A soldier’s wife drank continuously while her child wasted away, left the tiny baby alone in the house while she went for beer, and a policeman found her lying drunk across the dead child’s body.
Records of Barnsley Coroner, November, 1916
The mother of two children whose father was fighting in France gave way to drink in his absence, neglected her children and left them in grave moral danger, and committed suicide.
Records of an Orphan Home
A soldier’s baby starved slowly to death as the mother drank away his pay, and while the child lay in its coffin the mother was out drinking.
West Bromwich Police Records, June 1915
A munition worker at Newcastle was grievously upset by the drinking habits of his wife. The police left a summons for her and she disappeared. Two days later her body was found in the Tyne. The man broke down at the inquest, saying, between his sobs: “She was such a good wife to me for 20 years, and reared a good family before she took to drink.”
Records of Newcastle Coroner, Summer 1916
The wife of a corporation workman at Sheffield, home from the trenches with six gunshot wounds and three pieces of shell in his body, found that his wife had given way to drink and starved her five children. She was sent to prison for six months.
Police Records of Sheffield, November 3, 1915