Looking through the pages of the Salford City Reporter we came across this rather, harrowing story from May 1916, at which I would imagine any parent would be horrified.
The story begins with Mary Dunlop – who regularly used the alias Mary Jones.
She lived at Bury Street in Salford with her three children, age four months, three years and six years old.
She appeared at Salford Magistrates Court charged with child neglect.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, founded in 1884, were already well familiar with Mrs Dunlop in Liverpool before she moved to Salford.
Inspector Rivers had reason to visit the house on several occasions where he found the eldest child to be, ‘dirty and verminous’, the three year old was so weak that she couldn’t stand unaided whilst the poor tot was described as being,’very thin and emaciated’
Their work expanded in the inter-war years with so many thousands of men and fathers away fighting on the front lines of the First World War.
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Appearing at Salford Magistrates Court Mrs Dunlop was charged with neglecting her three children,
The court heard from several local police constables how Dunlop treated her kids in “a shameful manner”.
PCs Lamb and Neary had been watching the house on the suspicion that it was being used as a brothel.
Bury Street as it is today, a jumble of offices and indsutrial buildings
It was 17 May 1916 when the officers heard the wailing of children emanating from the house.
They rushed in and found Mary to be “drunk and acting in a disorderly manner” and she was promptly arrested.
Damning evidence came up against Mary Dunlop.
Inspector Rivers told the court that she had recently left her husband in Liverpool and had moved to Salford where she was living with “a seaman who was often away from the house”.
PC Bowden then told the court that he had seen Mary Dunlop on almost every day in April that year and on each occasion she was under the influence of alcohol.
Finally, Mrs Elizabeth Parker the Porteress at Salford Union Workhouse told the court that the children who were now in her charge had been badly neglected and were “verminous and ill-clad”.
In her defence Mary Dunlop said that her only fault was that she had “taken a drop of beer” – possibly the understatement of the year.
The Magistrate, obviously shocked to his core at the evidence, told Mary Dunlop that she was “a disgrace to her sex” and sentenced her to four months imprisonment with hard labour.
Those poor children would at least have been fed and clothed in the Salford Union Workhouse which was known for its harsh and strict regime, but the question remains as strong today as it did 100 years ago: what sort of mother would treat her young children in such a manner?
