AMELIA DYER - BRITAIN’S WORST “BABY FARMER”.
Amelia Dyer - Britain’s worst “Baby farmer”. Amelia Elizabeth Dyer was 56 years old when she moved from Bristol to Caversham in Reading in 1895 and began advertising for babies to look after. On the 30th of March of 1896, a bargeman recovered the corpse of 15 month old Helena Fry from the river Thames at Reading. Helena's body was wrapped in a brown paper parcel which had the name of “Mrs. Thomas” and her address on it – Piggott’s Road, Lower Caversham. Mrs. Thomas was one of Mrs. Dyer's aliases. It took the police some time to trace Mrs. Dyer as she had already moved on, changing her address quite frequently and also using various aliases. In the meantime, a Cheltenham barmaid, 23 year old Evelina Marmon, had answered a newspaper advert from a "Mrs Harding" seeking a child for adoption. She met "Mrs Harding" and paid her a £10 fee to take her four month old baby daughter Doris on the 31st of March 1896. She felt comfortable with the arrangement as "Mr...