The following are brief notes of some of the more interesting trials, as well civil as criminal, which have occupied the attention of the Courts of Assize, or Quarter Sessions, in this county, during the present century.

The King v. Waddington—In the summer of 1800 a criminal information was filed against S. F. Waddington, Esq., an eminent hop merchant residing in London, “for monopolising practices in the purchase of hops” in this county. The rule having been made absolute, the case came on for trial at the Worcestershire Summer Assizes, in that year, before Sir Simon Le Blanc and a special jury, at Nisi Prius. Mr. Plumer, principal counsel for prosecution, stated the offence to be—enhancing the price of hops by spreading rumours of scarcity among the planters, advising them not to sell, and by engrossing a large quantity of that commodity. Mr. Waddington was described as having invited the planters to a dinner, and given them as a toast, “Hops, £20 a cwt;” telling them that they had never had a large enough price, begging them to hold back, and promising to buy himself at an increased rate, rather than they should be distressed for money. Such was the enthusiasm created by his speech, that one gentleman got up afterwards and proposed, “Mr. Waddington, the saviour of the country.” He afterwards did buy great quantities of hops in Worcester market, at prices varying from 10s. to 40s. above those current prior to his appearance. The counsel characterised this forestalling as a “crime of deepest dye;” and “long, very long, had the people of this country borne with the most exemplary fortitude this greatest of all public evils.” Mr. Dauncey, Mr. Waddington’s counsel, insisted that his client had only acted as other factors were in the habit of doing, and if he were punished, the private enterprise of the country would receive a most grievous check and injury. He said the offence of “engrossing” was a most undefinable one, and not cognizable by the common law. The learned judge admitted this was a moot point, but remarked on the enormity of the offence, and told the jury they had only to say whether or no the evidence made out to them the fact of Mr. Waddington’s having done that which the indictment set forth. The jury, after this charge, immediately returned a verdict of “guilty.” On the 24th of November, Mr. Waddington was brought up for judgment in King’s Bench. Mr. Law moved in arrest of judgment, arguing that engrossing was no longer an offence at common law. Hops, too, were not “victuals.” Mr. Waddington, speaking in his own defence, arraigned the whole proceedings as altogether incompatible with the right of the individual to use his capital in trade as he pleased. Mr. Erskine, in support of judgment, said that hops being a commodity so easily engrossed, required to be strictly regulated: the practice of engrossing was innocent neither in the eyes of man nor God. Lord Kenyon, though not giving judgment, spoke at length on the matter. Hops were as much a “victual” as salt, both being used for the preservation of victuals; and he was old enough to recollect an application being made to that court for an information for a conspiracy to raise the price of salt at Droitwich. Mr. Waddington was remanded to prison till the last day of term. The judges then declared themselves of opinion that there ought to be no new trial, and that there was no defence. He was again remanded to prison till the ensuing term, in spite of a spirited remonstrance, and a reference to the case of Horne Tooke, whom Lord Kenyon characterised as a “bankrupt in character and fortune, and destitute of every virtue and quality which could command respect.” On the 8th of December, Mr. Waddington was found guilty, by a London jury, of “engrossing” hops in the county of Kent. While in prison he sold a ton of potatoes daily for ½d. per lb., and appropriated the proceeds to the benefit of his poorer fellow prisoners. On the 25th of January, 1801, Mr. Waddington was finally brought up for judgment, and Mr. Justice Grose declared that the court being unanimously of opinion that the information on which Mr. Waddington had been convicted was well supported at common law, he was sentenced to pay a fine of £500, and to be imprisoned one month. On the 4th of June, Mr. Waddington having been confined in King’s Bench prison upwards of twenty-seven weeks, at last purged his crime, and went down to Maidstone. At Tunbridge he was feasted at a superb dinner, and about two miles thence was met by a number of hop planters, who took the horses from his carriage, covered it with wreaths of hop bine, and had it drawn by relays of men (twelve miles) to Maidstone. There he rode in triumph through the streets; made a speech which was received with immense acclamation; “Waddington and the freedom of commerce” resounded through the streets; and a subscription on his behalf was entered into.

1802—At the Summer Assizes, held before Mr. Justice Lawrence and Mr. Justice Le Blanc, three men and one woman (for privately stealing) were sentenced to death, but all respited. Three privates in the 5th Dragoons were tried for the murder of Samuel Porter, ostler at the New Inn, Pershore, and one named Rankins was found guilty; but as the fatal blow was struck in what might be considered an affray, some points were reserved for the twelve judges, and his sentence was ultimately commuted to transportation.

1803—At the Summer Assizes this year there were only seven prisoners in both county and city for trial, and, of these, three were acquitted. Of the remaining four, Thomas Beach for uttering a forged £5 note, and Elizabeth Guise for robbing her master, Mr. Blizard of Stoulton, were sentenced to death. Beach was executed; the woman reprieved. At the same Assizes the Rev. J. F. Tonyn, rector of Alvechurch, recovered £300 damages from the Rev. Henry Lynam, his curate, for criminal conversation with his wife.

1805—February 21—In the Court of King’s Bench an indictment was preferred by Mr. Forrester, of Elmley, in this county, against Colonel Passingham and a Mr. Edwards. Colonel Passingham had once been an intimate friend of Mr. Forrester, had debauched his wife, and carried her off, in January, 1803. Edwards was, also, once Forrester’s friend, but becoming a bankrupt, and prosecutor being his opposing creditor, he became his implacable enemy. Both then conspired to oblige the prosecutor to make a very large settlement upon his wife, and he was actually terrified into doing so by charges of horrible crimes. These facts being proved on the part of the prosecution, the defendants brought forward eleven witnesses to swear that Mr. Forrester had actually been guilty of the offences alleged—but they utterly broke down. The jury found both prisoners guilty of the conspiracy. Being brought up for judgment in the ensuing term, they were both sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in Newgate; the additional punishment of the pillory being specially remitted, lest their lives should be forfeited by any indignant violence on the part of the populace. Mr. Forrester afterwards obtained a divorce from his wife, she having contrived to visit Passingham in prison, and assumed his name.

1807—At the Summer Assizes a special jury cause at Nisi Prius, in which Sir John Geers Cottrell, Bart., as heir at law of Mrs. Freeman of Henley Park, brought an action of ejectment against Joseph Harris, Esq., of Stanford, the sole executor and residuary legatee of that lady, appears to have excited much interest. The jury returned a verdict for defendant, establishing Mr. Harris’s right to a considerable estate in the parish of Rock, and other property. Attorney for defendant—Mr. Hyde, Worcester. At the Summer Assizes the cause again came on, the plaintiff having obtained a new trial. Some of the most celebrated counsel of the day were engaged—Mr. Garrow being retained by the plaintiff, and Sir Thomas Plumer for defendant. After a twenty-four hours’ battle, the jury confirmed the verdict of the former jury by a verdict for defendant. The finding gave general satisfaction.

1808—August—At the Worcester Summer Assizes this year was tried the cause of Hill v. Smith, an action brought to try the right of the Corporation of Worcester to toll on wheat sold by sample, and of course a matter of great interest to the agriculturists of the county generally. The Corporation pleaded—“1st, that from time immemorial they had taken a pint of wheat out of each bag, as a toll on wheat sold by sample in the market, and afterwards brought into the city: 2nd, the same justification, except that the taking was in the name of toll, and not as a distress: 3rd, that the Corporation were seized in fee of the Manor of Worcester, and that the toll was taken in respect of such manor: 4th, that the Corporation had immemorially repaired the horse and carriage road in the Corn Market, amongst others, and by reason thereof had immemorially taken the toll on all grain brought over the Corn Market to be delivered to a buyer.” The evidence fixed the custom of sale by sample to have commenced in the year 1760. The learned judge directed the jury to withdraw from their consideration the question of toll traverse in respect of the manor, and toll thorough (the last issue), the Corporation being unable to support these issues, and desired them to consider whether the grant (by charter, enabling them to toll wheat) was not originally for all corn sold, both where the bulk or only a part was brought into the market. The jury, after an hour and a half’s consideration, returned a verdict for the Corporation on the second and third issues, and for the agriculturists on the others. Counsel for the agriculturists—Mr. Sergeant Williams, Messrs. Jervis, Abbott, and Lord; attorney, Mr. Hill: for the Corporation, Messrs. Dauncey, Wigley, Puller, and Mence; attorney, Mr. Weller.

1808—At the Summer Assizes, William Reynolds, convicted of an assault upon a female, was sentenced to be imprisoned fourteen days, and to stand in the pillory at Tenbury. Ann Green, for stealing brushes, was ordered to be privately whipped; and four men, for divers crimes, were sentenced to fourteen days’ imprisonment and a public whipping.

1809—July 14—Worcester Summer Assizes. R. Baylis, churchwarden of Elmley Lovett, was tried for painting up libels against the rector, the Rev. G. Waldron, upon the walls of the parish church. They were principally texts of scripture, the intended application of which, however, could not be doubted. He was sentenced to pay a fine, and to twelve months’ imprisonment.

1810—Lent Assizes—A. Lechmere, Esq., v. Disson, was a trial to recover compensation for negligence in the defendant in the manufacture of oil-cake. Mr. Lechmere had paid great attention to the feeding of cattle, and had brought oil-cake into much greater notice than it had been before. He purchased a quantity from defendant, but finding his cattle did not thrive upon it as he expected, he had it analysed; and several witnesses declared, that due attention had not been paid to the clearing of the seed by skreening and sifting it; so that a great deal of extraneous matter was left in the cake.—Verdict for the plaintiff: damages, £50.

1812—April 20—A case of assault and battery, Overbury v. Moseley, tried in the Worcester City Court. It arose out of a street row, which occurred in the previous November. Overbury and another insulted some lady in the Foregate Street, and Moseley came up to her help, and gave Overbury a thorough thrashing, for which he brought this plaint. The mayor having impartially summed up, the jury returned a verdict for the defendant. Defendant conducted his own cause. Complainant was represented by Mr. Sockett, an attorney of Worcester, who exerted himself for his client beyond his strength, became ill, and soon afterwards died.

1812—June—Hill v. Smith in error, having been argued before the Court of Exchequer. Sir J. Mansfield, after many delays, now gave judgment. The court held that a sale by sample was not a legal contract for the sale of anything whatever, and that the lord or superior of an open market was not entitled to any toll on commodities not brought in bulk. A sale by sample had been held by Lord Coke, and other great law authorities, to be illegal, as contrary to the principle and object for which a market was established. The verdict for the Corporation (obtained at Worcester Summer Assizes, 1808) was therefore reversed, and the cause remitted to the court below to ascertain the amount of damages the plaintiff was entitled to for the trespass committed in taking his corn; which were, of course, merely nominal.

1814—August—At the Hereford Summer Assizes was tried Ford v. Racster, being an action brought by the executors of Dr. Ford, as Rector of Cradley, Herefordshire, against Miss Racster, of Worcester, to try the question of the liability of blackpoles to tithe. It was argued for defendant, that these blackpoles, being more than twenty years’ growth, were timber trees; but the jury decided that they were not, according to the custom of the country, and thereupon verdict was entered for plaintiff, and damages assessed at £100, being for eleven years’ fallage.

1816—At the Lent Assizes was tried an action for libel, brought by the Rev. Joseph Shapland against Richard Mug Mence, Esq. Verdict for plaintiff. The Rev. Mr. Shapland pleaded guilty to an indictment for an assault. At the ensuing assizes he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, and to enter into recognizances to keep the peace for seven years, himself in £500, and two sureties in £250 each. Mr. Shapland was Vicar of St. Peter’s, and had some unhappy disputes with his wife, to settle which Mr. Mence had been called in as a mutual friend. After a while, conceiving Mrs. Shapland to have been ill-treated, Mr. Mence took her part very decidedly, and refused to sit in company with Mr. Shapland. Mr. S. at this was greatly exasperated; and meeting Mr. Mence one day walking near the Guildhall, he struck him several times with a heavy walking stick. Mr. Mence received the blows on his arm, which was severely injured. Mr. M. afterwards published a pamphlet, containing a long detail of Mr. Shapland’s family jars, and the part he had himself taken therein; and this was the libel complained of. In November, 1812, Mr. Mence was called up for judgment in the King’s Bench, and sentenced by Lord Ellenborough to six months’ imprisonment, and afterwards to find sureties to keep the peace, himself in £1,000, and two sureties of £500 each. The two gentlemen were thus both imprisoned at the same time—the one in the city, and the other in the county gaol.

1817—At the Lent Assizes, held before Mr. Justice Park and Mr. Justice Burrough, no less than twenty prisoners were sentenced to death, most of them for sheep stealing; but they were all afterwards reprieved.

1818—At the Lent Assizes this year, the trial of Joseph Steers, a respectable tradesman of Worcester, and six others, charged with being concerned in the “freemen’s riots,” and the demolition of the buildings upon Pitchcroft, created the most intense interest, and at one part of the proceedings there was an absolute tumult in court, so great was the crush of people. The history of these riots is as follows: In 1817 the “popular mind” of Worcester was much agitated and incensed by buildings being erected on the corner of Pitchcroft Ham, nearest to the city, and known as Little Pitchcroft. The citizens viewed any encroachment on this lung of the city with commendable jealousy, as it was their principal resort for amusement and promenade; besides which, each freeman had some property in the Ham, having a right of pasturage thereon. A meeting was accordingly called in August, at the Hoppole Inn, to protect the rights of the freemen in this matter. Richard Spooner, Esq., then exceedingly active in all popular movements in Worcester, was called to the chair, and a committee was appointed, who issued notices to the parties who had built upon the Ham to remove their erections before the 29th of September. On the 15th of September, however, the committee met, and agreed that as the removal of the whole buildings would be attended with great loss to a charity which derived considerable revenue from the wharfs, &c., it would be more desirable only to remove those buildings and fences which were most obnoxious. On this decision being made known, the populace determined to take the matter into their own hands; and on the morning of the 29th assembled in large numbers, and commenced the demolition of such of the fences and buildings as were not strong enough to resist their efforts. The mayor came down to the spot and read the Riot Act, but nobody took any heed of his worship, who, with the magistrates, then began to swear in everybody as special constables—the said “specials” standing by and looking on at the demolition, very anxious to keep the peace, but not venturing to interrupt the mob. At last some of the yeomanry assembled, but being pelted with stones, they retreated to the Star and Garter yard, and made no further appearance. The demolition was concluded next morning; everybody saying that it was most disgraceful, but nevertheless glad that it was done. Steers and other persons, who had taken part in the work of destruction, were indicted (under statutes which had recently been passed) for a capital offence; but Mr. Jervis, counsel for the prosecutor, Mr. John Edmunds, declared that that was only done in order to have a foundation to recover the damages he had sustained during the riot. After two witnesses had been examined, Mr. Justice Burrough, who presided, said there was enough evidence to convict the whole prisoners of a capital offence, and advised them to throw themselves on the mercy of the court. This course they adopted; and his lordship then discharged them, on entering into recognizances of £100 each, to keep the peace for twelve months. The greatest possible interest had been made on behalf of these parties; and Lord Deerhurst, whose efforts were supposed to have contributed greatly to the lenity with which they were treated, was almost overwhelmed, on leaving the court, by the tumultuous approbation of the populace. The mob endeavoured to drag Mr. Justice Burrough in triumph through the city, on leaving for Stafford; but his lordship instantly called in the aid of the javelin men, and threatened to commit the foremost of the crowd. To finish the story here; immediately after these assizes, the agitation about the encroachments was recommenced, and Mr. Thomas Carden, one of the six masters, put forth a statement that the four acres in dispute were the gift of Thomas Wylde, Esq., formerly of the Commandry in the city of Worcester, to the Corporation; and the rents and profits of this land had been uniformly applied to the benefit of the Free School, and Trinity Alms Houses. Having in 1796 let out this land in lots, the six masters had been enabled to increase the pay, to twenty-nine old women, from 3s. to 6s. per month, which was a thing much more worth doing than to allow one thousand freemen the pasturage thereon, from Old Midsummer Day to Old Candlemas Day. A common hall was shortly afterwards held, at which the committee appointed for protecting the freemen’s rights made their report. It was read by R. Spooner, Esq., and stated that they had ordered entries to be made on two of the plots in Little Pitchcroft; the result of which had been, that actions had been brought against the enterers, and the venue changed by the plaintiffs to Gloucester. The committee now wanted to know whether the claims of the freemen were to be contested or abandoned, as in the former case it would be necessary that the city generally should enter into a subscription to provide the sinews of war. The report was adopted, and a subscription forthwith commenced. A motion to make terms with the six masters was rejected. Just before the trial came on, however, the matter was settled by arrangement, concessions being made on either side; and buildings cover the greater part of “Little Pitchcroft” to this day.

1819—At the Summer Assizes, John Grindley, of Bromsgrove, was tried on a charge of wilfully murdering Thomas Mannering. They had quarrelled in a public house, gone out into the street to fight, but there made up their differences, and sat upon the public stocks, drinking some beer. While thus occupied, Grindley stabbed Mannering twice so severely that he died next day. He was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.

1820—At the Lent Assizes, John Burton was convicted of the murder of one Jaunty, in Worcester, on the 30th of July, 1819. Parties who had been employed by the Excise to seize some malt, were met at the back of the Hoppole Inn by a number of persons from the neighbouring public houses, and a general battle commenced; the interest of which at length concentrated itself in a fight between Burton and Jaunty. They had several rounds, and Jaunty at last getting the better of his antagonist, Burton ran off to his house, but presently returned with a pike, and stabbed Jaunty right through the heart and lungs. Burton was, however, reprieved on a point of law. At these assizes, twenty-seven persons were sentenced to death (one a woman, for stealing thirty-nine yards of bombazine from a shop at Stourbridge), but all were reprieved, except one for highway robbery.

1820—March 24—A curious application was made to the Lord Chancellor by the guardians of Sir Roger Gresley, a young man of twenty, and a ward of Chancery, to restrain the Earl and Countess of Coventry, and the Hon. John Coventry, from encouraging a marriage between Sir Roger and Lady Sophia Coventry, daughter of the earl, aged seventeen. There had been negociations for a marriage, rent rolls having been handed to the guardians, &c.; but as no settlement could be made on the bride till Sir Roger was of age, the matter was postponed. The court took it in dudgeon that anything should have been done towards disposing of its ward in matrimony without its license, &c.

1821—February 13—A rule moved for in the Court of King’s Bench on behalf of the magistrates of Worcestershire, to compel the inhabitants of Ombersley to pay £150 into the hands of the clerk of the peace for the repairs of Hawford Bridge. The Ombersley people replied that they were going to repair, and that £50 would be quite sufficient to do all that was needed. The rule was granted, but enlarged to the next term to admit of time for the repairs being effectively carried out by the inhabitants of Ombersley themselves, if they so pleased.

1821—At the Lent Assizes, before Mr. Baron Jarrow, an action was brought by a schoolmaster at Dudley, a little deformed man, named Hilliard, to recover damages from Mr. Badger for knocking his hat off at the theatre, because he would not take it off when the national anthem was being played. Mr. Badger, in the zeal of his loyalty, not only knocked the unfortunate pedagogue’s hat off, but the pedagogue himself off the bench; and Mr. Baron Jarrow, in summing up, intimated that he thought he was rather to be commended than otherwise, and pictured to the jury “the glorious sight of a whole audience in a theatre paying a just tribute of veneration to their sovereign.” The jury returned a verdict for plaintiff: damages, one farthing.

1821—August—At the Midsummer Assizes was tried, Jarratt v. the Mayor and Corporation of Evesham, being an attempt to establish the right of any person who had served a freeman of that borough for an apprenticeship of seven years to be himself admitted a freeman. The Corporation admitted that if the whole service had been within the borough the custom was to admit; but if the master and apprentice had lived elsewhere any period of the time then the right of admission failed. A verdict was entered for the Corporation.

1823—Two men, named Oliver and Skinner, convicted at the Easter City Sessions of a most unprovoked assault on three journeymen carpenters going home one dark night in January, and sentenced—Oliver to six months, and Skinner to nine months’ imprisonment. These two fellows were part of a fraternity calling themselves “lambs,” who used to infest the streets of Worcester at night for the sole purpose of annoying more peaceably disposed persons. At the trial they brought a number of witnesses to prove an alibi, but utterly failed, and disclosed the most unblushing perjury in lieu thereof.

1823—William Taylor, a working stone mason, recovered £120 damages in the Sheriff’s Court, for a fright into which he had been put by Henry Geast Dugdale, Esq., a magistrate of Worcestershire, living at Bordesley Park. He was one of some workmen who were erecting a stone lodge for defendant, who one day, when they had nearly finished, came up and peremptorily ordered them off his premises. He said he had been told by his master not to leave till he had finished the job; but Mr. Dugdale, foaming with rage, presented his gun at him, cocked it, and declared he would shoot Taylor presently, if he were not gone; whereupon he dropped his chisel and mallet in a terror, took to his heels, and had been declining in health ever since—such had been the effect of the alarm upon his nervous system. Mr. Dugdale, in addressing the jury, said “he once took a noble earl by the collar, and forced him off his lands;” and hereupon Lord Plymouth, writing to the Worcester papers, said Mr. Dugdale no doubt meant himself, but that the whole statement was entirely untrue.

1824—At the Midsummer Assizes, before Mr. Justice Littledale, was tried the cause of Pierpoint v. Shapland, in which Matthew Pierpoint, Esq., of Worcester, surgeon (and as it proved upon the trial, physician also), brought an action for slander against Miss Susanna Shapland, a lady then residing in College Green. The damages were laid at £5,000. Mr. Pierpoint had been called in to attend Mrs. Isaacs, Miss Shapland’s sister, shortly before her death, and administered an emetic: after that he ceased to attend her, and Miss Shapland afterwards told Mrs. Henry Clifton that Mr. P. had treated her sister improperly. Mr. Jervis was counsel for plaintiff, and Mr. Russell for defendant. A verdict was returned for plaintiff, with 39s. damages. This trial excited extraordinary interest—ladies, to make sure of places, going to the courts at five o’clock in the morning.

1825—At the Lent Assizes an action for libel, against Chalk and Holl, was tried before Mr. Justice Littledale. It was brought by a painter named Davis, who had, by mistake, been described in a paragraph in the Worcester Herald as concerned in a street row and an assault upon a watchman. The party’s name was Davis, but not the one pointed at in the paragraph, and defendants, finding their error, corrected it in the next paper and apologised; nevertheless Davis persisted in the action, urged thereto, as it came out in the trial, by his attorney, who had undertaken that it should cost him nothing. The counsel engaged were—for the plaintiff, Mr. Campbell (now Lord Chief Justice Campbell); and for defendant, Mr. Russell. The jury returned a verdict for plaintiff, as the judge told them they must to do so, with damages one farthing.

1827—Summer Assizes, before Mr. Justice Littledale. The King v. Cooke was an action against a draper, at Dudley, of the most Radical cast, for publishing libels on His Majesty’s Government. The libels were placards exhibited in the defendant’s window during a time of great disturbance amongst the colliers, in May, 1826. The case had been entered for trial at previous assizes, but put off from time to time. The alleged libel in the placards was the assertion that ministers were bringing starvation upon the people by their measures. Mr. Whateley was for the prosecution, and Mr. Campbell for the defence. The appearance of the placards in the defendant’s window having been proved, Mr. Andrew Gracewood, doorkeeper at the Foreign Office, was put in the box to prove that Earl Liverpool and others mentioned in the handbills were at the time of their publication ministers of state. Mr. Campbell, of course, ridiculed the whole prosecution, and said Cooke was being made the victim of private malice. The judge told the jury the handbills were libellous, so they returned a verdict of guilty. Cooke was only required to enter into sureties to appear when called up.

1827—At the Lent Assizes this year there were nearly a hundred prisoners for trial, and against twenty-four of them sentence of death was recorded.

At these assizes was tried Agg v. Timbrell, in which the plaintiff recovered £7 damages for the injury done to his gig by the negligent driving of the defendant’s coachman. Mr. Charles Phillips was counsel for plaintiff, and Mr. Taunton for defendant. The affair was chiefly curious from the remark of defendant, who, when the accident happened and Agg complained, said, “Do you know who I am? I’m Doctor Timbrell, Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon, and magistrate in two counties. Don’t talk to me, or I’ll commit you!”

1828—In November, this year, in the King’s Bench, a rule for a criminal information against the Rev. Humphry Price, for issuing inflammatory handbills at the time of the late strike between the Kidderminster weavers and their masters, was made absolute. The Rev. gentleman appeared in court himself, and avowed himself to be the author of the placards charged against him. The cause against him was tried at the next Hereford Lent Assizes. A number of verses, entitled “The Complaint of a Kidderminster Weaver’s Wife to her Infant,” appeared to be most complained of; they ended thus:

“O cruel, cruel, cruel masters,
Dare ye thus mock at our disasters?
See parent, child, to phrenzy given,
And dream yourselves of reaching heaven?

Rouse from your slumbers! count the price
Of your own cursed avarice;
And count it well, ere taught too late
To dread than ours a far worse fate.”

Mr. Campbell defended the Rev. gentleman, but he was found guilty, and being brought up for judgment next term, was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment, and adjudged to pay the costs.

1829—At the Midsummer Assizes, before Mr. Baron Vaughan, John Hunter, Esq., of Pershore, was tried for feloniously altering a deed. A true bill had been returned against Mr. Hunter at the Lent Assizes, but he was enlarged till the Midsummer Assizes on very heavy bail. The respectability of Mr. Hunter, who but for this charge would this very year have been High Sheriff of the County, caused the intensest interest to be felt in the trial, and the courts were thronged to suffocation. Mr. Campbell, K.C., Mr. Sergeant Ludlow, Mr. Carwood, and Mr. Godson, were the counsel for the prosecution; and Mr. Taunton, Mr. Sergeant Russell, and Mr. C. Phillips, assisted the defendant, who, as the law then stood, was obliged to address the jury himself, and could only avail himself of counsel in cross-examination, this being a misdemeanour. The charge against Mr. Hunter was that he had erased the words “part of” from a deed which he held, and the effect of the erasure would be to put him in possession of the whole of the premises to which it referred. In fact, in 1825 he brought an action on the strength of this deed to recover the whole of the premises, but permitted himself to be non-suited. Mr. Hunter, in the written defence he handed in to be read to the jury, contented himself with denying any knowledge of how the erasure came about, and that it existed in the deed when it first came into his possession, he having bought the property as an entire property. The evidence given, and some of the witnesses adduced by the prosecution, were of a very doubtful character; and after the long array of witnesses which Mr. Hunter called to speak to a long life of unblemished uprightness, the jury said they would not trouble his lordship to sum up, and Mr. Hunter must be honourably acquitted.

1830—At the Summer Assizes, before Mr. Sergeant Bosanquet, came on the case of Chalk and Holl v. Robinson, M.P., being an action to recover £13. 8s. 6d. for printing electioneering squibs on Mr. Robinson’s behalf, at the election of 1826. They were written and ordered by some of Mr. Robinson’s agents and solicitors, and his object in resisting the claim was to disown any personal connection with them. The matter was referred, at the judge’s request, to Mr. Holroyd; and he awarded the sum claimed to the plaintiffs, holding Mr. Robinson liable; Mr. Brampton proving that the orders came from his committee room.

THE ODDINGLEY MURDER.

The annals of crime record few tragedies so fearful in their enactment, so mysterious in their present concealment, so singular in their ultimate discovery as the Oddingley murder. A clergyman is shot at noon-day, while walking in his own fields—the assassin and the motive are perfectly known, yet he eludes justice, and suddenly and for ever disappears. Some of the men to whom common rumour points as the probable instigators of the crime, pass to their account, and make no sign. At last, when twenty-four years have elapsed, the body of the murderer is strangely discovered, in a state of preservation and under circumstances which leave no room to doubt that he was himself murdered by those who had hired him to commit the crime they were afraid to perpetrate with their own hands.

Thus circumstance combined with circumstance to increase the romance of this tale of blood, and invest it with a fearful interest, creating an unparalleled excitement, not only in this neighbourhood but throughout the whole country. People delighted to point to it, as showing how, with silent footfall, justice ever tracks the murderer’s steps, and at last exposes his guilt to the gaze of day, with whatever care and midnight secrecy he has sought to hide and cover it. But it showed, also, that the punishment of murder, as of other crimes, is sometimes postponed to a more perfect time of retribution, and that men doubly dyed with the blood of others—shed under the influence of passions the most detestable—avarice, hate, and fear—can walk their lives long among their fellows with a smooth brow, and at last placidly turn their faces to the wall without, to outward seeming, one pang of remorse or outcry of conscience.

The first notice of this terrible crime appeared in the Worcester papers of June 26, 1806, and is as follows:

“The Rev. G. Parker, rector of Oddingley, in this county, was, on Tuesday evening last, most inhumanly murdered in a field near his own dwelling house. The perpetrator of this cruel deed discharged a gun at the unfortunate gentleman, the contents of which entered his right side; and afterwards, in a manner peculiarly atrocious, with the butt end of his gun fractured his skull. An inquest was held the following day, before R. Barneby, Esq., coroner, when the jury returned this verdict—‘Wilful murder, by some person or persons unknown.’”

Mr. Parker was an amiable man and benevolent to the poor, but there had been an unhappy dispute between him and his parishioners about the tithes, which was perfectly well understood to have been the cause prompting to his death. His predecessor had been in the habit of compounding with the farmers for his tithes, they giving him in lieu thereof £135 per annum. Mr. Parker, considering this inadequate, proposed raising it to £150. Captain Evans, one of his parishioners, however, prevailed on the farmers to join him in resisting this proposal, and Mr. Parker, in consequence, collected the tithe. After he had done so for two years, the farmers, finding themselves losers by the system, offered to accede to the proposal previously made. Mr. Parker told them he was still willing to abide by it, but required, as he had been at an expense of £150 in erecting a barn, and making other arrangements for collecting the tithe, that they should, in addition, repay him that sum, but this was refused.

The magistrates, immediately after the murder, issued a bill, offering a reward of fifty guineas for the apprehension of the murderer, and minutely described the person and dress of Richard Hemming, a carpenter of Droitwich, who was at once suspected as the perpetrator of this fearful crime. The report of the gun was heard by several parties, and two persons from Worcester saw Hemming escaping over some fields in the neighbourhood of the spot—indeed he was distinctly traced to a wood at Lench, but there all trace of him was entirely lost, and it was thought that he had left the country in security. A free pardon was offered at the time by Government to any accomplices in the murder who would become king’s evidence.In June, 1807, a man, who had enlisted into the marines, was detained by the magistrates at Plymouth on suspicion of being Hemming. Mr. Carden immediately despatched parties to ascertain the truth of the matter, but it proved to be a case of mistaken identity. The affair, though public notice of it was hushed, was never forgotten—the country people had their beliefs and traditions concerning it, and though it was confidently affirmed by some that Hemming had been seen alive in America, the real truth was more than guessed at. It was by some firmly believed that Hemming had been murdered by the parties who employed him to assassinate Mr. Parker, and they themselves seemed scarcely anxious to avoid the imputation. Captain Evans, whom all pointed at as being the principal instigator of the assassination, constantly kept standing upon his estate a certain clover rick, which he had made three days only after Mr. Parker’s murder, and when he parted with the estate two years afterwards to a Mr. Barnett, this rick was still kept standing. The general belief was that Hemming’s body had been buried beneath this rick, and in 1816 Hemming’s widow (then married again) made a deposition before the Droitwich magistrates of her conviction that this was the case. A search warrant was granted, but in that same night the clover rick mysteriously disappeared, and though the ground which it had covered was carefully dug up, nothing was discovered. Captain Evans, at the time of Mr. Parker’s murder, lived upon the Church Farm, Oddingley; but in 1808 he went to reside on a small estate called New House, upon the confines of the two parishes of Hadsor and Oddingley. Here he remained till 1826, when he went to Droitwich, and there lived till his death, which occurred in 1829; he was then ninety-four years of age. He was formerly a captain in the 89th Foot, and received half pay up to the day of his death. He was a magistrate of the borough of Droitwich.

It may be well conceived that all idea of any further discovery of the circumstances under which this terrible crime was committed had long been given up, and that the discovery of the skeleton of Hemming created the most startling surprise. On the 21st January, 1830, a carpenter named Burton was engaged in removing a barn upon the Netherwood Farm, Oddingley, which, at the time of Mr. Parker’s murder, was occupied by Mr. Thomas Clewes. He had begun to remove the foundation when he met with a pair of shoes and carpenter’s rule. The story of Hemming immediately recurred to his mind, and, carefully covering up again what he had found, he went to the magistrates of Droitwich and the coroner of the county (Mr. William Smith). The further investigation of the spot was very carefully conducted by the neighbouring magistrates and Mr. Pierpoint of Worcester; and the whole skeleton of a man, of just such height and make as Hemming was known to have been, was disclosed to view. His former wife particularly identified the remains by the mouth and teeth, and declared her firm belief to be that the rule which Burton had found was that which Hemming used customarily to carry in his pocket. The bones of the skull had been beaten into many pieces. An inquest was commenced upon these remains on the following Tuesday, and, by adjournment, on the Friday; at the close of which sitting, Thomas Clewes was taken into custody on suspicion of having been concerned in the murder of Hemming, and in the course of the next day he expressed his desire to make a confession. The coroner and jury accordingly went to him in the County Gaol, where, with great composure, he gave the following account of the circumstances under which Hemming was himself murdered on the evening of the day after that on which he had shot Mr. Parker. Whether it is the absolute truth or not, coming as it did from an accomplice, must always be a matter of doubt, but it is at any rate all that will now be known of this deed of terror.

CLEWES’S CONFESSION.

“On the morrow morning after the parson was shot (I mean the Rev. Mr. Parker, Rector of Oddingley), it was on Bromsgrove fair day—I cannot recollect exactly the year—about seven o’clock, George Bankes came down to me, and says, ‘We have got Hemming, who shot the parson, at our house (meaning Captain Evans’s) this morning, and I do not know what to do with him—will you let him come down here?’ I said, ‘I will not have him here, nor have nothing to do with him.’ Bankes then went off. Bankes said, ‘he is lurking down in the meadows.’ I went up to Oddingley about eleven o’clock in the day to Mr. Jones’s; Mr. Jones is dead, and Mr. Nash lives in the farm now. As I went up the road side, I suppose he (meaning Captain Evans) kept sight of me all the way. The Captain called to me; he was in his garden, close by the road side; he followed me out of the garden into the field, and said he wanted to speak with me. He said, ‘I’ve had Hemming at our house this morning, and something must be done by him; he is lurking down towards your house now; I ordered him to get into your buildings by day-time, if possible, or at the edge of night, that you (meaning witness) might not see him, or any of your family, and somewhat must be done by him. I shall come down to your house at night, and bring somebody with me, and we must give the poor devil some money, or do something with him, and send him off; will you get up and come to the barn? it won’t detain you a minute.’ I refused coming, and said, ‘I did not like to come.’ The Captain said, ‘it can make no odds to you—you need not be afraid to come at eleven o’clock; just come out, it will make no difference to you at all; if you don’t come I shall be afraid of your dogs.’ I went out at the back door and down to the barn door, as the clock struck eleven. There was the Captain and James Taylor, and a third, whom I thought and believed to be George Bankes. They went into the barn (I mean the Captain, Taylor, and George Bankes), and I with them; I believed it to be Bankes; he had on a smock-frock; as soon as the Captain came into the barn, he calls, ‘Holloa, Hemming, where be’est?’ not very loud; Hemming spoke, and said ‘Yes, Sir;’ Taylor and the Captain then stepped on the mow, where Hemming was lying, which was not higher than my knee; the Captain pulled a lantern from under his coat, or out of his pocket; myself and George Bankes were then on the thrashing-floor; the Captain said, ‘Get up, Hemming, I have got something for thee;’ Hemming was at the time covered up with straw; he was rising up on end, as if he had been lying on his back; as he rose up, Taylor up with a blood-stick, and hit him on the head two or three blows; I (witness) said, ‘This is bad work—if I had known you should not have had me here;’ the Captain said, ‘He has got enough;’ Taylor and the Captain came down off the mow directly; Taylor said, ‘What is to be done with him now?’ the Captain said, ‘D—n his body, we must not take him out of doors, somebody will see us, mayhap.’ It was not very dark. Taylor went out of doors, and fetched a spade from somewhere; it was no spade of mine; and Taylor and the Captain said, ‘We will soon put him safe.’ Taylor then searched round the bay of the barn on the contrary side where it was done, and found holes which dogs and rats had scratched; he threw out a spadeful or two, and cleared away from the foundation side of the wall. ‘This will do for him,’ Taylor said to the Captain, who stood by and lighted him the while. Bankes and myself were still on the floor of the barn. Then the Captain and Taylor got upon the mow, and pulled Hemming down to the front of the mow. The Captain said to Taylor, ‘Catch hold of him,’ and they dragged him across the floor, and into the hole they had dug for him in the opposite bay, and Taylor soon covered it up. I cannot tell whether he was put in on his back or not; I never stepped into the bay from the floor; I thought I should have died where I was; the Captain said to Taylor, ‘Well done, boy, I’ll give thee another glass or two of brandy.’ The Captain said to me on the floor when we went out, ‘I’ll give you anything; d—n your body, don’t ever split.’ All four were present at this; we then parted; the Captain darkened his lantern; the Captain, Bankes, and Taylor, went away towards Oddingley; I went to bed; the whole did not occupy half an hour; Hemming had his clothes on; Hemming never moaned nor groaned after he was first struck; there was no blood—not a spot on the floor; nothing else was done that night. On the 26th of June I was at Pershore fair; George Bankes came to me in the afternoon, between four and five; he called me up an entry at the Plough, and said, ‘Here is some money for you that Hemming was to have had.’ Mr. John Barnett was with Bankes then, Bankes and Barnett each of them gave me money, but I do not recollect how much I had from each; I did not count it until I got home. They said when they gave it me, ‘Be sure you don’t split.’ There was no more said about it that night. It was in two parcels, in all between £26 and £27, and all in bills; there was no silver. I put it all in one pocket. This was to have taken Hemming off, as Bankes and Barnett informed me. A few days after, I was at the Captain’s; he sent for me by my own son, John Clewes, then about seven years old. When I got to the Captain’s, I found him alone; he said to me, if I kept my peace, and did not split, I should never want for £5. I never received any money from him afterwards. On the same day, in the parlour of the Captain’s house, Catherine Bankes came to me, and went down on her knees, in great distress, and begged and prayed of me not to say anything, as she feared the Captain had done a bad job, and that they would all come to be hanged if I spoke. I promised her I never would say anything.”

[Bankes was a farm bailiff; Taylor died about 1816, having lived some time in infamous notoriety at Droitwich. Barnett, at the time of the murder, was only bailiff for his mother, but had since become an opulent farmer. Clewes himself failed three or four years after the murder, and had since been engaged as a labourer or woodman.]

A great many witnesses were examined at the inquest, who spoke to expressions of hatred and malice used by Captain Evans, Barnett, Bankes, and Clewes, with regard to Mr. Parker, and many trifling circumstances which tended to implicate them in the disappearance of Hemming, and corroborate Clewes’s confession. The jury, after five days of most elaborate investigation, returned a verdict of wilful murder against Thomas Clewes and George Bankes; and further found that John Barnett, late of the parish of Oddingley, farmer, was an accessary to such murder before the fact.

These three persons were accordingly put upon their trial at the ensuing March Assizes, before Mr. Justice Littledale. A true bill was found against Clewes as principal in the second degree, and against Barnett and Bankes as accessaries before the fact to the murder of the Rev. George Parker, by Richard Hemming. Mr. Curwood was the leading counsel for the prosecution, Mr. Sergeant Ludlow for Clewes, Mr. Campbell, K.C., for Bankes, and Mr. Taunton, K.C., for Barnett. An objection was taken to the prisoners pleading as accessaries to a murder, the principal in which had not been found guilty; and this objection being allowed, Clewes and Bankes were arraigned as principals, and Barnett as accessary before the fact to the murder of Richard Hemming. Clewes was first put upon his trial alone. The evidence of the finding of the body of Hemming having been given, and its identification completed, many witnesses were examined to speak to expressions of the prisoner, tending to show that he had been anxious to procure the death of Mr. Parker; and expressions used by Hemming, showing that he had been employed to do some foul deed at Oddingley. It was proved, too, that Clewes and Hemming had been frequently in one another’s company prior to the murder. Last of all, after a sharp struggle on the part of the prisoner’s counsel to prevent it, Clewes’s confession was put in and read. Sergeant Ludlow briefly addressed the learned judge, urging that Clewes was entitled to his acquittal, as his confession stood uncontradicted, and that did not prove him to have been a principal in the crime. The court decided that the matter must be left to the jury, and to them the prisoner declined saying anything; nor did the law then admit of counsel addressing the jury in defence. The jury, after a short summing up, returned a verdict of “Guilty as an accessary after the fact;” but Mr. Justice Littledale observing that they had only to inquire whether he was guilty of aiding and abetting in the murder, they returned a general verdict of “Not guilty.” The crown refused to call any evidence on the coroner’s inquisition, or against Barnett and Bankes, so they were all discharged. The expenses attending the prosecution amounted to between £700 and £800.

1830—At the Lent Assizes, before Mr. Baron Bolland, was tried the cause of The King v. Dineley, in which Mr. Francis Dineley, solicitor, practising at Pershore, was found guilty of conspiring with one William Loxley, deceased, to defraud Nicholas Marshall of £2,000. The transaction took place so far back as 1804, when Loxley and Dineley induced Mr. Nicholas Marshall to advance the sum of £2,000 on what it was alleged they knew to be defective security, and he lost the whole of it. Mr. Campbell made a long speech in defence, alleging that the defect in the security might not have been known to his client, and remarking strongly on the long time which had elapsed. The case for the prosecution rested mainly on letters written by Dineley to Loxley.

1830—May 21—In the Arches Court, judgment was delivered in the suit of Barnett v. Rev. William Baldwin Bonaker, being a complaint on the part of some of the inhabitants of Church Honeybourne against their clergyman for neglect of duty, such as continued absence from the parish. Sir J. Nicholl, the judge, declared the evidence insufficient, and condemned the promoters of the suit in full costs.

1830—October 20—At the Michaelmas Sessions were tried the Kidderminster rioters. True bills were found for riot and assault against ten carpet weavers, and the case for the prosecution was conducted by Mr. Evans and Mr. Lea; Mr. Godson and Mr. Lumley appearing for the prisoners. Three of them, named Lamsdale, Green, and Stephens, were first tried for being concerned in an attack on the prison, on the second day of the disturbances, and with assaulting William Hopkins, a constable; but they were acquitted, to the great surprise of the court. Six men were next tried for the attack on Mr. Cooper’s factory, and for very ill-treatment of a man named Edwards, working there at low prices. He was left by the mob, thrust into the ashpit of one of the furnaces, more than half dead. Phaizy and Hopkins, the men principally concerned in this assault, were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment—Lamsdale to three months, and Price to two months’ imprisonment; and all to enter into sureties to keep the peace. Other two were acquitted. In three other cases verdicts were taken by consent, and almost nominal punishments inflicted. Mr. Godson’s strenuous exertions in these cases laid the foundation for his subsequent popularity in the borough of Kidderminster.

1830—October 18—At the trial of one of the prisoners at the City Michaelmas Sessions, Mr. Curwood, his barrister, handed in a protest against the jurisdiction of the court, because it was not constituted according to the charter of James I, which required that the recorder—“one learned and discreet man, learned in the laws”—should always preside at gaol deliveries. Earl Coventry and his ancestors had long been recorders of Worcester, and seldom (or never) present at Quarter Sessions. The magistrates refused to receive the protest.

1831—The cause list at the Midsummer Assizes this year contained thirty-one cases for trial, and two of them excited much interest. The first was an action brought by the Rev. Edward Herbert against a Mr. Heath, for an assault, in which Mr. Campbell and Mr. Whateley were for plaintiff, and Mr. Charles Phillips for defendant. For the prosecution it was merely proved that Heath struck Herbert some dozen blows with a horsewhip in Broad Street, Worcester, on the 23rd of the previous February. One witness heard Heath say the words, “that — my father, and you consider yourself well horsewhipped for it.” Mr. Charles Phillips made a very long and powerful speech for the defence, stating to the jury that if the prosecutor had dared himself to come into the box, he would have forced him to confess that he had not only broken his pledge to Mr. Heath’s sister, but had slandered his buried father in the most outrageous and unbearable manner. Mr. Justice Patteson told the jury that all they had to do was to say whether Heath had committed the assault, and so they returned a verdict of “Guilty;” but no sentence was passed, though the affidavits of defendant were ready, and Mr. Justice Patteson himself pointed out to Mr. Phillips an error in the record, no doubt with a view of getting rid of the case.

The other case was a charge against Mr. Francis Hill, of Stourbridge, of having committed wilful perjury, by swearing that he had not adopted certain royalty mines, while he had, in fact, signed a document to do so. Mr. Campbell, for the defence, urged that many a man signed deeds which he did not understand; and a host of witnesses appeared to give Mr. Hill the best of characters. He was honourably acquitted.

1831—At the County Epiphany Sessions six men were tried for destroying a thrashing machine, the property of Joseph Fretwell, of Blockley, and were indicted for a riot and assault. Mr. Godson and Mr. Lea were for the prosecution, and Mr. Strutt and Mr. Evans for the defence. There was no attempt to deny that the men did come into Mr. Fretwell’s barn, and take the machine to pieces; but on cross-examination of the prosecutor it was shown that he was just about to quit the farm, which he held under Lord Northwick, and that these men had come to take the machine down by his lordship’s orders, in order to prevent the destruction of the premises by the lawless mob who were going about the neighbourhood. Fretwell was evidently regarding his landlord with feelings of exasperation, because he had let the farm over his head. One of the men was found guilty of riot and assault, the other five of riot only. Two of them were ordered to pay a fine of £30 each, and the others of £20 each, and to be imprisoned till those fines were paid. But the money was immediately handed to them, and they were discharged from the dock.

Six men were charged with being concerned in the destruction of Mr. Baylis’s needle presses and stamps, at Tardebigg, and were sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment each.

Six other men were arraigned for going about the villages of Defford, Pinvin, &c., in a riotous manner, and obtaining victuals and drink by threats and intimidation; but the evidence only showed that they had importunately asked for relief at two or three places, and inquired of a labourer in the road whether his wheelbarrow was a “machine,” because, if it were, they would smash it! They were all acquitted.

1832—Lent Assizes—The Rev. John Lynes, Rector of Elmley Lovett, was sued for a penalty of £270 for non-residence in his parish for three months, under an act passed in the year 1817, which provided that a clergyman absenting himself for a quarter of a year should forfeit a third of the annual value of his living, and the living of Elmley Lovett was set down at about £800 a year. Mr. Jervis, with Mr. Richards and Mr. Alexander, were for the prosecution, and Mr. Campbell for defendant. A great number of witnesses were called to prove the defendant’s absence; some of them his own servants; but in the opinion of the learned judge (Mr. Justice Taunton) the absence for the entire time was not made out, and the jury returned a verdict for defendant.

At the same Assizes was tried the action of Shelton v. Steward, rival surgeons at Bromyard, and brought by the former against the latter for a libel, said to be contained in a letter published in the Hereford Times and Worcester Journal, and which was supposed to insinuate that Mr. Shelton was ignorant in his profession, and guilty of improper conduct. Verdict for plaintiff: damages, £10.

1832—At the County Epiphany Sessions, ten of the Dudley colliers were indicted for a riot, to obtain a rise in wages, in the previous December. Several parties, working in the Broad Pit Collieries (Earl Dudley’s) were ill-used by the mob for working at the ordinary wages; but Mr. Godson, who was for the prisoners, contended that their identity had not been sufficiently made out. After four hours’ consultation the jury acquitted all the prisoners. Seven of the same men were charged with an assault on one of their butties at this time, and five pleaded guilty by arrangement, and were liberated on their own recognizances. The other two were acquitted in the teeth of the evidence. Several other parties were indicted for assaults arising out of these riots, but only two, named Hill and Smart, were found guilty. Hill was sentenced to six months’ and Smart to one month’s imprisonment.

1834—At the Lent Assizes, seven men were tried before Mr. Justice Allan Park for being concerned in election riots at Dudley, breaking windows, &c., and were all found guilty. They were sentenced to trifling terms of imprisonment, excepting one man named Griffin, who had committed a serious assault on Jewkes the constable, and, therefore, was ordered to be imprisoned for twelve months.

Robert Osbaldeston was tried at these Assizes of shooting at Mr. Wood, gunsmith, Broad Street, Worcester, and was acquitted only on the ground of insanity.

Edmund Campbell Brewer, a confidential clerk in the employ of the Stourbridge Canal Company, was found guilty of forging a bill of exchange for some £13 odd. He absconded to America, and then it was found that he had embezzled £1,000 and more, belonging to the Company. Yet, upon the trial, many witnesses gave him the best of characters; and the prosecutors themselves said that his conduct had been most exemplary till this time. Mr. Eberhardt followed him to America, and apprehended him in Utica. He was sentenced to be transported for life. Great exertions were made to obtain a commutation of his punishment.

1835—At the Lent Assizes, before Mr. Justice Patteson, was tried Hill v. Hickes, an action brought by Mr. George Price Hill, a solicitor in Worcester, against Mr. Hickes, for having slandered him to his uncle at Dudley, by intimating that he was a rogue, &c. Verdict for plaintiff 40s. damages. Mr. Sergeant Talfourd was for plaintiff, and Mr. Sergeant Ludlow for defendant.

At these Assizes also was tried Anderton v. Gibbs and Ferney, the latter being executors of Mr. John Moor, a manufacturer of Dudley, and whose daughter Mrs. Anderton claimed to be. The question was one of legitimacy, Mr. Moor’s wife having left him and formed a criminal intimacy with a Mr. Corfield at the time of Mrs. Anderton’s birth. The jury found a verdict for plaintiff, and property, to the amount of £6,000, thus passed into Mr. Anderton’s possession.

1835—At Warwick Lent Assizes was tried Davies v. Badger, an action brought by a journeyman whitesmith of Dudley, against Mr. Badger a magistrate of Dudley, for striking him with a stick at the Dudley booth, at the previous East Worcester election. Mr. Balguy, K.C., was for plaintiff, and Mr. Sergeant Goulburn for defendant. It was of course made a political affair, and excited great interest. Mr. Badger, through his counsel and his witnesses, denied ever striking the man at all. The jury returned a verdict for plaintiff: damages £30, costs 40s.

1835—At the Midsummer Assizes was tried Parker and Son v. Robinson, M.P., a case which excited much attention at the time, and was particularly interesting to those of the legal profession who looked to reap rich harvests at elections. The plaintiffs sued Mr. Robinson for assistance said to have been given him in the way of canvass, &c., at the election of 1832, when the sitting members were threatened with an opposition by the Hon. Mr. Dundas. Mr. Robinson had paid £75, and paid £13 into court, but the amount of the bill was £186. Mr. Robinson pleaded that he had not given authority for such expenses to be incurred by plaintiffs, who, at this election, were only subsidiary agents, Mr. Cameron being his chief attorney. Various solicitors were examined pro and con to show that the charges were reasonable or otherwise; and the Jury, eventually, returned a verdict for plaintiffs, damages £38; thus Mr. Robinson paid £126 instead of £186. Mr. Sergeant Ludlow was for plaintiffs, and Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, M.P., for defendant; and both made amusing speeches about the affair.

1836—At the Lent Assizes, before Mr. Justice Williams, was tried Badger v. Cooke, an action brought by Mr. Badger, the Dudley magistrate, against Mr. Samuel Cooke, the celebrated Radical mercer, for a libel. After Mr. Badger had been found guilty of the assault on Davis at the Stourbridge election, Cooke issued a placard triumphing in the result of that trial, and saying that “every honest man must ever afterwards look with most indignant contempt on his (Mr. Badger’s) actions, since he had already disgraced the dignified functions of his station,” &c. &c. The defendant addressed the jury in his own defence, quoting papers to show that Mr. Badger often made use of as strong expressions towards his political opponents, and declaring that it was nothing more than a question of Tory and Radical. He was found guilty, Mr. Justice Williams declaring that the paper had a palpable tendency to defame and degrade Mr. Badger in his character as a magistrate. He was only required to enter into a recognizance of £50 to appear when called upon.

1838—At the Summer Assizes this year a very painful and remarkable case of circumstantial evidence took place, being no other than the trial of a wife and daughter for the murder of one who had stood to them in the relation of husband and father. On the evening of the 3rd of August, 1837, Mr. John Orchard, the landlord of the Woolstaplers’ Arms Inn, in Stourbridge, a man in the prime of life and in good health, was seen to go up the yard attached to his house, and his wife and eldest daughter, with a man named Smith, were seen to follow him. He never returned alive. Smith came down the yard again shortly, but the wife and daughter remained there some time. Two or three hours afterwards the daughter told some of the people in the house that her father was very ill, and she was afraid he would die; but no one saw him until he was actually dead. When a surgeon arrived the body was on a chair in the kitchen, and Mrs. Orchard was supporting the head in her hands. She pointed the surgeon’s attention to a small hole between the third and fourth ribs, immediately over the heart, and said she supposed it was done by a nail in tumbling over some tubs in the yard. He had a shirt on, but there was no hole in that. The brewhouse, tubs, and yard appeared to have been just washed, and the opinion of the medical man was, that Orchard must have been dead an hour at least when he saw him. On a post mortem examination, the wound in question was found to be four inches and a half deep, and went right through the pericardium and right ventricle, so that it must have caused almost instant death. Of course grave suspicion under these circumstances could not but attach to the mother and daughter, especially as there had been repeated quarrels between them and the deceased, and the wife was also suspected to have been improperly familiar with the man Smith. The coroner’s jury, however, returned a verdict of “wilful murder against some parties unknown,” and months passed without any further discovery. At last a woman, who had assisted in laying out the corpse, told some party that the man was murdered with a skewer, which was afterwards thrown into the Stour. The woman, when interrogated by the police, denied having said anything of the sort; but a skewer—just such an instrument as would have produced the wound—was found in the Stour, nevertheless. The wife and daughter were then apprehended and put on their trial. Mr. Whateley conducted the prosecution, and Mr. Godson the defence. The judge, Lord Abinger, told the jury that they must not convict the prisoners on suspicion, and they were both acquitted.

1838—At the County Epiphany Sessions, William Baylis, the crier of Evesham, appealed against the commitment of three justices, who had ordered him to be sent to prison, under the 60th and 65th sections of the Municipal Act, for refusing to deliver up the bell. It was denied that the court had a right to entertain the appeal, but the court chose to do so, and quashed the conviction, subject to a case to the Queen’s Bench on the points argued. A similar appeal was heard from Robert Knight, one of the sergeants-at-mace under the old corporation, who refused to deliver up his mantle. The magistrates were—Mr. Strickland, Mr. Cheek, and Mr. Ashwin.

1839—At the Midsummer Assizes the Rev. T. B. G. Moore, curate of Bromsgrove, prosecuted Mr. J. B. Crane, carrier, Mr. Nicholas Hill, publican, Mr. W. Whitehouse, farmer, Samuel Taylor, John Pinfield, jun., William Sansome, George Wakeman, labourers, and Henry Hill, baker, for a riot alleged to have taken place at a church rate meeting at Bromsgrove; and Nicholas Hill and Taylor were also charged with an assault on the Rev. prosecutor. The meeting in question was held on the 14th of the previous February, and the parties who had got first to the vestry had voted Mr. Greening to the chair and then declared the meeting adjourned to the Town Hall; Mr. Moore, the curate, however, declared that he was the only lawful chairman and adjourned the meeting to the school-room. Here there was a scene of great excitement, and after the meeting had decided by a very large majority that there should be no rate, a poll was demanded by the pro-rate party. Immediately upon this there was a general rush to the platform—a violent struggle for the vestry book—and all sorts of people—Mr. Moore amongst the number—were tumbled about, struck, and ill-treated. It was said that the riot had been instigated by Mr. Nicholas Hill and Mr. Crane, and that Mr. Hill, in getting the book out of the curate’s possession, had forced his head against the desk so as to cause great pain. Mr. Sergeant Ludlow, in his speech for the defence, made much of this being a case got up by subscription—to crush the Bromsgrove opponents of church rates, and to put money into the purse of Mr. Annesley, an attorney, living twenty-five miles away from Bromsgrove. Whitehouse and Sansome were acquitted; Mr. Nicholas Hill found guilty of assault and riot, and the rest of the defendants of a riot only. Counsel for plaintiff, Mr. Sergeant Talfourd and Mr. Lea; attorney, Mr. Annesley of Pershore; for defendants, Mr. Sergeant Ludlow and Mr. Godson; attorney, Mr. F. T. Elgie, Worcester. In the following November defendants were called up for judgment (after an unsuccessful effort to get a new trial), when Nicholas Hill was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment, and the other three to four weeks’ imprisonment each.

At the same Assizes, Mr. Meredith, woolstapler, of Pershore, was convicted of striking Lieutenant Amherst three times, one day in the open street. There had been considerable excitement in the town about the election of Guardians of the Poor for the parish of St. Andrew, in the preceding March, and the plaintiff and defendant were active men on opposite sides. The first time they met in the street, Meredith put a paper into plaintiff’s face, saying, “Look at that;” and when he put up his clenched fist to defend himself, Meredith knocked his hat on one side. The second time Lieutenant Amherst admitted that he had called Meredith a d— blackguard, before any blow was struck, but Meredith afterwards hit him several times. Meredith, having been found guilty, was fined £20, and bound over himself in £300, and two sureties of £100 each, to keep the peace for three years.

1839—At the Michaelmas Sessions Samuel Cooke, the celebrated Chartist draper at Dudley, was prosecuted for attending and assisting at a riotous and illegal meeting at Dudley, on the 16th of July. It was proved that a placard, calling the meeting, had been seen in Cooke’s window, and that he himself addressed the assembly; but it did not appear that he had said anything very outrageous. The meeting was tumultuous, but no actual mischief had been done. Cooke defended himself with a good deal of shrewdness, and complained that he was a persecuted man. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, which was generally considered to be a very sharp political visitation of his offence. William Smith Lindon and James Hollis, for using seditious language at the same meeting, were sentenced, the first to three months’, and the second to six weeks’ imprisonment.

1841—In November this year, in the Queen’s Bench, a rule nisi for a criminal information, was granted against the Worcestershire Chronicle, on the application of W. H. Ricketts, Esq., for a libel in that paper imputing to him jobbing and interested motives in disposing of the public money to be laid out in building the Droitwich Police Station. Upon the proprietors of the Chronicle admitting that they had been misled and offering an apology, Mr. Ricketts consented to the discharge of the rule. The information on which the article complained of by Mr. Ricketts was written, was supplied by Mr. George Ellins, a brother magistrate; and as he refused to pay any of the costs which the proprietors of the Chronicle had incurred, they inserted another article, charging Mr. Ellins with having misled them in the matter. This brought another rule nisi upon them from Mr. Ellins, who affirmed that he did not volunteer the statement to Mr. Arrowsmith, and had especially told him that what he did say was not for publication. The argument against the rule did not come on till November, when Mr. Sergeant Talfourd showed cause for the Chronicle, and the Solicitor General supported the rule on behalf of Mr. Ellins. Lord Denman said it was absurd to suppose that Mr. Ellins gave the information to Mr. Arrowsmith for any other purpose than that of publication; and the rule was discharged with costs.

1842—At the Lent Assizes was tried The Marquis of Anglesea v. Lord Hatherton, a cause more interesting from the rank of the parties interested, and the right at stake, than from any attractiveness in the subject or the evidence. It was an action to stop the noble defendant from working coal mines on certain copyhold property belonging to the latter at Cannock, in Staffordshire; and turned upon the question whether Lord Anglesea, as lord of the manor of Cannock, had right to the minerals. Sir Thomas Wilde, Sergeant Ludlow, Mr. Alexander, and the Honourable Mr. Talbot, were retained for the defendant; and the Solicitor-General (Sir William Follett), Mr. Richards, Q.C., Mr. Whateley, Q.C., and Mr. Whitmore, for the plaintiff. A great number of witnesses were called on either side, to prove rights and customs, and to perplex the jury; and ultimately, after a trial of two days, a verdict was found for the plaintiff, with nominal damages. The verdict created much surprise.

1842—July 20—A Court of Inquiry holden by Mr. Under Sheriff Gillam and a special jury, to assess damages in the case Powell v. Perrins. This was an action to recover damages for the seduction of plaintiff’s daughter, plaintiff being a land surveyor at Hagley, and defendant a chain maker, living near Stourbridge. £500 damages given for the plaintiff.

1842—At the Midsummer Assizes a horrible case of depravity was disclosed in the trial of Richard Taylor, a blacksmith of Stourbridge, charged with shooting at his wife, Hannah Taylor, with intent to murder her. Though she had been the subject of a course of the most sickening brutality, she refused to give evidence against him, and the witnesses, therefore, were the neighbours and the prisoner’s own grown-up daughter, who stood in the witness box with a child in her arms, which was the offspring of an incestuous intercourse with her own father! The prisoner, on the particular occasion for which he was tried, had shot at his wife, and beaten her till she was well nigh killed. He then turned all his children out of doors stark naked. He was only found guilty of an assault, because nothing more could be proved without the wife’s evidence, and he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment only.

1843—At the Lent Assizes, Edwin Archer, a young labourer from Rouse Lench, was tried for the wilful murder of George Green, in the previous December. He pleaded guilty to the crime of manslaughter, and was sentenced to fifteen years’ transportation. The prisoner and deceased had been quarrelling, and set about to wrestle; in the course of the struggle, Archer drew a knife and stabbed Green in four distinct places—one of the wounds penetrating the heart—and death immediately ensued. As soon as the fatal deed was done, Archer was aghast with horror, and wept like a child over the body of his passion’s victim.

Samuel Bridgwater was tried at these Assizes, at the instance of some very indefatigable Radicals, for bribery at the election of 1841. The bill had repeatedly been thrown out by the grand juries, as was supposed, on political grounds, until at last a sufficient number of the right party were found to return it as “a true bill.” The case, however, now broke down at its very commencement, because a tailor had been sent to the Crown Office for copies of the return to the writ for the Worcester election, and he had not had them compared with the originals.

1843—June 1—The Rev. William Smith, vicar of Overbury, obtained a rule nisi for a criminal information against the Worcestershire Chronicle. The parish had long been in a state of most unseemly dissension, and the Chronicle, in giving a long and very detailed statement of meetings and matters there, was said to have libelled Mr. Smith in attributing conduct to him which he disclaimed, and generally in reflecting on his character and conduct. The rule was, however, afterwards discharged by arrangement, and no further proceedings were taken.

1843—At the Midsummer Sessions, Sir Thomas Phillips, Bart., and two of his labourers, were tried at these Sessions, for assaulting George Cooper, a shoemaker of Broadway. Cooper was collector of taxes, and went to Middle Hill to get a balance of taxes from the honourable baronet. He had had repeated disputes with Sir Thomas Phillips, and this was also a disputed affair, so Sir Thomas ordered him off the premises; and when he talked of levying a distress, Sir Thomas pushed him out of the hall, and struck him with a garden paddle once or twice. The two labourers were discharged, and Sir Thomas Phillips fined £10.

1843—At the Midsummer Assizes, before Mr. Justice Maule, was tried Lavender and Another v. Bucklee, being an action to recover £3,500, which had been secured on a bond given by Messrs. Thomas and William Bucklee to William Shaw, Esq., of Britannia House, Worcester. It was said that Mr. Shaw, shortly before his death, had cancelled the bond by cutting it off. It was said by the executors that Mr. Shaw was not in a state of mind to cancel the bond; and that his housekeeper, who was a relation of the Bucklees, appeared to have great influence with Mr. Shaw. A great deal of evidence was given as to the transaction itself, at which interested parties were present and took much part, and as to Mr. Shaw’s state of health at the time. The jury, after an hour’s deliberation, found a verdict for the defendant.

A case which excited great interest in the city of Worcester, was the trial of Charles Samuel Atkins, a young man respectably connected, who was in the employ of Messrs. Griffiths and Clarke, linen drapers, as a shopman. He was charged with embezzling £4, the property of his employers, on the 27th of September, 1842. Atkins had been sent to Mrs. Jeremy with a shawl and some satinette, and on his return said Mrs. Jeremy had kept the shawl and not paid for it, and had retained the satinette for approval. Mrs. Jeremy declared that she paid the person who brought the shawl four sovereigns on the spot. It was shown that in the very next week Mrs. Jeremy had had some satinette sent her from Hill and Turley’s, by a young man remarkably like the prisoner, and that came to very nearly the same sum as the shawl; and it was suggested that Mrs. Jeremy might have confounded the two transactions. The jury returned a verdict of “Not guilty,” and the court immediately echoed with deafening cheers, while Atkins fainted away. Mr. Sergeant Talfourd conducted the prosecution, while Mr. Bodkin, of the Old Bailey, was specially retained for the defence. The linen drapers’ assistants of the city afterwards presented Mr. Atkins with a silver snuff box.

Mary Francis, 24, single woman, was charged with attempting to poison Mary Jeffs, an elderly woman, living at Alderminster. The prisoner brought the old woman a cake, pretending that some one had given it her to make a present of it to the prosecutrix, but the strangeness of her manner in delivering it, and her continually saying that she was only to eat of it herself, excited the old woman’s suspicions. The cake was analysed, and was found to contain a large quantity of arsenic. The prisoner was courted by the old woman’s son; but not the slightest motive could be assigned for her wish to deprive the mother of life. She was found guilty, and sentenced to fifteen years’ transportation.

1844—At the Lent Assizes was tried the Queen v. Smith, being an action brought by William Harris, the parish clerk of Overbury, against the Rev. William Smith, the vicar, for dismissing him from his situation. Mr. Smith alleged that the clerk had been guilty of drunkenness, had read the responses irreverently, and had interrupted the celebration of the sacrament on a particular occasion. Harris denied the whole of these charges, and the present trial was on a return to a mandamus in the Court of Queen’s Bench to ascertain their truth. Various witnesses were examined on both sides: those for Harris asserting that it was Mr. Smith’s eccentricities that alone caused the clerk to err. The jury found that the charges of drunkenness were proved, and that Harris had spoken the responses loudly to annoy Mr. Smith, but that the charge of interrupting the sacrament was not true. The court, thereupon, ordered the verdict to be entered for defendant.

1844—March 23—At Hereford Assizes was tried Bellers v. Chalk and Holl, being an action for libel, said to be contained in a paragraph in the Worcester Herald of the 2nd of December, 1843. Colonel Bund, of Malvern, gave some information to the proprietors of the Herald, on the strength of which they inserted a paragraph charging Mr. Bellers, of Barnard’s Green, with cruelty to his mare, by shutting her up for years in solitary confinement in such a position that she could not lie down. Several statements afterwards appeared in the Herald to the effect that the cruelty to the mare had been abated after the publication of the paragraph, and reporting the proceedings of a meeting, held at Gloucester, for establishing a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. The Lord Bishop of the Diocese presided at that meeting; and Mr. Thomas, the secretary of the Society in London for Preventing Cruelty to Animals, attended, and stated that he had personally inquired into the alleged case of cruelty, and had found the statement in the Herald to be correct. On the trial, Mr. Whateley, Mr. Gray, and Mr. Godson were counsel for plaintiff; Mr. Sergeant Talfourd and Mr. Valentine Lee for the defendants. Acting on the advice of counsel, defendants had not pleaded a justification. The publication of the libel was admitted; of course, no evidence could be offered in justification, and the jury found a verdict for plaintiff, as they were bound to do under the circumstances: damages, £150.

1844—At the Midsummer Assizes, John Bowen, a man of about fifty years, formerly an officer in the navy, was tried on the charge of defacing the parish registers of Croome D’Abitot, and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. It was shown that Bowen was engaged in making out a pedigree for a John Wood, who wanted to establish himself as a relation to the celebrated James Wood, of Gloucester, and had visited the Croome D’Abitot rectory several times for that purpose. While the curate was looking in another direction he tore a leaf out of the register. Mr. Sergeant Talfourd was for the prosecution, and Mr. F. V. Lee for the defence.The Queen v. Newton, also tried at the Assizes, was a charge against the eccentric barrister of that name, who used to come the Oxford circuit, of having committed perjury, said to have been committed in some affidavits. The presiding judge, Mr. Sergeant Atcherley, stopped the case, as insufficiently supported in the evidence.

1844—At the Michaelmas Quarter Sessions a singular trial took place of two farmers, named Swan and Patrick, who were charged with killing deer belonging to W. L. Childe, Esq., in Kyre Parva park. The witness against them was a boy named Passey, who said he saw the parties accused chase a fine buck into one corner of the inclosure and then shoot it; but there were some discrepancies in his testimony. Both these farmers lived close to Mr. Child, and as the fences were not in the best possible condition, the deer used frequently to get on their land and eat their corn. Mr. Lee made an ingenious speech for the defence, and called many witnesses to character; after which the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, amid the applause of the court.

1845—At the Lent Assizes, eleven poachers were put on their trial for the murder of Thomas Staite, one of the Earl of Coventry’s watchers, who was killed in a very desperate affray which took place between the keepers and the prisoners on the 19th of the previous December. One of them, however, named George Lippett, was admitted as Queen’s evidence; and another, Francis Dingley, while in prison made a full confession of the whole transaction. The keepers and watchers were nine in number, and they encountered the party of poachers at the gate leading into Park Farm, Pirton. A fight with bludgeons took place, in which the keepers were altogether worsted, and one or two of them left for dead. The poachers also fired off two guns, but the shots did not take effect. The unfortunate man, Staite, was found by his comrades, after the affray was over, in a ditch close by the Park Farm house, so badly used that he could not speak; and, indeed, he never uttered a word from that hour. He was taken first to a neighbouring cottage, and then to the Worcester Infirmary, where he died in six days. The identity of all the prisoners, and the part they had each taken in the affray, was very clearly made out by the evidence of four of the watchers and the statement of the approver Lippett. Mr. Godson, in a very able speech for the prisoners, contended that the case was not made out by the evidence of the keepers, and that Lippett was not to be believed; ending with a protest against the game laws generally, as the cause of much injustice and innumerable crimes. The Lord Chief Baron Pollock, before whom the case was tried, told the jury that they might find the prisoners guilty of manslaughter; and, acting upon this hint, the jury returned a general verdict against all the prisoners of “Guilty of manslaughter.” Witnesses to character were then called on behalf of some of the prisoners, and his lordship sentenced them to different terms of transportation as they seemed to have taken an active part or otherwise in the attack upon the keepers. Francis Dingley, Samuel Turvey, Joseph Turvey, and Joseph Tandy were transported for life; Thomas Hooper, William Broomfield, and John Cook transported for ten years; George Brant for seven years; and Thomas Cosnett and William Collins were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The prisoners were all Pershore men, but the case excited the most intense interest in that part of the county.

1846—At the Midsummer Assizes, Richard Farley, cabinet maker, fifty-three years of age, and Ann Jones, a married woman, were tried for forging the will of William Welch, of Llandilion, near Abergavenny. The will was first produced and attempted to be used in Worcester—hence the trial took place here. Farley was Welch’s son-in-law, and the will conveyed some property at Aston Ingham to him instead of to his own son, William Welch. A number of witnesses declared that the will was not in the handwriting of the deceased, and that one at least of the signatures was written by the prisoner himself. Ann Jones was an attesting witness, and repeatedly asserted the genuineness of the will. Farley was sentenced to fifteen years’ transportation, and Jones to twelve months’ imprisonment.

1847—At the Lent Assizes this year, a trial took place which excited considerable interest—that of Harris v. Grissell, being an action brought by Mr. George Harris, carpet manufacturer, of Stourport, against (really) the Severn Navigation Commissioners, though the ostensible defendants were the contractors of the works—Messrs. Grissell and Peto. Mr. Harris had a mill on the Stour, and he said that owing to the erection of the weir at Lincombe, the water in the Stour had been so pounded up as frequently to stop his undershot wheels, and to render his mill useless. A great number of witnesses were examined on both sides, and the learned judge (Mr. Sergeant Gazelee) having told the jury that there was no defence to the action, they returned a verdict for the plaintiff, with £500 damages; but this extraordinary summing up of the judge’s enabled the defendants to get a rule for a new trial, and the matter never proceeded further.

1847—At the Midsummer Assizes, Harklas Lovell Blewitt, a travelling tinker, was tried for the murder of his wife at Dudley, on the 3rd of June. They were staying at a lodging house, and the wife, to escape the ill-treatment of her brutal spouse, hid herself in the coalhole; he followed her there with a kettle of hot water, and, holding her down with one hand, poured it over her head and shoulders. She was so dreadfully scalded that she died in ten days; but though there was no pretence for saying that it was unintentionally done, the jury, to the amazement of the court, returned a verdict of “Guilty of manslaughter” only, and the fellow was sentenced to transportation for twenty years.

1848—At the Lent Assizes, four men, named Cartwright, Sweatman, Payne, and Turberfield, were charged with breaking into the toll house at Knighton-on-Teme, kept by an old man named John Mound, and his wife, and stealing £115. The burglars used very violent threats towards the poor old people, who most distinctly swore to all four of the men as the parties who robbed and assailed them. They were consequently found guilty, and sentenced to fifteen years’ transportation each. Yet it was afterwards distinctly proved that Turberfield was not engaged in the robbery, and he received a free pardon. Two other men, convicted of burglary at these assizes, on what appeared to be the clearest evidence, were discharged by the Secretary of State, because it was afterwards proved, beyond contradiction, that the crime had been committed by other men.