ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the infanticide of 1860s through The Times discourse on the pronouncements of the most influential voice on infanticide during the decade, the eloquent, campaigning medical coroner Dr Edwin Lankester. The pronouncements of Lankester, who rose from humble origins in rural Suffolk to become a distinguished scientist, were inscribed with the dual authority of medicine and law. The chapter argues that the women who killed their newborn babies were part of a more complex power relationship, one that politicized their actions and reignited infanticide discourse in England. Wakley created multiple influential discourses through his dual roles as parliamentarian, coroner, and medical scientist and as the founding editor of the medical journal, the Lancet. Edwin Lankester's press persona was inextricably linked to his ability as a primary definer of infanticide news to consistently provide journalists with highly charged quotes on infanticide, especially his statistical data that added scientific authority to his claims.
