The gruesome origin of ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’
The gruesome origin of ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’ The phrase ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’ came into popular usage in Victorian England to mean nothing or very little, but was there a real Fanny Adams? The answer is yes, and her story is anything but sweet. The rural village of Alton, a quiet and peaceful place in Hampshire, became the talk of the nation when on Saturday August 24th 1867 the abduction of a girl called Fanny Adams and subsequent murder and mutilation created horror and revulsion throughout the land. Nobody at the time could recall any murders in Alton prior to this, let alone one of such savagery. On that dreadful day three little girls went out to play together not knowing their innocent lives would change forever and one of the girls would not return home alive. baker002 Fanny aged 7 Fanny, eight years old, her sister Lizzie, seven, and friend Minnie Warner, eight, walked off happily together from Fanny’s home in Tanhouse Lane towards Flood Meadow. Soon they met up with twenty-...