Frederick Baker - the horrible murder of sweet Fanny Adams.
29 year old Frederick Baker was a respectable solicitor’s clerk for William Clement in Alton High Street. On the afternoon of Saturday the 24th of August 1867, Fanny Adams, her 7 year old sister, Lizzie, and her friend Minnie Warner were allowed to go out and play in Flood Meadow beside the River Wey. They walked towards it along Tanhouse Lane where they met Baker.
He gave Lizzie and Minnie three halfpence to buy sweets and offered Fanny a halfpenny to go with him to The Hollow. She refused so when the other two had gone he picked her up and she struggled and screamed. Her cries were heard by Minnie and a Mrs. White, but were soon stifled when Baker battered her to death with a rock. Not content with killing her, he hacked off her head and gouged out her eyes. These he threw into the river.
By 5 p.m. Minnie and Lizzie returned home but Fanny’s mum, Harriet, was seriously concerned as to where she was. The girls told Harriet what had happened and she and her friend Mrs. Gardiner went looking for Fanny. On the way they met Baker who admitted giving the girls the money for sweets but denied anything else. Fanny’s mutilated body was found in the hop field around 7 p.m. on the Saturday evening.
Baker was arrested at his workplace and blood was found on his clothes and on two knives in his possession. In his diary he had written “24th August, Saturday– killed a young girl. It was fine and hot.” He appeared before the magistrates at Alton Town Hall on the 29th of August and was committed for trial at the Hampshire Assizes.
Baker was tried at Winchester on the 5th of December before Mr. Justice Mellor. He pleaded not guilty and challenged the witness’s identification of him at and around the crime scene. Minnie Warner testified that while she and her two friends were playing Baker came up to them and said “Holloa my little tulips, here you are again.” He then played with them for a few minutes before sending Lizzie and Minnie off to buy sweets and seizing Fanny. Minnie and Lizzie both pointed out Baker in court as the man responsible.
He was hanged by William Calcraft at 8.00 a.m. on Tuesday the 24th of December 1867 in what would be Winchester’s last public hanging on the gatehouse roof. It is reported that he walked unaided to the gallows and submitted to the final preparations.
Once he was hooded and noosed prayers continued for some two minutes by which time Baker was trembling and his knees were beginning to buckle. When the drop finally fell, he died after a “few convulsive struggles”, lasting in all about a minute.
Prior to execution he made a full confession to the crime, which he attributed to excess drink but could give no real motive for. He did not attempt to rape Fanny. He also wrote to Fanny’s parents, admitting the murder and begging their forgiveness, saying that if he received it: he would die happy.”
The expression “Sweet Fanny Adams” is derived from this sad case.
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