed on January 15, 1894, at Melbourne Gaol. She was the first woman executed in Victoria since 1863. The hangman who had been engaged for the day died by suicide shortly before.
New regulations in 1894 required an inquest into infant deaths in care and the inspection of homes, and in 1898 Victoria Police took over the whole administration of the Infant Life Protection Act. The government did not fund a foundling hospital, and legal adoption was not introduced in Victoria until 1929.
Convicted: the wilful murder of one female infant, Melbourne, December 1893.
Confessed in writing: two infants known in evidence as No 1 and No 2, one of them the child in the conviction; the other death was never tried.
Charged on arrest, not tried: the two other infants (one of them confessed in the letter of January 1894).
Not tested in court: her accusation, made in connection with a third infant.
Points that remain uncertain: her year of birth (1867 or 1868); the place of execution (Melbourne Gaol or Pentridge); the exact date on which she was charged; the date of the convicted infant's death; and the final outcome of the charges against her husband.
November 6, 1867: Frances Lydia Alice Thwaites is born at Hoxton New Town, Middlesex.
1887: arrives in Sydney.
November 2, 1889: marries Rudolph Knorr.
About 1891: the couple move to Melbourne.
1892: her husband is jailed; she continues the work of placing infants with minders.
September 1893: police inquiries in Brunswick; she is arrested and charged with three murders (September 6).
Late November 1893: trial at Melbourne.
December 1, 1893: convicted of wilful murder and sentenced to death.
January 1894: petitions and a deputation seek mercy; they fail.
Eve of the execution: written confession on "No 1. and 2 babies".
January 15, 1894: executed at Melbourne Gaol.