Celestina Sommer ~ The Islington Murderess

Born 1 July 1827, daughter of William Christmas, a silver smith and dealer and his wife Elizabeth (nee Smith). She was baptised at St. Giles without Cripplegate church on 19th

July, 1829.  She was the fourth of eight children from a respectable family of silversmiths in the north London borough of Islington. An accomplished pianist and teacher of music, she performed regularly at the famed St Martin's Hall, Covent Garden as a member of the greatly respected and hugely popular John Hullah school of music. 

During the spring of 1845, Celestina discovered she was pregnant. She was unmarried and due to the social shame her family would bear for an illegitimate child, after telling her parents about the baby, she went on to make arrangements for her baby to be fostered out of the family, as a means of avoiding social shame.

She duly gave birth to a daughter Marion Celestina who was baptised at St. John's Church, Hackney on 27th January, 1846 before being handed to foster parents - Thomas & Julia Harrington, they raised her as one of their own children.

Over the next 10 years, she made regular payments (of her father's money) to the Harringtons for the upkeep of her daughter, but in 1854 she had married a German immigrant (Karl) Charles Sommer, who worked as a silver engraver for her father's business.

After her marriage, Celestina's father then expected his daughter's husband to continue with the regular payments he had been making for his granddaughter's upkeep. This enraged Charles Sommer and it caused arguments between him and his new wife.

On 19th February, 1856 Celestina arrived at the Harrington home - this time not to make her maintenance payment, but to remove her daughter. She informed Julia Harrington that her husband had now refused to make any further payments as the child was not his, so she intended to take her daughter to live elsewhere.

An argument ensued, in which Julia Harrington insisted the child should stay with her. She implored her to leave the girl with the only family she had known, but Celestina was adamant and she dragged the crying child away with her.

On returning to the home she shared with her husband Charles Sommer at 15  Linton Street, Islington, she dragged her daughter down into the basement, where she proceeded to cut her throat. The child died almost instantly. She was buried on a cold February morning a few days later.

After a trial in which questions of her sanity were raised, Celestina was finally convicted of the willful and brutal murder of her daughter, and sentenced to death.

This was later reprieved to transportation and changed again to life imprisonment. Huge public outcries over whether she was insane or just a brutal murderess abounded.

Celestina spent the next three years moving from one prison to another - first to Newgate and then to the lunatic asylum Fisherton House near Salisbury, Wiltshire. Her health was failing fast in the often squalid living conditions of the prison system. She died from an apparent "stroke" at the age of 31.