Murder investigation after baby found in Hereford stream

On August 30, 1874, two labourers collecting watercress near Hereford found the body of an infant in Canon Moor Brook.

The child had been smothered with mud, prompting a police investigation.

Seventeen-year-old Alice Powell, a domestic servant who had most recently been employed at Cainscross, near Stroud, was arrested.

She initially told officers she had placed her child in the care of a married couple at Staunton-on-Wye, but changed her story when inquiries revealed they did not exist.

She later claimed to have handed the child to people she met in Hereford, and maintained her innocence.

The infant, believed to be around 15 months old, had been cared for by Powell’s mother until the beginning of August, after which Powell took her away when she had obtained a few days leave.

She told her mother the child was to be adopted by a couple named Manwood in Staunton-on-Wye, and then returned to work behaving, according to reports, "cheerful and lively as ever."

Powell’s employer confirmed she had taken a few days of leave, and a shopkeeper in Stroud, Mr Coward, said he had sold a pinafore similar to that found on the child to her.

She was later sent for trial at the Hereford Assizes.

At the Hereford Assizes, Mr Justice Archibald heard that Powell had given birth to the child after forming an 'improper intimacy' with a man who was not named. She had placed the child in the care of her mother and gone into service, before returning and retrieving the child in August.

Powell was last seen with the child near Hereford racecourse, about 500 yards from where the body was discovered.

Medical evidence confirmed the child died of suffocation.

Despite the disappearance of Powell’s child and the fabrication of the adoption story, the court ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove the murdered infant was hers.

The jury found her not guilty, and the courtroom reportedly erupted in applause.