The Victorian Angel Maker

Reference

Website

Sreeja VN. (2013). ‘Angel Maker’ Amelia Dyer Killed 400 Babies In 19th Century, Records Show. Available: http://www.ibtimes.com/angel-maker-amelia-dyer-killed-400-babies-19th-century-records-show-1101722. Last accessed 17 feb.
Pic. http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/02/23/article-0-179A7E22000005DC-928_634x798.jpg


The angel maker.

Amelia Dyer was seen as a woman who saved children, she was seen as a saint. Dyer would adopt children that parents could not look after taking the burden of raising a child in difficult conditions from the parents. This was before the truth was discovered. The name angel maker was given to her because she took lives of more than 400 children, butchering them and starving them to death, angel maker. These crimes were the most horrific crimes in the 19th century and she is still seen as the worst serial killer to this day.

The reason she was glorified so much before her real intentions came out was because she went after women who struggled financially offering help and promising a better life for their children in return for money.
The reason why I decided to research about the Victorian angel maker was because I relate her to Miss Havisham and I took inspiration from her to incorporate in my look of creating Miss Havisham. Amelia Dyer was needed the little helpless children to feel better about herself and of course she must have been crazy to have murdered them. Similar to Dyer, Miss Havisham needed and fed on playing around with Estella's feelings to make herself feel better about her heart break by teaching her to hate men and depriving her from love in the future. Miss Havisham was also a little crazy since she was obsessed with making Pip fall in love with Estella and telling her to stay away from him.
Miss Havisham in the Great Expectations was described as having tried to make an effort but no quite finished with it for example she had her hair done with the veil on her head however she hadn't finished getting dressed yet with one shoe not on which is similar to Amelia Dyer as can see in the photo she has a neat dress on with a bow on it with a hair piece, however her hair was lose on the sides showing the lack of time she spent on it. Also the eye bags underneath her eyes also show that she doesn't take care of herself to much which is what I incorporated in my Miss Havisham look. In my planning I decided to create a Victorian Bridal hair but have lose bits hanging on the sides as well as creating eye bags to show that she is troubled.

I created eye bags underneath my eyes using the mixture of the blue and brown colours on the Kryolan Supracolour palette.