Minnie Dean
| Williamina "Minnie" Dean | |
|---|---|
.jpg)
Minnie Dean at the time of her marriage in 1872
|
|
| Born |
September 2, 1844 Greenock, Scotland |
| Died | August 12, 1895 (aged 50) Invercargill, New Zealand |
| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Resting place |
Winton Cemetery 46°07.702′S 168°19.529′E / 46.128367°S 168.325483°E |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Criminal status | Executed |
| Conviction(s) | Murder (1895) |
Williamina "Minnie" Dean (September 2, 1844 – August 12, 1895) was a New Zealander who was found guilty of infanticide and hanged. She was the only woman to receive the death penalty in New Zealand, although several others were sentenced to capital punishment, but had their sentences commuted to either life or long duration imprisonment.
Minnie Dean was born in Greenock, in western Scotland. Her father, John McCulloch, was a railway engineer. Her mother, Elizabeth Swan, died of cancer in 1857. It is unknown when she arrived in New Zealand, but by the early 1860s, she was living in Invercargill with two young children. She claimed she was the widow of a Tasmanian doctor, although no evidence of a marriage has been found. She was still using her birth name, McCulloch.
In 1872, she married an innkeeper named Charles Dean. The two lived in Etal Creek, then an important stop on the route from Riverton to the Otago goldfields. When the goldrush died down, the couple turned to farming, but were soon in dire financial straits. The family moved to Winton, where Charles Dean took up pig farming. Minnie Dean, meanwhile, began to earn money by taking in unwanted children in exchange for payment. In an era when there were few methods of contraception, and when childbirth outside marriage was frowned upon, there were many women wishing to discreetly send their children away for adoption – as such, Minnie Dean was not short on customers. It is believed that she was responsible for as many as nine young children at any one time. She received payment either weekly or in a lump sum.
Infant mortality was a significant problem in New Zealand at this time (as it was estimated to run to about eighty to one hundred infants out of one thousand colonial births). As such, a number of children under Dean's care died of various illnesses. In March 1889, a six-month-old child had died of convulsions, while in October 1891, a six-week-old baby had perished from cardiovascular and respiratory ailments, while a boy allegedly drowned under her care during 1894. She hid the body in her garden, arousing further suspicions. A coroner's inquest was held, and Dean was not held responsible for the deaths, due to universally poor standards of hygiene, even at childbirth itself. Nevertheless, Dean came to be distrusted by the community, and rumours of mistreatment circulated. Additionally, children under Dean's care allegedly went missing without explanation. In the public's mind, this linked Dean to cases of infanticide or baby farming in the United Kingdom and Australia, where women killed children under their care to avoid having to support them. At the time, lax childcare legislation meant that Dean did not have to keep records of the children she agreed to take in, and so proving that the children had disappeared was difficult.
...
Wikipedia