It was February 19th 1896 that a terrible tragedy struck a Cambridgeshire village. Wimblington, is a small Cambridgeshire village not far from March. Police constable Lee was on duty at the time and was asked to make forceful entry at a local cottage owned by a widow named Mary Ann Farnham and her four children. Mary’s parents lived about a mile away and her siblings had not seen or heard from them so Arthur Peacock (Mary’s brother) went with Constable Lee to check on them. However, when they managed to enter the cottage they were about to discover the most horrific scenes in the bedrooms of the four children and their mother. All four children who were found in their bed clothes. Marjorie May aged 11, Sidney Harold aged 8, Henrietta Mary age 4 and Dorothy Esther age 2 were all found with their throats slashed. Two children were found in one bedroom and the other two with their mother Mary, who was resting on her youngest child’s body, laid with the knife still embedded in her throat. The bed clothes were saturated in blood. There was no doubt that Mrs Farnham had murdered her own children and then committed suicide. However the big question was why? Nobody could understand the reason why Mary had murdered her children; however, it looked as though she carefully had planned it, leaving payments in envelopes of all the last payments she owed people and a card from her sister.
The terrible tragedy shook the whole village at the time and still to this day the gravestone is kept well and attended to by the upkeep of the village. Going through the records Mary was born Mary Jane Peacock from Upwell, Cambridgeshire born in 1855. Her husband Henry Farnham was a railway porter born in 1852 at Audley End. The couple married in North Witchford in 1877 and Henry continued to work at the railway and became a master at Takeley station. Henry died at age 41 in 1893 from a lung disease leaving Mary financially comfortable to bring up their family. There was no financial difficulties and nothing seemed out of the ordinary leading up to murders. Marys eldest daughter Lucilla, the sole survivor of the family was away in service at the time of the tragedy. Lucilla was left to mourn for her whole family at the funeral along with her grandparents, uncles, aunts and 3000 people who attended the funeral.
