Who was Fanny Adams?

Fanny Adams (April 1859-24 August 1867) was a young girl brutally murdered by a solicitor's clerk named Frederick Baker in the town of Alton, Hampshire, England. The expression "Sweet Fanny Adams" refers to her and has come, through British naval slang, to mean "nothing at all".

Crime

On 24 August 1867 at about 1:30pm, Fanny's mother Harriet Adams let Fanny and her friend Millie Warner, both 8 years old, and Fanny's sister Lizzie aged 7, go up Tanhouse Lane towards Flood Meadow. In the lane they met Frederick Baker, a 24-year-old solicitor's clerk. Baker offered Millie and Lizzie a three halfpence to go and spend and offered Fanny a halfpenny to accompany him towards Shalden. She took the coin but refused to go. He carried her into a hop field, out of sight of the other girls.

At about 5pm, Millie and Lizzie returned home. Neighbour Mrs Gardiner asked them where Fanny was and they told her what happened. Mrs Gardiner told Mrs Adams and they went up the lane where they came upon Baker coming back. They questioned him, he said he gave the girls money for sweets, but that was all. His respectability meant the women let him go on his way.

At about 7pm Fanny was still missing and neighbours went searching. They found Fanny's body in the hop field, horribly butchered. Her head and legs had been severed and her eyes put out. Her torso had been emptied and her organs scattered. It would take several days for all of her remains to be found.

Mrs Adams ran to The Butts field where her husband, bricklayer George Adams, was playing cricket. She told him what had happened then collapsed. Adams got his shotgun from home and set off to find the perpetrator but neighbours stopped him.

That evening Police Superintendent William Cheyney arrested Baker where he worked at the offices of solicitor William Clement in the High Street and led him through an angry mob to the police station. There was blood on his shirt and trousers, which he could not explain, but he protested his innocence. He was searched and found to have two small blood-stained knives on him.

Witnesses put Baker in the area and returning to his office at about 3pm then going out again. Baker's workmate, fellow clerk Maurice Biddle, reported that when drinking in the Swan that evening, Baker had said he might leave town. When Biddle replied that he might have trouble getting another job, Baker said, chillingly with hindsight, "I could go as a butcher". On the 26th August, the police found Baker's diary in his office. It contained a damning entry:

24th August, Saturday — killed a young girl. It was fine and hot.

On Tuesday the 27th, Deputy County Coroner Robert Harfield held an inquest. Painter William Walker had found a stone with blood, long hair and flesh; police surgeon Dr Louis Leslie had carried out a post mortem and concluded death was by a blow to the head and the stone was the murder weapon. Baker said nothing, except that he was innocent. The jury returned a verdict of willful murder. On the 29th the local magistrates committed Baker for trial at the Winchester County Assizes. The police had difficulty protecting him from the mob.

At his trial on the 5th of December, the defence contested Millie Warner's identification of Baker and claimed the knives found were too small for the crime anyway. They also argued insanity, Baker's father had been violent, a cousin had been in asylums, his sister had died of a brain fever and he himself had attempted suicide after a love affair.

Justice Mellor invited the jury to consider a verdict of not responsible by reason of insanity, but they returned a guilty verdict after just fifteen minutes. On the 24th of December, Christmas eve, Baker was hanged outside Winchester Gaol. The crime had become notorious and a crowd of 5,000 attended the execution. Before his death, Baker wrote to the Adamses expressing his sorrow for what he had done "in an unguarded hour" and seeking their forgiveness. Baker's execution was the last to take place at Winchester.

Fanny was buried in Alton cemetery. Her grave is still there today. The headstone reads:

Sacred to the memory of Fanny Adams aged 8 years and 4 months who was cruelly murdered August 24th, 1867.

Fear not them which kill the body, but rather fear Him who is able to kill both body and soul in hell. Matthew 10 v 28.

This stone was erected by voluntary subscription.

Phrase

In 1869 new rations of tinned mutton were introduced for British seamen. They were unimpressed by it, and decided it must be the butchered remains of Fanny Adams. The way her body had been strewn over a wide area presumably encouraged speculation that parts of her had been found at the Royal Navy victualling yard in Deptford, which was a large facility which included stores, a bakery and an abbatoir.

"Fanny Adams" became slang for mutton or stew and then for anything worthless - from which comes the current usage of "Sweet Fanny Adams" for "nothing at all" (often shortened to "Sweet F. A."), or with similar meaning as a euphemism for "**** all".

The large tins the muttons were delivered in were reused as mess tins. Mess tins or cooking pots are still known as ******.

During "The Simpsons" episode when Milhouse Van Houton's parents decide to divorce, Luanne packs Kirk's possessions and announces to Marge, "Sweet Fanny Adams!"

She is a person within the guide "Joseph Andrews" via Henry Fielding, written within the 18th century I believe. She is his sweetheart and is plump with crimson rosy cheeks and dimples and so on. I studied the guide as an A'degree English textual content whilst I was once roughly part the age I am now: this is a little bit of a protracted-winded style of a guide however vulgar and hilarious in locations. I under no circumstances knew whether or not I was once extra like Joseph Andrews in view that my hair could also be awesome (whilst I develop it) or Beau Didapper, who is brief and filled with himself however going to seed... OOPS!! Wrong Fanny: It seems that Fanny was once Fanny Goodwill and it was once his pal the parson who had the surname Adams. Never brain: learn the guide besides and you can think such a lot higher informed!!! x

Take the two first letters F&A and they are the first letters of a phrase which used to be frowned upon. So a phrase was made up as a euphanism.

she was the girl who invented the fanny pack. her husbands last name was pack, so her last name changed to pack.

I don't believe she existed. It's a more polite way to say "f@#k all".