Sweet Fanny Adams

There is an interesting connection between 

canning and the phrase 'Sweet Fanny Adams'. 

In 1867 a sailor from Portsmouth murdered his 

girlfriend (Fanny Adams) in Alton in Hamp- 

shire and tried to get rid of her body by hacking 

it into small pieces. The murderer, Frederick 

Baker, was hanged in Winchester jail on Christmas 

Eve 1867. The morbid humour of his fellow sailors 

at Portsmouth soon suggested a connection 

between this murder and canned meat being turned 

out by a newly established canning factory at the 

Naval Victualling Yard in Deptford. It is one of the 

few cases where the victim rather than the murderer 

has achieved immortality!