Charlotte Winsor’s case is one I have been researching for many years. It reveals the appalling—though sadly not uncommon—practice of 19th-century women who would ‘look after’ children for a fee. And we are certainly not talking about nannies here.
Now, an archive—including contemporary newspaper reports and court transcripts—relating to the case of Mrs Winsor has been transcribed and is available online. If you’ve followed my work on John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee, you’ll know I’ve carried out a similar archival exercise there too.
Despite some historians arguing otherwise, there are historically verified links between John Lee and Charlotte Winsor. It’s baffling when public records plainly support these connections, yet some still refuse to accept them.
There’s a credible chance that Charlotte Winsor and John Lee were related. Mary Jane Harris, the mother of the murdered child in the Winsor case, was very likely a blood relative of John Lee. There’s also a possibility that James Winsor—Charlotte’s third husband—was related to Lee too.
To complicate matters further, South Devon solicitor Isidore James Carter played a role in both cases. Add in the many overlapping legal and local factors, and the narrative ties between these two notorious Devon murder cases become hard to dismiss.
Both Charlotte Winsor and John Lee narrowly escaped the gallows—Winsor through a commuted sentence and Lee through failed executions. The parallels are striking.
All of my research on Charlotte Winsor, drawn from authentic sources, is now available at Old British News.
Ian Waugh
Old British News
