In March 1871, 25-year-old Eliza cut her own throat at the family home in Stow (Midlothian) then spontaneously did the same to her daughter Isabella (11 months) and son Daniel (three years). Eliza lived, the children did not. Found guilty but insane before the High Court of Justiciary, she was committed to Perth Criminal Lunatic Department (CLD) 'until Her Majesty's pleasure shall be known'.
Photograph of Eliza taken from the Criminal Lunatic Department Case Book. Crown copyright, NRS, HH21/48/1 p393.
Page 1 of 4 of evidence from Peter Milne, Constable of Edinburgh County Police, p1-4, 27 March 1871. Crown copyright, NRS, AD14/71/295.
Edin[burgh] 27 March 1871,
Peter Milne Constable of the Edin. County Police residing at Stow
aforesaid.
Declares about 9 o[']c[lock] in the night of Monday 6 March 1871 I heard of the murder of the children Claftons. I went to the house & found the witness James Thomson there & I was told that the prisoner was in bed with her throat cut & one of the children dead, the other still alive. I did not go into the house at that time but asked Thomson to stay until I got another constable. I went & got Constable Barr from Heriot & returned with him to the house about 11 o[']c[lock]. The doctors were then there dressing the prisoners wound. Dr Middleton Peneham & Mr McDougal. I found on the mantel piece, the kitchen the
Razor &
Letter
Now shown me…Dr Middleton pointed them out to me. There was a great deal of blood had been spilt about the house & all the clothes lying about were more or less covered with blood so that I did not think it any use to take possession of any. I did not notice any thing in particular that I considered necessary to take. Barr & I have since said night been in constant attendance on the prisoner keeping watch over her in her husbands house until this morning when she was removed under charge of Dr Middleton by the railway to Edinburgh. I accompanied her. The prisoner has spoken very little all the time I have been watching her. So far as I can judge she has been quite conscious all the time I have been watching her & I have never seen anything the least like insanity or wandering of mind about her. The children were buried on Thursday 9 March 1871. Their bodies had been removed before the hour for the funeral to a neighbouring house. The minister came in to Clafton’s house & Said he supposed 2o’c was the time without saying anything further after this the prisoner said to me that she knew that her children were buried that day. No further allusion than the above remark of the ministers had been made to the subject. I then cautioned her that anything she might say might be used afterwards against her.
She then said that she did not know what she was doing when she did the children & that she did not know she had done them for sometime after – that she had done herself first & had written the letter before that & that when she wrote it she did not intend to do the children. The above was the only occasion on which the prisoner has made any allusion to the matter – at least so far as I can tell for she has sometimes seemed to be saying something which I could not make out. Barr was not present when she spoke as above to me – all truth.
Peter Milne
Declaration of Eliza Sinclair or Clafton, 12 April 1871. Crown copyright, NRS, AD14/71/295. Voices, Craig Smillie and Jade Anderson
Neighbours of long acquaintance who gave supportive testimony said Eliza was a good wife and mother, but a fragile person, with low resilience. 'If any person did anything to the prisoner to offend her she took it very much to heart & became very dull & quiet'.
Thus when accused of stealing from a local grocer by the owner's daughter, Christina White, Eliza fell apart. For their part, medical men thought the underlying cause was lactation and possibly the psychological impact of physical injury during earlier childbirth.
Statement of Jane Crombie, 17 June 1871. Crown copyright, NRS, AD14/71/295
Clinicians assessed prisoner-patients regularly to see if they could be released, conditionally or unconditionally, carefully monitoring steps towards freedom. Along with Marjory McKeraker and three other female inmates, Eliza had the privilege in August 1880 of walking outside the prison walls for a few hours a week under guard. This was permitted because they were all 'perfectly sane' and unlikely to relapse without some advance warning.
Eliza was first discharged in 1881. Conditional release was closely monitored by a nominated guardian with whom the prisoner-patient had to live, to prevent any danger to self or public. The Scottish Office paid guardians, but the task was onerous.
Petition to HM Prison Commissioners, 10 June 1887. Crown copyright, NRS, HH17/23
Eliza had a mind of her own. By leaving her guardian and associating with her husband and other men, she was readmitted several times for breach of conditions. In August 1882 she gave birth to a son, who was taken from her by the Inspector of the Poor once weaned. She was pregnant again in March 1890 and, unable to work for her living (she tried to throw herself out of a window when the officers came to collect her), recommitted. Her baby girl was removed from her in April 1891.
Letter from Eliza to Dr McNaughton telling him that she refuses to return to the poorhouse and work, 12 December 1898. NRS, HH17/23.
Eliza's case history makes her sound rootless and irresponsible, but her life was typical of working-class people in Victorian times: employment could not be guaranteed and poverty was an ever-present threat; geographical mobility was normal and frequent; and personal relationships could be dissolved easily by the acid of poverty. She herself was illegitimate, her father a married man, her mother then an unwed servant. Eliza married the weaver Samuel Clafton in spring 1864, who used the name John Smith in an effort to evade a paternity suit in Yorkshire. Footloose and unreliable, he was regarded as quite unsuitable to act as her guardian.
Statement of Eliza’s husband Samual Clafton, 14 March 1871. Crown copyright, NRS, AD14/71/295.
If the description of the murder and its aftermath in the trial documents and newspapers is harrowing, Eliza's redundant suicide note is even more deeply affecting.
Eliza’s suicide note used in evidence in her trial, 1871. NRS, JC26/1871/307.
"Dear Husband. I write you a loving farewell, and my children, give my kind love to mother sister and all inquiring friends be good to the bairns, I hope you will forgive me and God will forgive me, Kirst White has done all this. She swore that I had taken siller [money], which is false, but they hang every body. I have nothing to live for; I have no friends in this world."
No longer insane, Eliza was removed to Dysart poorhouse in December 1897 because she was unable to support herself. Days later, she drowned herself in the River Leven.
