FOR THE SAKE OF The Children
David Dunhill died in July 1885 after being bathed at Scarborough Workhouse. On being placed in the bath the six-year-old screamed that the water was too hot and jumped out, only to be thrust back into the cauldron by attendant Richard Atkinson. Despite the coroner ruling that Atkinson was not criminally culpable, the inquest jury returned a verdict of manslaughter by negligence. Four months later Atkinson was convicted of the charge, and sentenced to four months’ hard labour.
The insistence of laymen that David’s death could not be dismissed as an accident indicates how opinion was changing. Parental rights remained sacrosanct in 1885 and no one had the power to intervene, even if a child was being treated violently or not given food and clothes, but public revulsion about the abuse of youngsters was growing. The first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
