After an eight-day supervised watch ending 24 May 1813, physicians concluded Ann Moore's claimed fast was fraudulent, collapsing her national reputation.
The elaborate deception of Ann Moore, the self-proclaimed 'fasting-woman of Tutbury,' came to a definitive end on 24 May 1813. Following years of public fascination and an earlier inconclusive watch in 1807, a committee of physicians and local officials subjected Moore to a far more rigorous eight-day continuous surveillance, determined to settle the question once and for all.
Under this stricter observation, Moore's health rapidly deteriorated, and she was found to have secretly obtained nourishment — reportedly through the complicity of her daughter, who had smuggled food to her during the ostensibly airtight watch. The physicians overseeing the test concluded unequivocally that her claim to have survived years without food or drink was a fraud.
The exposure was a sensational scandal, reversing years of public sympathy and curiosity into public ridicule and condemnation. Moore was forced to sign a public confession admitting the deception, and her name became a byword for imposture and credulous gullibility in the British press. The case was widely discussed by physicians of the day as a cautionary example of the need for rigorous, controlled scientific observation rather than reliance on testimony and reputation.
This event marked a significant moment in the broader history of scientific skepticism toward extraordinary medical claims, foreshadowing later, more systematic investigations into so-called 'fasting girls' throughout the nineteenth century, including the famous case of the Welsh Fasting Girl, Sarah Jacob, decades later.