Child in the Cupboard: A case of possible infanticide
Apr 19, 2021 22:50:55 GMT
politicidal and CrepedCrusader like this
Post by hi224 on Apr 19, 2021 22:50:55 GMT
A hundred and ninety-five years ago, a dead child was found in a Swedish attic cupboard.
Let's start with some background. In 1778, King Gustav III of Sweden instituted the Infanticide Act. The law was introduced in order to prevent infanticide, the killing of newborn children born outside of marriage, and granted mothers both the right and the means for an anonymous birth. Although it surely decreased the all too high frequency of infanticide, it wasn’t enough, and unfortunately Swedish newspapers from the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries are absolutely riddled with news of dead newborn babies being found in various circumstances. This did not end until modern family planning measures and a society which didn’t stigmatize relationships outside of marriage to the same degree came into place. The lives of women were not easy.
Today, I will be looking at one such case, which dates as far back as the 1820s and struck me as particularly strange and peculiar. It has not been previously published. Because access to court records are limited during Covid-19, this original research is based entirely on digitized newspaper articles and church archives.
The 1826 discovery
Boxholm is a locality in the eastern Swedish province of Östergötland. It grew around an aristocratic manor, the owners of which began to establish workshops in the mid-eighteenth century, which eventually evolved into a large and booming metalworking industry. There is still to this date some steel manufacturing taking place at Boxholm and the locality gives its name to large industrial group, but there is also a lovely little local museum about the historical factories there.
Several crofts – agricultural units maintained by landless tenant farmers, paying rent either in kind, coin, or manpower – existed on the vast estates of the Boxholm Factories in the nineteenth century, providing both food and labour. Other crofts were provided as residences for expert craftsmen as part of their wages.
At one of them, a grim discovery was made in 1826, back when Boxholm was owned by the industrialist Peter Carl af Burén (1773–1828). This article was published in the newspaper Södermanlandsposten (no. 28, p. 4) on the 13th of July 1826. It reads in translation:
”Östergötland. Around the 13th of June the following discovery was made at a croft belonging to the Boxholm Factories in the Hundred of Göstring. In an old cupboard, standing in an attic and not opened for many years, has been found the skeleton of a child, placed in a knitted stocking. The knees of the child were bent to the chin, and around the neck was a linnen ribbon resembling a snare. It is thought that the skeleton, which is three quarters long [ = 44.55 cm, 17.5 inches], has been kept in the cupboard for about 17 or 18 years. Examination of the case began on the 3rd of this month, but the child's murderer has not yet been found. Slight suspicions exist, but nothing more.”
Different versions of this article were printed nationwide. This follow-up article was published in Södermanlandsposten (no. 34, pp. 3-4) on the 24th of August 1826:
”Östergötland. At the relevant court has on the 4th and 24th of July been undertaken examination regarding the child skeleton which was found in a cupboard by the Boxholm Factories (se no. 28 of this paper). The results have so far been mainly the following:
The physician says in his certificate, that there is all reason to believe that the skeleton belonged to a fully developed fetus; but whether or not said fetus was delivered alive or stillborn could not be determined, other than that the body has clearly been ill-treated, also that the time which the skeleton has laid hidden likely does not exceed 10 years.
Through hearings have been found that the blacksmith Bruse and his wife have for 22 years used the attic in which the cupboard stood; that they owned the latter, and that when they 4 years ago gave up the attic, the cupboard was left behind locked, under the idea that it was useless; that it was then not used for many years; that the wife Bruse in her previous marriage had given birth to 4 daughters, of which 3 are still alive; that the skeleton was discovered by the youngest daughter Lovisa, who with her husband the blacksmith Grell, possess the attic, in such a way that these two out of curiosity wished to examine if anything could be found in the old cupboard, broke open its door and found the skeleton.
Both the wife Bruse, her husband, daughters and Grell have been heard, and have all denied any form of criminality and no other evidence has been found against them other than those which are stated in this summary of the hearings, which, in the hope that further evidence will surface in the meantime, have been been postponed for now, although it is unlikely that anything will be won through this.”
The family
Unfortunately, I can find nothing further about the case from this point on, so it appears likely that the trail went cold. I have attempted to reconstruct the family involved to the best of my ability. It is an incomplete work, simply due to the nature of the records, but it does help to visualize the case. Here is the family tree I have constructed (please do excuse the untimely colouring, it is part of the software).
But, yes, detective work here is difficult. Many records belonging to Ekeby Parish, which the Boxholm Factories were part of, are incomplete, and those that have been preserved are often difficult to read. We can get some few clues, though. On this barely legible page (left page, bottommost entry), part of the 1787–1825 marriage records of Ekeby Parish, we find the 27th of December 1802 wedding of the nailsmith Peter Bruse and the widow Lena Danielsdotter, establishing the beginning of their relationship.
The 1819–1832 Ekeby household rolls (top left) show us the family of the nailsmith Carl Johan Grell (born 1795) and his wife Lovisa Utterberg (born 1797), the couple who made the June 1826 discovery in their attic cupboard. They had at least three children, the youngest being only two years old at the time. The next page of said household rolls (again top left) shows us the household of Lovisa’s stepfather and mother, namely the master nailsmith Peter Bruse (born 1776) and his wife Lena Danielsdotter (born 1757 and thus nineteen years his senior). The couple is recorded as having moved to another village in 1822, matching perfectly the newspaper account of them vacating the croft at Boxholm four years prior to 1826.
Earlier records provide us no info on Lena Danielsdotter’s first husband, likely a smith surnamed Utterberg who died sometime between 1797 and 1802, but they do help name some of her children. The three daughters noted by the newspapers to be still living in 1826 are the aforementioned Lovisa and her sisters Fredrika (born 1787) and Kajsa Lotta (born 1792). Lena also had a son called Fredrik Utterberg, unmentioned in the 1826 articles, who was born in 1789. The last mention of Fredrik I can identify is in 1807, but he may well have been alive after that. It is possible that the four daughters mentioned in the articles were in fact three living daughters and a deceased son.
Throughout the older records I find several smiths and others at Boxholm with the surnames Bruse and Grell, other than our protagonists, so it seems both extended families had a presence in the large and vibrant industrial community.
What happened next
As said before, there appears to have been no further consequences legally in the case, leaving us to wonder about the impacts on the lives and thoughts of the people involved.
Regarding the nailsmith Peter Bruse and his wife Lena Danielsdotter, Lovisa’s mother, I have unfortunately been unable at the present to find anything about their future lives after the 1826 court case. However, their son-in-law the nailsmith Carl Johan Grell died fifteen years after finding "the child in the cupboard", on the 16th of January 1841 at age of forty-six. His wife Lovisa Utterberg lived substantially longer, dying on the 23rd of January 1875, at the age of seventy-eight. Their son Carl Eric (born 1819) likely died sometime prior to 1860, while their daughters Fredrika (born 1822) and Lena Sophia (born 1824) lived very long lives and likely had children of their own, dying in 1896 and 1908 respectively.
Closing thoughts
This case is tragic. We cannot know exactly what happened to the newborn child found in the Boxholm cupboard, hidden in a knitted stocking (the term used here, Sw. strumpa, could also refer to a sock, but given the length of the skeleton...), but it is certainly a morbid find, and the limited data we have do indicate that its death was not entirely natural.
Whose child was it?
Given the location, I think there are two options: Either the mother was one of the Bruse-Grell-Utterberg extended family, or a local transient labourer housed temporarily with the family, as was fairly common. I think this latter option is less likely, given the way that Lena and Peter treated the cupboard, which I find implies familiarity.
Was Lena Danielsdotter the mother? I don’t find it all too likely, although possible. Given that the unnamed physician provided a date of no more than 10 years having passed since the child died, Lena (born 1757) would have been in her late fifties or early sixties at the time (she was sixty-nine in 1826) if we decide to believe the provided estimate. She was also lawfully married, which means the birth would not have been stigmatized by her peers.
Let's start with some background. In 1778, King Gustav III of Sweden instituted the Infanticide Act. The law was introduced in order to prevent infanticide, the killing of newborn children born outside of marriage, and granted mothers both the right and the means for an anonymous birth. Although it surely decreased the all too high frequency of infanticide, it wasn’t enough, and unfortunately Swedish newspapers from the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries are absolutely riddled with news of dead newborn babies being found in various circumstances. This did not end until modern family planning measures and a society which didn’t stigmatize relationships outside of marriage to the same degree came into place. The lives of women were not easy.
Today, I will be looking at one such case, which dates as far back as the 1820s and struck me as particularly strange and peculiar. It has not been previously published. Because access to court records are limited during Covid-19, this original research is based entirely on digitized newspaper articles and church archives.
The 1826 discovery
Boxholm is a locality in the eastern Swedish province of Östergötland. It grew around an aristocratic manor, the owners of which began to establish workshops in the mid-eighteenth century, which eventually evolved into a large and booming metalworking industry. There is still to this date some steel manufacturing taking place at Boxholm and the locality gives its name to large industrial group, but there is also a lovely little local museum about the historical factories there.
Several crofts – agricultural units maintained by landless tenant farmers, paying rent either in kind, coin, or manpower – existed on the vast estates of the Boxholm Factories in the nineteenth century, providing both food and labour. Other crofts were provided as residences for expert craftsmen as part of their wages.
At one of them, a grim discovery was made in 1826, back when Boxholm was owned by the industrialist Peter Carl af Burén (1773–1828). This article was published in the newspaper Södermanlandsposten (no. 28, p. 4) on the 13th of July 1826. It reads in translation:
”Östergötland. Around the 13th of June the following discovery was made at a croft belonging to the Boxholm Factories in the Hundred of Göstring. In an old cupboard, standing in an attic and not opened for many years, has been found the skeleton of a child, placed in a knitted stocking. The knees of the child were bent to the chin, and around the neck was a linnen ribbon resembling a snare. It is thought that the skeleton, which is three quarters long [ = 44.55 cm, 17.5 inches], has been kept in the cupboard for about 17 or 18 years. Examination of the case began on the 3rd of this month, but the child's murderer has not yet been found. Slight suspicions exist, but nothing more.”
Different versions of this article were printed nationwide. This follow-up article was published in Södermanlandsposten (no. 34, pp. 3-4) on the 24th of August 1826:
”Östergötland. At the relevant court has on the 4th and 24th of July been undertaken examination regarding the child skeleton which was found in a cupboard by the Boxholm Factories (se no. 28 of this paper). The results have so far been mainly the following:
The physician says in his certificate, that there is all reason to believe that the skeleton belonged to a fully developed fetus; but whether or not said fetus was delivered alive or stillborn could not be determined, other than that the body has clearly been ill-treated, also that the time which the skeleton has laid hidden likely does not exceed 10 years.
Through hearings have been found that the blacksmith Bruse and his wife have for 22 years used the attic in which the cupboard stood; that they owned the latter, and that when they 4 years ago gave up the attic, the cupboard was left behind locked, under the idea that it was useless; that it was then not used for many years; that the wife Bruse in her previous marriage had given birth to 4 daughters, of which 3 are still alive; that the skeleton was discovered by the youngest daughter Lovisa, who with her husband the blacksmith Grell, possess the attic, in such a way that these two out of curiosity wished to examine if anything could be found in the old cupboard, broke open its door and found the skeleton.
Both the wife Bruse, her husband, daughters and Grell have been heard, and have all denied any form of criminality and no other evidence has been found against them other than those which are stated in this summary of the hearings, which, in the hope that further evidence will surface in the meantime, have been been postponed for now, although it is unlikely that anything will be won through this.”
The family
Unfortunately, I can find nothing further about the case from this point on, so it appears likely that the trail went cold. I have attempted to reconstruct the family involved to the best of my ability. It is an incomplete work, simply due to the nature of the records, but it does help to visualize the case. Here is the family tree I have constructed (please do excuse the untimely colouring, it is part of the software).
But, yes, detective work here is difficult. Many records belonging to Ekeby Parish, which the Boxholm Factories were part of, are incomplete, and those that have been preserved are often difficult to read. We can get some few clues, though. On this barely legible page (left page, bottommost entry), part of the 1787–1825 marriage records of Ekeby Parish, we find the 27th of December 1802 wedding of the nailsmith Peter Bruse and the widow Lena Danielsdotter, establishing the beginning of their relationship.
The 1819–1832 Ekeby household rolls (top left) show us the family of the nailsmith Carl Johan Grell (born 1795) and his wife Lovisa Utterberg (born 1797), the couple who made the June 1826 discovery in their attic cupboard. They had at least three children, the youngest being only two years old at the time. The next page of said household rolls (again top left) shows us the household of Lovisa’s stepfather and mother, namely the master nailsmith Peter Bruse (born 1776) and his wife Lena Danielsdotter (born 1757 and thus nineteen years his senior). The couple is recorded as having moved to another village in 1822, matching perfectly the newspaper account of them vacating the croft at Boxholm four years prior to 1826.
Earlier records provide us no info on Lena Danielsdotter’s first husband, likely a smith surnamed Utterberg who died sometime between 1797 and 1802, but they do help name some of her children. The three daughters noted by the newspapers to be still living in 1826 are the aforementioned Lovisa and her sisters Fredrika (born 1787) and Kajsa Lotta (born 1792). Lena also had a son called Fredrik Utterberg, unmentioned in the 1826 articles, who was born in 1789. The last mention of Fredrik I can identify is in 1807, but he may well have been alive after that. It is possible that the four daughters mentioned in the articles were in fact three living daughters and a deceased son.
Throughout the older records I find several smiths and others at Boxholm with the surnames Bruse and Grell, other than our protagonists, so it seems both extended families had a presence in the large and vibrant industrial community.
What happened next
As said before, there appears to have been no further consequences legally in the case, leaving us to wonder about the impacts on the lives and thoughts of the people involved.
Regarding the nailsmith Peter Bruse and his wife Lena Danielsdotter, Lovisa’s mother, I have unfortunately been unable at the present to find anything about their future lives after the 1826 court case. However, their son-in-law the nailsmith Carl Johan Grell died fifteen years after finding "the child in the cupboard", on the 16th of January 1841 at age of forty-six. His wife Lovisa Utterberg lived substantially longer, dying on the 23rd of January 1875, at the age of seventy-eight. Their son Carl Eric (born 1819) likely died sometime prior to 1860, while their daughters Fredrika (born 1822) and Lena Sophia (born 1824) lived very long lives and likely had children of their own, dying in 1896 and 1908 respectively.
Closing thoughts
This case is tragic. We cannot know exactly what happened to the newborn child found in the Boxholm cupboard, hidden in a knitted stocking (the term used here, Sw. strumpa, could also refer to a sock, but given the length of the skeleton...), but it is certainly a morbid find, and the limited data we have do indicate that its death was not entirely natural.
Whose child was it?
Given the location, I think there are two options: Either the mother was one of the Bruse-Grell-Utterberg extended family, or a local transient labourer housed temporarily with the family, as was fairly common. I think this latter option is less likely, given the way that Lena and Peter treated the cupboard, which I find implies familiarity.
Was Lena Danielsdotter the mother? I don’t find it all too likely, although possible. Given that the unnamed physician provided a date of no more than 10 years having passed since the child died, Lena (born 1757) would have been in her late fifties or early sixties at the time (she was sixty-nine in 1826) if we decide to believe the provided estimate. She was also lawfully married, which means the birth would not have been stigmatized by her peers.
