Part 13

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.