The sad story of Spalding’s Geranium Girl

In the latest delve into the archives, Holbeach historian Linden Secker looks at the tale of Spading’s Geranium Girl…

A story from 1875 made international headlines for a Spalding girl who wasn’t the innocent cherub that she portrayed herself to be.

Sarah Chandler was given fourteen days in prison and four years at a reformatory school for a meagre ‘crime’. She had plucked a single geranium head from a plant in the Spalding alms-house garden. This was her first offence and the severity of sentencing caused uproar in the town, especially as the young girl was described as being ‘of weak intellect’.

Her mother however described her as ‘an unmanageable bad girl’, and seemed to have little objection to the suggestion of four years away. She believed that the time in reformatory would be the most beneficial to her outcome in life and ‘reclaim her from her evil propensities’.

She also described the 12-year-old girl as vindictive to her younger sisters, and also the neighbouring children in the street where she lived. Looking into the family, Sarah had a troubled home life with continued parental squabbling a regular feature.

Although portraying her innocence in the courtroom, Chandler was soon causing havoc in the Spalding cells, whilst serving the 14-day sentence. Foul mouthed outbursts from such a potentially timid source set the stage. A surgeon was then rushed to the jail as the girl insisted that she had swallowed a needle following her tea. Another cry for attention perhaps?

On the arrival of a surgeon, she swore on oath that the story was true and only admitted the lie in fear when she saw the surgeon producing instruments to surgically dissect her to search for the object.

Regardless of her torrid behaviour, the public outcry was intense and after intervention from the Home Secretary Richard Cross, she was released and paraded around the town as a heroine in what became known as the Spalding Geranium Parade.

The Rev Moore received much abuse and condemnation for her sentencing, but just a few months later he had that ‘I told you so’ look about him. In February of 1876, Chandler was caught shoplifting and was once again before the courts. This time she had stolen a jacket and was given exactly the same sentence of 14 days imprisonment and four years in a reformatory. Despite her pleas of innocence there was to be no leniency from the judge, also questioning the parental guidance that she was lacking in life.

Sarah Chandler was sent to a Doncaster reformatory school but was soon smashing windows and generally misbehaving, being sentenced to three months imprisonment.

By May of 1885 she had returned to Spalding as a domestic servant at the Crane Inn. She was unhappy and struggling to shake the stigma of attending the reformatory school.

After goading from her hometown acquaintances and general torment in her life, the troubled woman drank a phial of laudanum which very nearly killed her. This led to her being remanded to Lincoln where she was ordered to keep the peace for six months and sent to the Spalding Workhouse until a position could be found for her.

The following year in July of 1886 she was in trouble again, blatantly refusing to do her workhouse chores. She then broke into a cupboard and swallowed a quantity of iodine in another suicide attempt. By now the newspapers were referring to her as ‘the notorious Sarah Chandler’, her supposed innocence of former years now long gone.

This second suicide attempt was once again close to fatal, only surviving following her stomach being pumped, after which she was once again taken to prison for fourteen days.

One year later she was twice back in solitary confinement on bread a water for insolence towards the workhouse master. This was quickly followed by being remanded again for failing to wash up, along with a blind girl who was remanded for ‘making a noise’ in February 1889.

The 1890s saw various prosecution cases of foul language whilst working as a bar servant at the Barge on Commercial Road. To top off her resume, she finally appeared in the courts in 1902 for stealing water!

By 1911, Sarah Chandler had settled down and became a trusted housekeeper in a local family at Thorney.

She later moved with them to Bexhill-On-Sea where she died in the 1930s, described as a loving and kindhearted person. The wheel of life had gone full circle for Spalding’s troubled Geranium Girl.