Godalming, Surrey, England; later examination in London
Incident period: September–December 1726, with later local records
The supposed rabbit births at Godalming became one of Georgian England’s most extraordinary public scandals. Mary Toft was examined by surgeons, discussed at court and eventually taken to London. The affair survives in unusually detailed sources: a doctor’s day-by-day diary, the confident account he challenged and sworn statements from people who had sold rabbits to her husband. They reveal much more than a bizarre headline.
How the story reached the royal surgeons
Mary Toft, also recorded as Tofts, came from Godalming in Surrey. Godalming Museum identifies her baptism in February 1703 and her marriage to the clothworker Joshua Toft. In autumn 1726, following an earlier miscarriage, reports began circulating that animal remains were being delivered from her body. The claim developed into repeated supposed births of rabbits.
John Howard, a Guildford surgeon, became involved and moved her to Guildford where he could attend her more readily. In the narrative published by Nathanael St. André, Howard’s letters are reproduced as part of the reason other investigators took notice. A letter of 9 November announced the eleventh rabbit and the expected twelfth, inviting a curious visitor to come quickly.
The important point is how the claim travelled. It did not move directly from Mary’s own words into an official finding. Howard’s observations and his professional assurances carried it to men with access to the royal household. Each subsequent visitor encountered a case already described and interpreted by somebody else.
St. André’s confident narrative
St. André, surgeon and anatomist to George I, visited Guildford with Samuel Molyneux on 15 November. His account describes receiving and examining animal parts, testing pieces of lung in water and inspecting specimens preserved in separate containers. He tried to reason anatomically about what he thought he had observed.
His conclusions were extraordinary. He interpreted features of the remains as evidence that the animals had developed in an unusual way, and proposed an explanation involving Mary’s reproductive anatomy. That was his argument, not a discovery established by the case. The specimens were delivered in separate pieces; arranging those pieces into a whole animal was itself a stage in his interpretation.
The copy consulted for this file carries a 1727 imprint, although the narrative concerns November 1726 and the work first circulated during the December crisis. That distinction helps when following the sequence: a later printing of an earlier claim is not a fresh confirmation after the fraud was exposed. The pamphlet records how strong St. André’s confidence had become before it collapsed.
Manningham arrives with different questions
Sir Richard Manningham’s Exact Diary begins with a journey to Guildford on 28 November. He went at the king’s request to examine the much-discussed woman. He recorded conversations, examinations and movements within the household, rather than simply repeating Howard’s account of earlier deliveries.
A piece of membrane became especially troubling. Manningham thought it resembled pig’s bladder. When another bladder was promptly produced for comparison, his suspicion increased. He challenged Howard and St. André about it. Their disagreement continued at the White Hart, showing that doubt was already present among the medical visitors before Mary confessed.
Manningham did not immediately publish his suspicion. He says he agreed to wait for further evidence, lest an alarm prevent the full circumstances being discovered. His eventual pamphlet was also a defence of his own conduct. Its value lies in its detailed sequence, while its author’s interest in being seen as the successful investigator remains part of the story.
London and the rabbit brought to the bagnio
On 29 November, Mary was taken to Mr Lacy’s bagnio in Leicester Fields, London. A bagnio in this context was a bath-house establishment providing accommodation. Doctors and other visitors came to observe her. The diary records continued pain and movement, but no repeat of the extraordinary series of rabbit deliveries expected by her supporters.
On 4 December, the porter Thomas Howard gave information about a rabbit secretly obtained at the establishment. He was not the Guildford surgeon John Howard, despite the shared surname. Mary and her sister’s responses included the explanation that the rabbit was intended as food. The incident brought magistrate Sir Thomas Clarges into the proceedings.
Manningham argued against immediately moving Mary to prison. He wanted her kept under close observation with medical access until the supposed fraud could be fully established. This was an investigation conducted through pressure and confinement as well as observation; the dramatic language of a clever exposure can obscure the circumstances in which Mary was being questioned.
What the Surrey rabbit sellers said
Meanwhile, evidence was being gathered close to home. Statements taken before Lord Onslow at Guildford and Clandon on 3 and 4 December were printed together. Edward Costen said Joshua Toft had bought young rabbits from him. Richard Stedman described further purchases and a request for discretion. John Sweetapple affirmed that Joshua had bought rabbits and said he was taking some to Guildford.
Mary Peytoe described a sequence of purchases, including rabbits sold around the time Mary moved to Guildford. These statements created a supply trail which did not depend on whether a doctor had mistaken a particular specimen. They placed ordinary rabbits in the hands of someone closely connected with the supposed births.
Nurse Mary Costen supplied another kind of evidence. She said she had seen seven rabbits delivered in pieces while attending Mary, but had not seen rabbits prepared for her to eat during that period. The collection therefore combines purchases, household observation and claims about what emerged during examinations. It does not turn every person named into a convicted accomplice.
Confession under threat
Manningham’s own diary records the pressure applied on 6 December. He threatened a painful operation if Mary would not confess, while offering to seek influential assistance if she told the truth. On 7 December she began confessing. The admission ended the claim of genuine rabbit births, but the means used to secure it are not a detail to leave out.
James Douglas recorded further statements on 8 and 12 December. They do not all assign responsibility in the same way. Mary’s account shifted between an unidentified woman and people close to her. The surviving manuscript tradition therefore leaves a more complicated question about planning and coercion than the simplified picture of a solitary trickster.
For the basic sequence here, the direct diary and printed depositions provide a firm route into the record. The Glasgow library’s exhibition and the separately published transcript of the confessions identify further material readers can explore. UKPX has not treated a modern paraphrase of those manuscripts as a newly discovered original.
After the sensation
Godalming Museum records that Mary spent about four months in custody before release when the case was dropped. She returned to the town and lived for decades after the scandal. Her burial was recorded in January 1763. The notoriety persisted in pamphlets, songs and satirical pictures, long after the days of examination in London.
The enduring interest is in the abundance of competing testimony: Howard’s letters, St. André’s anatomical certainty, Manningham’s suspicion, rabbit sellers’ statements and Mary’s changing confessions. Read together, they show a hoax being sustained and then dismantled through a network of households, professional reputations and authority. The woman at its centre was also a person in pain whose later life should not disappear behind the joke.
Timeline
September 1726 — the Godalming affair begins after an earlier miscarriage.
9 November 1726 — Howard’s letter advertises further supposed rabbit births.
15 November 1726 — St. André and Molyneux visit Guildford.
28–29 November 1726 — Manningham examines Mary; she is taken to London.
3–4 December 1726 — Surrey witnesses give statements about rabbit purchases and household observations.
4 December 1726 — the London porter’s information leads to questioning.
7–12 December 1726 — the confessions are taken.
January 1763 — Mary’s burial is recorded in Godalming.
Sources & further reading
Sir Richard Manningham, An Exact Diary, 1726 — Primary day-by-day account directly read, including the bagnio evidence and the threatened operation.
Nathanael St. André, A Short Narrative, 1727 printing — Primary account of Howard’s letters and the November visit; the opening and specimen descriptions were read.
The Several Depositions, 1727 — Primary statements sworn on 3–4 December 1726, directly read; includes the rabbit purchases.
Mary Toft’s Three Confessions, transcribed by Dennis Todd — Further reading: transcription identifying Douglas Papers D324, D327 and D328; the first two and part of the third were consulted.
University of Glasgow Library: The Curious Case of Mary Toft — Collection guide, manuscript images and historical context.
Godalming Museum: Mary Tofts — Local biographical record and the return to Godalming.
Godalming geographical reference — Town-area map coordinates.
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Location note: Broad Godalming town reference, not an identified surviving room or a private residential address.
UKPX historical case file. Researched and checked 4 November 2026. Explore the UK case map · Links & Sources.