"The darkest, most ghastly shame in the land" wrote the Reverend Benjamin Waugh, Honorary Director of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in describing baby farming. Baby farming practice started in the Victorian Era (19th Century) in the United Kingdom. Baby farming was a term that was used for the people who would “adopt” newborn infants for payment. This was common among the U.K. According to Baby Farming - A tragedy of Victorian Times, Margaret Waters, Amelia Sach and Amelia Dyer were the top three women in the United Kingdom that was hung for the murders of the infants that they were suppose to give to another family. All of these women were caught and hung, but that wasn't the whole thing. They also were classified as serial killers and their stories were almost the same except for Amelia Elizabeth Dyer. She had a story that would make all of the baby farmers look innocent because she lasted not only the longest among the two …show more content…
Born Rhoda Willis or Rhoda Leselles from Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom, Willis is the only woman to be hanged in Wales in the 20th century and the last baby farmer to be executed. Her murder of the one day old infant began when she was around the age of 19 when she met and later married Thomas Willis, a marine engineer from Sunderland. The couple moved to the Grangetown area of Cardiff where Rhoda gave birth to a daughter. Thomas later died of natural causes leaving Rhoda on her own to bring up their child. She took up with a Mr. E S Macpherson, strangely another marine engineer and the couple lived together for some time in Paget Street, Cardiff, with Rhoda bearing him two daughters before they decided to separate. Rhoda went to live with her brother in Birmingham and the two children stayed with their father. She later returned to Cardiff and had begun to drink heavily and was generally going “down