The year was 1875, and Mr William Stubbs was a farmer at Antrobus, and his wife was Ellen Stubbs.

It was accepted that farm servants would be employed yearly, and children could be hired.

The couple had two young girls, Eva Stubbs, aged 14 months, and Hannah Bowker Stubbs, who was two months away from her second birthday.

They also had a son Frederick who was four years, six months old, and an older girl Emma.

Mr Stubbs hired two girls as house servants four months earlier, Jemima Hankey, aged 13, and Emma Wilkinson, aged 16.

Shortly after their arrival, the baby, Eva Stubbs, started to vomit a blue-coloured liquid. This went on for a short while and mystified the doctor.

Soon, her sister Hannah started with the same strange illness. In both girls, this vomit included blood, and the children were obviously very ill.

The midwife Mrs Earl was sent for, and while they waited, Jemima took baby Eva into a room. Four-year-old Frederick was also in the room. When they came out, he said in the presence of Jemima, “Mama, Mimy (Jemima) has been giving Hannah some blue soap toffee; when Hannah would not eat it, she squeezed and smacked her.”

Mrs Stubbs undressed Hannah, putting on her nighty and standing the child in front of her, at which she was ill again.

It then dawned upon her that whenever Jemima had nursed the girls, they were sick afterwards. She realised that the children must have been poisoned.

The two servants were put into a room, and Mrs Stubbs listened to their conversation through the door. What she heard shocked her.

Summer was coming, and Frederick and his sister Emma would be at school, so to have little to do, Jemima attempted to kill the young girls using the Bluestone vitriol.

Jemima had been giving the girls what was found to be Bluestone, better known as copper sulphate, and although Emma had not been doing it herself, she was aware that Jemima was and why.

She told Jemima that she was stupid for giving Hannah the stuff in front of Frederick, who would tell.

Mrs Stubbs confronted Jemima and asked her if she had given poison to the children, to which this was denied. She checked the girl’s dress and found a small piece of Bluestone in the pocket.

Fortunately, baby Eva was still on mother’s milk, which reduced the copper sulphate effect. Had she not been, then she would have died.

Both servants were taken to Great Budworth police station. When interviewed by Sergeant Barron, Jemima admitted giving the children Bluestone vitriol.

She was charged with administering poison to murder her master’s two young girls.

Jemima Hankey replied that she had done it because Emma Wilkinson told her to, so they would have an easier place with less work.

Both girls appeared at Chester Assizes, and the jury found them not guilty.

In the case of Jemima because she was not deemed old enough to know what she was doing and Emma because she did not do anything.

The judge told Jemima that she was a wicked bad girl, and he hoped she would be repentant and not try anything like it again.

Next time she would be hanged or locked up for life.

In 1911 Jemima was married to a salt worker, Ellis Haspel and had two boys aged 15 and seven. She was living at Moss Square, Comberbach, and working as a farmworker. She died in 1943, aged 81 years.