Mary Ann Britland was hanged at Strangeways prison in Manchester on August 9, 1886. She was 38, a woman from Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester, and she was the first woman executed at Strangeways. That year her daughter, her husband and a neighbor had died, and the three deaths, with the same unnatural signs of illness, led to police questions, an analysis that found poison, and a murder trial at the Manchester Assizes.
Her case was told again in Ashton-under-Lyne more than a century later. In 2020 the Tameside Reporter wrote that the town had made the national headlines when one of its residents became the first woman hanged at Strangeways for murder.
Britland came from Bolton, according to the Tameside Reporter. She married Thomas Britland at St Michael's Church in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1866, and the couple made their home in the town. Her exact date of birth has not been reported, and little is known of her parents or her early years.
The Britlands rented a house in Ashton-under-Lyne. Capital Punishment UK, which keeps a historical record of British executions, writes that she liked the house apart from one thing: it was infested with mice.
To deal with the mice, Britland went to a chemist and bought packets of Harrison's Vermin Killer. The powder contained both strychnine and arsenic. Because of that, the law required her to sign the chemist's poison register, and her purchases were written into it. That signature would matter later. When the police began to look into the deaths, the register showed that she had bought poison.
The first death was that of her daughter, Elizabeth, in March 1886. A doctor put it down to natural causes. Capital Punishment UK observes that such deaths were not unusual in a period of poor food hygiene and no refrigeration. A few days after Elizabeth died, her mother claimed on a life insurance policy worth 10 pounds.
Beyond her place in the family, little was reported about Elizabeth as a person. She was the first of the three to die.
The next to die was her husband, Thomas. He died after his daughter. His death was diagnosed as epilepsy, and again his widow claimed on the insurance.
The Britlands' neighbors were Mary Dixon and her husband. After her own husband's death, Britland was taken into the Dixons' home. Capital Punishment UK writes that she had been having an affair with Mary Dixon's husband, and that Mary Dixon, knowing nothing of it, invited the widow in. Mary Dixon became the third person to die.
By the time of Mary Dixon's death, three people around Britland had died in a short time with the same unnatural signs, and the pattern raised suspicion. The police questioned her about Mary Dixon's death. An analysis of Mary Dixon's body found a fatal quantity of the two poisons in Harrison's Vermin Killer, strychnine and arsenic, and Britland was arrested at once.
Britland came to trial at the Manchester Assizes on Thursday, July 22, 1886, before Mr. Justice Cave. The charge was murder. Her defense argued that she had no motive. The insurance money, it said, was a small sum and could never have made up for the loss of a husband and a daughter.
The jury took some time to reach its verdict, but in the end it found her guilty, and she was sentenced to death. After the sentence she told the court: "I am quite innocent, I am not guilty at all."
Britland was hanged at Strangeways on Monday, August 9, 1886, by James Berry. Capital Punishment UK records that on her last morning she was in a state of collapse, and that two male warders held her up on the trapdoor while Berry made his preparations.
She was the first woman hanged at Strangeways. Three more women were hanged there in the twentieth century: Louie Calvert on June 24, 1926, Margaret Allen on January 12, 1949, and Louisa May Merrifield on September 18, 1953. The Tameside Reporter described Britland as one of four women hanged in Manchester before the death penalty for murder was repealed in 1965.
The case stayed part of Ashton-under-Lyne's local history. In March 2020 the Tameside History Club held a free talk at the Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre in Ashton about the three people Britland was held to have killed and about her execution, drawing on accounts written at the time, the Tameside Reporter announced.
The motive. The defense at trial argued that she had no motive at all. Capital Punishment UK, in its account of Strangeways, says she had an affair with Mary Dixon's husband. Its separate article on the case describes a love triangle but adds that there was no evidence Mary Dixon's husband returned her interest. No finding on the point was reported from the trial.
The three deaths. Britland was convicted of murder at a single trial. The deaths of her daughter and her husband are attributed to her in later accounts, but there is no record that she was separately convicted of either. In court, after her sentence, she said she was innocent.
1866: Mary Ann, from Bolton, marries Thomas Britland at St Michael's Church, Ashton-under-Lyne.
Date not reported: living in a rented house in Ashton-under-Lyne, she buys Harrison's Vermin Killer, containing strychnine and arsenic, and signs the chemist's poison register.
March 1886: her daughter Elizabeth dies; a doctor puts the death down to natural causes, and her mother claims 10 pounds in life insurance.
After Elizabeth's death: her husband, Thomas Britland, dies; the death is diagnosed as epilepsy, and she claims on his insurance.
Later: Mary Dixon, a neighbor who had taken her in, dies.
Before the trial: police question Britland; an analysis finds strychnine and arsenic in Mary Dixon's body, and Britland is arrested.
July 22, 1886: trial for murder at the Manchester Assizes before Mr. Justice Cave; the jury finds her guilty after a long deliberation, and she is sentenced to death.
August 9, 1886: hanged by James Berry at Strangeways, the first woman executed there.
1926, 1949 and 1953: Louie Calvert, Margaret Allen and Louisa May Merrifield are hanged at Strangeways.
March 2020: the Tameside History Club gives a talk on the case at the Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre.