Mary Channing (
née
The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
Brooks; May 1687 – 21 March 1706) was an English woman from the county of
Dorset
Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...
. Channing is known for being convicted of
poisoning her husband and being
burnt at the stake.
Biography
Mary Brooks was born in early May 1687 to Richard and Elizabeth Brooks of Dorchester. The lack of proper parental control is said to have lowered her character. She soon established a friendship with a young neighbour to whom she often presented lavish gifts and together they spent their evenings outside. After receiving frequent complaints from neighbours, Brook's parents decided that she should be married; they thought a husband would have more control over her than they commanded. So she married, albeit reluctantly, a grocer named Thomas Channing on 15 January 1704. Even after being married, she continued meeting her lover. Channing is said to have poisoned her husband's milk.
Before dying on 21 April, Thomas Channing wrote his will, leaving everything to his father except a shilling for Mary. Her father-in-law grew suspicious and upon post-mortem of Channing's body, he was found to have been poisoned. Mary fled Dorchester and was on the run until she found a distant relative she could stay with.
When apprehended, Channing denied having killed her husband and asked the examining committee headed by Dorchester mayor to let her
touch her deceased husband's body. If it did not bleed, she should be deemed innocent. Her trial began on 28 July 1705 at Dorchester Assizes and she conducted her own defence. Channing was declared guilty but the sentence was suspended when she was found to be pregnant. In prison she gave birth to a son on 19 December.
Channing was burnt at
Maumbury Rings on 21 March 1706. Her execution was witnessed by about 10,000 people.
Legacy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
was somewhat "fascinated" by and "obsessed" of Channing's execution. Critic
David Musselwhite
David Musselwhite (3 December 1940 – 23 February 2010) was a British literary critic and academic.
Life
He was born in Bristol and studied first at Cambridge University, then later at the University of Essex, where he subsequently became a ...
points out that Nance Mockridge, Mother Cuxsom and Mrs. Goodenogh, three characters in Hardy's ''
The Mayor of Casterbridge
''The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character'' is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing ...
'', were an "avatar or surrogate of Channing. The Ring at Casterbridge mentioned in the novel was actually in Maumbury. In his article published in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' (1908), Hardy noted the lack of evidences in proving that Channing poisoned her husband. Two of Hardy's poems ''The Mock Wife'' and ''The Bridge-Night Fire'' make references to her. David James' play ''White Mercury, Brown Rice'' (1995) enacted the trial of Channing.
The main character in
John Cowper Powys
John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...
' novel
Maiden Castle (1937) writes a book about Mary Channing.
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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External links
Extract from Thomas Hardy's article published in ''The Times''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Channing, Mary
1687 births
1706 deaths
Criminals from Dorset
English people convicted of murder
Deaths from fire
People executed by England by burning
Mariticides
Poisoners