Amelia Dyer

Amelia Dyer was an English baby farmer and serial killer convicted of murdering an infant in 1896. She was suspected of killing many other children entrusted to her care.

Connect

River Thames: A major river in southern England that flows through London into the North Sea. A child’s body found in the Thames in 1896 led police to Dyer.
Baby farming: The practice of taking in infants for payment, often with promises of care or adoption. Dyer’s crimes took place under the cover of this poorly regulated practice.
Infant Life Protection Act 1872: A British law that introduced registration and inspection requirements for people caring for infants for payment. This earlier law addressed risks in paid childcare but left enforcement and oversight weak.
Margaret Waters: An English baby farmer executed in 1870 for the murder of an infant in her care. Her earlier conviction shows that fatal abuses in baby farming predated Dyer.
Reading: A town in Berkshire, England, on the River Thames. Police traced the 1896 Thames discovery to Dyer’s address in Reading.
Victorian era: The period of British history during Queen Victoria’s reign, from 1837 to 1901. Dyer’s career unfolded amid Victorian poverty, limited welfare, and high infant mortality.
Infant Life Protection Act 1897: A British law that strengthened regulation of people who took in infants for payment. Passed after Dyer’s execution, it expanded safeguards against abuses associated with baby farming.
Jessie King: A Scottish baby farmer executed in 1889 for murdering an infant entrusted to her. King’s case provides a separate example of infant murder concealed by paid care.
Murder of Doris Marmon: The 1896 killing of an infant whose body was found in the River Thames and whose murder led to Amelia Dyer’s conviction. This was the specific murder for which Dyer was tried and convicted.
Illegitimacy in Victorian Britain: The social and legal status of children born outside marriage in nineteenth-century Britain. Stigma and limited support left some unmarried mothers seeking secret childcare arrangements.