And two more questions: Who am I, and what are you doing here?
OK, let’s start with the first one. Mary Ann Britland was the first woman executed at Manchester’s Strangeways Prison. In July 1886, she was convicted of the poisoning murder of her best friend and neighbour, Mary Dixon, although it was believed she poisoned her daughter, Elizabeth Hannah Britland, and husband, Thomas Britland, as well. Just three weeks later, she was dragged – sobbing, half-starved, and perhaps completely mad – to the gallows. Her last words, screamed up to the heavens, were: “Lord, forgive me! I must have been mad.”
Mary Ann Britland was a convicted murderer and a suspected serial poisoner. But she was also my distant relative. And that brings us to question number two.
My name is Cassie Britland and I’m a writer living in Sydney, Australia. I discovered Mary Ann and my connection to her 15 years ago, when I was a first-year journalism student practicing my research skills. A tutor asked us to Google ourselves as a demonstration of how much background information we could find on people simply by going online. I didn’t find much on myself (thank Ceiling Cat, this was before the days of Facebook and Instagram), but Googling “Britland” without my first name proved much more successful. I found Mary Ann Britland on a homemade GeoCities true crime website. It had only a couple of sentences of information – less than the introduction of this post.
Over the years, I found more info. One day there was a Wikipedia entry, and from it I tracked down some old books that briefly discussed the case. But I always wanted to learn more. So last year, I went back to uni to research and write about Mary Ann Britland as part of an Honours project. I read all the newspaper coverage, studied the depositions and case notes, and even found Britland’s own statements, which had been suppressed at the time of her death (an unusual decision at the time). I used this research to write a true crime novelette with an accompanying exegesis, but the time and word-limit constraints of Honours meant leaving many questions unanswered.
Which brings us to the third question: What are you (and I) doing here?
I – I am continuing my research. I’m digging further into the archives, burrowing deeper into the history, and further uprooting my family tree. I’m turning my novelette into a book. It’s very nerdy and very exciting – well, at least to me. You – well, I’m hoping you get nerdy and excited about this stuff too. Maybe you’re a fellow true crime fan. Maybe you’re into history, or researching your own family tree. Maybe you’re just getting into archival research yourself and going grey trying to figure out where to start. Or maybe you’re one of my friends or family who have been wondering what the hell I’ve been doing for the past year – hey, guys!
On this blog, I’ll discuss my investigation and writing of Mary Ann Britland’s story. I’ll share my tips for family tree and archival research, which should help you save some time and money (trust me, this work can get expensive). I’ll post writing and editing advice minus the guilt (because “Write every day” without any suggestions on how to make that possible is not helpful) And I’ll even share some morbid true stories and factoids, ’cause what’s history without a little gore?
If any of this sounds like your kind of thing, I hope you’ll hang around. You can subscribe to this blog to get new posts sent straight to your inbox – just enter your email address in the box in the top right-hand corner of this page. Or you can follow me, @CassieBritland, on Twitter, or like my Facebook page for updates on new posts and even more true crime, history, and research goodness. I also tweet about cats. Lots and lots of cats.
Got a question about Mary Ann Britland, research, or writing? Leave it for me in the comments and I’ll try to answer it in an upcoming post.
I’d appreciate a mention in the book. Sincerely your friend, Hugh Jass.
You’re not just getting a mention. You’re getting a whole chapter.