The One-Penny Wife: Starvation, Poison, and the Law (1829)

In 1829, English law allowed for a remarkable—and troubling—possibility: a person could be condemned for murder even when the victim survived.

This week we explore the case later known as The One-Penny Wife, a story in which domestic hardship, early forensic science, and a deeply unusual legal statute entwined to produce one of the strangest verdicts of the late Georgian era.

Mary Jardine lived on a starvation allowance of a single penny a day. When she collapsed after drinking her morning tea, her symptoms were unmistakable. Proving arsenic poisoning, however, was far from straightforward. Investigators had only the earliest forms of the stomach pump, inconsistent chemical tests, and a medical profession still decades away from reliable toxicology.

The result is a case that sits at the uneasy intersection of intent, law, survival, and the limits of early forensic practice—a case in which the courts treated an attempted poisoning as if it were wilful murder.

In Further Particulars, we leave the dangers of arsenic behind for a very different peril of Victorian life: a breach-of-promise scandal that shows how even a broken engagement could spiral into a courtroom drama.

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