One Saturday in April 1823, at about half-past ten at night the door bell of Mrs Cosserat's house on Southernhay was rung in a violent manner.
"On the maid-servant opening the door, she perceived a band box, without any person appearing, and, on taking it up, she heard the cry of a child issue from it. being alarmed, she set it down again, and hastened to the balcony, from whence she called to a chairman then passing, to ring the bell of Mr. Kingdon's (the adjoining) house. Mr. K. being apprised of the circumstances, immediately took in the box, and found it contained a female child, about a fortnight old, dressed in new but plain clothes.
"The Corporation of the Poor are using every exertion to discover the unnatural mother, and the person by whom the child was dropped; and have offered a reward of five guineas for their apprehension."
"Child Dropping" was The Flying Post's title for this piece. No doubt, in Georgian Exeter, everybody knew what that meant.
Band boxes, bandboxes, according to OED are so called because they contained the 'bands' or 'ruffs' as worn in the 17th century. Then they changed with the fashion to become hat boxes. Do we still speak of bandboxes?
Was this desperate mother a romantic? Did she hope for a better life for her baby daughter in Mrs Cosserat's posh house in Southernhay? There would be not much chance of anything like that, I imagine, once the Corporation of the Poor was involved.
So much of this story remains untold. One can only hope for happy endings!
Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 24th April 1823.
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