The tragic tale of Maggie Heffernan, the unwed mother who drowned her baby

When she was abandoned by the father of her baby Maggie Heffernan did the unthinkable, but her case ignited a wave of sympathy.

Margaret Heffernan was sentenced to four years hard labour for killing her baby. Picture: Public Record Office Victoria

In 1900, after she was betrayed by the lover who had promised his hand in marriage, Maggie Heffernan did the unthinkable.

The 23-year-old drowned her three-week-old baby, George, in the Yarra in a tragic tale that highlights the predicament of women abandoned with illegitimate children in Victorian times.

Maggie is the subject of a new episode of the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters with historian Margaret Anderson.

Ms Anderson, director of the Old Treasury Building museum, home to a recent exhibition called “Wayward Women?”, says Maggie’s story was sad, but not all that unusual.

“It was accepted in Melbourne at this time that young men would transgress before marriage, and probably after it, although nobody was ever prepared to say that openly,” she says.

“But for women the sexual standards were pretty much absolute.

“And the term that was used to describe women like Maggie if they erred before marriage says it all really. They were called ‘fallen women’.”

Maggie grew up in a respectable and strict farming family near Wodonga, but had a sheltered upbringing.

After working as a servant for over a year in the household of a local miller, she left in early 1899, saying she was going to be married.

It was later revealed she had been seeing a young man who had promised marriage but abandoned her when she became pregnant.

“She’d gone to Melbourne, expecting to meet her lover and marry him, but he’d given her a false address, and when she went to the address he’d given her, she must have realised that,” Ms Anderson says.

“I suppose (Maggie’s) first reaction would have been absolute panic, disbelief, grief, I imagine, because it seems that she loved him, but also fear, intense fear, because she knew very well how hard it was for young women with illegitimate babies to survive.

“She knew the shame that they would face in their communities and anywhere else.”

The young mum wrote to her parents, but in a tragic coincidence, the post office burnt down, so they never knew of her plight, and Maggie received no reply.

In desperation, Maggie drowned George, as she later confessed.

“I took the gown from off the baby,” she explained.

“I then let the baby drop gently into the river.

“The baby was alive when I dropped (him) into the river. I did not look to see whether the body sank or not.”

After George’s body was found floating, Maggie was traced, found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

But her case ignited a wave of public sympathy and moral outrage, and Maggie’s sentence was commuted to four years in prison with hard labour.

After serving less than two years, Maggie went on to rebuild her life, marrying and having two children, and living under a new name to the age of 88.

To learn more, listen to the interview about Maggie Heffernan with Margaret Anderson in the In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.