Ann Moore (impostor)

Life

Ann was born in Rosliston, Derbyshire, the daughter of a day-labourer named Peg or Pegg. In 1788 she inveigled into marriage a farm servant, James Moore, who soon deserted her. She then lived on her looks and became the mother of a large family. About 1800 she made her way to Tutbury to find employment.

Reduced to dire poverty, she subsisted on the minimum amount of food necessary to support a human being, and the astonishment created locally by her long fasts doubtless encouraged her to undertake the imposture which made her notorious. It was given out that she had lost all desire for food from November 1806. Six months later the interest taken in her in the neighbourhood was sufficient to warrant her in taking permanently to her bed. On 20 May 1807 it was reported that she attempted to swallow a piece of biscuit, but the effort was followed by great pain and vomiting of blood. 'The last food she ever took was a few blackcurrants, on 17 July 1807,' and in August 'she gradually diminished her liquids.' Details were multiplied in the pamphlets which narrated her case. One learned writer proved that she lived on air, another that the phenomenon was due to disease of the oesophagus, while a third was convinced that her condition was a manifestation of the supernatural power of God. Joanna Southcott declared that the advent of the fasting-woman presaged a three years' famine in France.

An investigation was set on foot in September 1808, and a succession of four hours' watches, undertaken by the chief inhabitants of the district, was arranged to cover a period of sixteen days. Bulletins were posted from time to time in Tutbury, to record progress, and a list of the watchers was published. At the commencement of the ordeal Mrs. Moore was described as terribly worn and emaciated, but as it progressed she sensibly improved in health and spirits. Robert Taylor and John Allen, two local doctors made communications on the subject of the case to the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal in November and December 1808.

The report of the committee was generally held to be conclusive evidence of Ann's veracity. For the next four years she continued to attract crowds of visitors many making a substantial offering. Mary Howitt, then Mary Botham, was taken to see her as a child as she explains in her autobiography. She says that her father told her that not many believed that she ate nothing but that she did eat very little. Mary said that she could only think of the following poem:

In 1812 she deposited £400 in the funds, but in the summer of that year Alexander Henderson (1780–1863) Physician to the Westminster General Dispensary, wrote an able Examination ' of the imposture, showing the inconsistencies and absurdities of the woman's statements, and the curious parallel between the case and that of Anna M. Kinker, a girl of Osnabrück, who practised a similar imposture in Germany in 1800. Henderson reported that Ann claimed to have not eaten solid food for "upwards of five years" and had not drunk liquid for four years. She claimed that she did not pass urine or any other matter.

Having survived one watch, Ann was subjected to another to check her claims. This one commenced on 21 April 1813, and continued till the 30th, when she was shown to be a cheat. She died a few months afterwards, aged 53 years.

Secret methods

The first set of doctors who investigated Moore were easily duped. According to skeptical writer Bergen Evans:

The credulousness of the first set of watchers was revealed in her admission that during the whole sixteen days of her first observation she had been fed by her daughter while the watchers were in the room. The younger woman had soaked towels in milk and broth and wrung them into her mother's mouth while washing her face. She had also conveyed food from her mouth to her mother's while kissing her.