Daughter testified in court after dad bludgeoned his wife to death

In 1865 tailor Stephen Burke, aged 40, lived with his wife Mary and their five children in a cottage house in Brunswick Street, Preston. Their sparsely furnished home was a melancholy picture of the horrible effects of drunkenness and destitution.

- with Keith Johnson

On the last Monday of January 1865 the attention of townsfolk became focused on the plight of the Burke household. At around seven-thirty in the morning, their distraught daughter Mary Ann, aged 12, aroused a neighbour and informed her of the traumatic happenings of the night. Within minutes a police officer had broken his way into the home and discovered the body of her mother Mary Ann Burke. She appeared to have bled profusely and over her left temple was a frightful wound.