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 rulenisifor a criminal information, was granted against theWorcestershire 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 theChronicleadmitting 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 theChroniclehad incurred, they inserted another article, charging Mr. Ellins with having misled them in the matter. This brought another rulenisiupon 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 Arrowsmith, and had especially told him that what he did say was not for publication.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 theChronicle, 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 triedThe Marquis of Angleseav.Lord Hatherton, a cause more interesting from the rank of the parties interested, and the right at stake, than from any attractivenessin 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—July20—A Court of Inquiry holden by Mr. Under Sheriff Gillam and a special jury, to assess damages in the casePowellv.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 aghastwith 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—June1—The Rev. William Smith, vicar of Overbury, obtained a rulenisifor a criminal information against theWorcestershire Chronicle. The parish had long been in a state of most unseemly dissension, and theChronicle, 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 triedLavender and Anotherv.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 healthat 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 theQueenv.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’sBench 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—March23—At Hereford Assizes was triedBellersv.Chalk and Holl, being an action for libel, said to be contained in a paragraph in theWorcester Heraldof the 2nd of December, 1843. Colonel Bund, of Malvern, gave some information to the proprietors of theHerald, 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 theHeraldto 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 theHeraldto 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 Queenv.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, asthe 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 ofHarrisv.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 summingup 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.
Thecounty has of late years been almost wholly spared the painful spectacle of justice proceeding to its direst extremity of taking away human life, though formerly capital punishments were but too common, and inflicted for what we should now esteem very inadequate causes of offence. Their policy and propriety in any case are now allowed to be fit matters for discussion; and it is probable that public opinion may, in a few years hence, demand their entire abolition.
1800—At the Lent Assizes this year, ten persons were sentenced to death, but seven of them were reprieved before the judges left the town. Richard and John Lane, brothel’s, were convicted of the murder of Thomas Goode, of Redmarley, in October, 1799. They were impatient to possess some property which would be theirs at his death, and having waylaid him, both shot him—one with a gun, the other with a pistol. They were executed on the 10th of March, and each died uttering execrations on the other.
1800—At the Summer Assizes, thirteen persons were sentenced to death, and three of them executed—one for burglary, and two for sheep stealing. They are said to have died “with the utmost resignation, and acknowledging the justice of their sentences.”
1801—At the Lent Assizes, five persons were sentenced to death for burglary, a woman for stealing two £10 notes, five men for highway robbery, three for horse stealing, one for stealing a cow, another for stealing two calves, four for sheep stealing, and two for escaping from prison after sentence of transportation—twenty-two in all! Six of these were left for execution; but great interest being made for some of them, only one was actually hung.
1803—March—Richard Colledge executed for horse stealing.
1803—June—Thomas Beach executed for uttering a forged £5 note.
1805—March22—John Sanky,aliasYoung, convicted at the Assizes just concluded of uttering a forged bill of exchange, with intent to defraud Messrs. Knapp and Lee, glovers, of Worcester, was executed on a temporary gallows erected in Salt Lane. He addressed the spectators for a full half hour, acknowledging the justice of his sentence, and expressing his confident hope of pardon through the righteousness and atonement of our Saviour. He had attempted, in the interval between his sentence and condemnation, to escape from the gaol, but he now declared that he never entertained any idea of doing the gaoler or turnkey any personal injury.He then gave out three verses of a hymn,and was joined in singing them by many of the persons who surrounded the fatal tree; after this he prayed aloud in a very solemn manner for himself and the spectators. Several distressing mistakes were made by the executioner, but the unhappy sufferer retained his composure amidst all these blunders, and appeared to die with absolute cheerfulness. This young man was evidently possessed of considerable talents, but they had been miserably misapplied.
1805—August16—W. Dalton, convicted before Lord Ellenboroughat the Summer Assizes of two burglaries, one at Astley and the other at Kidderminster—executed at Red Hill. His demeanour was becoming.
1806—March19—John Davenport and William Lashford hung at Red Hill for a burglary at Bellbroughton. They confessed their crime, and behaved in a becoming manner.
1812—March20—William Scale was executed in the field of the New Gaol for committing a rape at Norton, near Worcester. He is described as “penitent, resigned, and met his fate with the fortitude becoming his deplorable situation.”
1815—July21—William White was executed on a gallows erected “in the outer circle of the County Gaol,” for a rape on Ann Davis of Beoley. He is declared to have died, “as since his condemnation he had lived, full of contrition and piety.”
1816—March22—William Clements and John Batty executed at the County Prison for breaking into the dwelling house of Mr. Martin of Paxford, and stealing a large sum of money; and John Rowen for forging and uttering a bill of exchange for £315 on Messrs. Cox, Merle, and Co., bankers, London, with intent to defraud Messrs. Attwood and Co., bankers, Worcester.
1818—July31—William Corfield sentenced to death for a burglary at the house of George Jukes of Tenbury, was executed at the new drop erected over the entrance to the County Gaol. He had conducted himself after his trial in a very refractory manner, and could not be brought to acknowledge the justice of his sentence. Shortly before his execution he wrote an exceedingly sensible and properly worded letter to his wife.
1819—March19—John Harris convicted of uttering forged Bank of England notes at Bromsgrove, hung in front of the County Gaol. He died “sincerely penitent.”
1820—March17—Robert Hollick, convicted of robbing Thomas Gittins and Thomas Hawker on the highway at Claines, and cruelly ill-treating the latter, was this day executed. As he was being led out of his cell, his mother, sister, wife, and child, came to see him, not having visited him previously. The execution was delayed awhile to grant them an interview—which, as may be supposed, was a most distressing one. It did not, however, unnerve the culprit, who died with great firmness, though fully admitting the justice of his sentence.
1821—March23—Thomas Dyer, capitally convicted of horse stealing, was executed at the County Gaol, but died protesting his entire innocence of the crime laid to his charge. He left a paperbehind him, stating the names of the parties from whom he bought the horses, and the sums of money he had given for them; but it does not appear that anybody thought it worth while to make further inquiries about the matter.
1821—August24—William Mantle and William Bird were executed at the County Gaol; the former convicted of stealing sheep, the property of Mr. Henry Hyde of Little Kyre; and the latter of breaking into the house of Mr. John Bird of Bromsgrove, and stealing wearing apparel, &c. The ropes were nearly extended to their full length when tied round the unhappy culprits’ necks, so that scarcely any fall took place, and they died in great agony, especially Bird. Their remains were interred in St. Andrew’s churchyard.
1823—March24—James Davis and Joseph Rutter, two young men convicted at the Lent Assizes—the former of horse stealing and the latter of sheep stealing—were executed at the County Gaol. Davis was a deserter from the army, and appeared to have stolen from sheer want. Rutter’s had been a long course of crime. Davis began to address the crowd when brought upon the scaffolding, warning them to avoid Sabbath breaking and vicious practices; when Rutter said, impatiently, “Come, let’s have no more of that;” and they were immediately hurried into eternity. He literally preferred hanging to a homily.
1826—July21—John Hobday, a young man only twenty-one years of age, having been convicted at the Midsummer Assizes of a burglary at the Bell Inn, Kidderminster, and a savage assault upon the officers who apprehended him at Birmingham, was executed at the County Gaol this day. He was reported to be very penitent, and prepared for death.
1830—March11—Michael Toll, convicted of the wilful murder of Ann Cook, a woman with whom he lived, by knocking her into a pit at Oldswinford, was executed this day in front of the County Gaol. His body was given to the surgeons to anatomise, and afterwards exposed to public gaze at the Infirmary. In his stomach were found a number of pieces of blanket, which he had swallowed in order to produce suffocation.
1830—July30—Charles Wall, convicted at the Summer Assizes of the murder of Sally Chance, at Oldswinford, was executed in front of the County Prison at six o’clock p.m., the execution having been deferred to that unusual hour in consequence of the election taking place that day. His body was delivered to a surgeon at Stourbridge, and afterwards exposed to view to great crowds who came from allthe surrounding parts to see it. The party murdered was a little girl, whose mother the prisoner was about to marry, and he killed her by throwing her into a lime pit.
1830—August13—Thomas Turner, a lad only seventeen years of age, convicted at the same Assizes of a rape upon Louisa Blissett, a child under ten years of age, at New Wood, about three miles from Kidderminster, was executed this day.
1831—March25—Thomas Slaughter,a lad not eighteen years of age, was executed for setting fire to a large wheat rick, the property of Mrs. Rebecca Tomlinson, of Elmley Lovett. The poor fellow was wholly uneducated, and evidently of weak intellect.
1832—March22—James and Joseph Carter, two brothers, aged twenty and twenty-two respectively, and condemned at the Lent Assizes for two cases of highway robbery at night, with violence, in the neighbourhood of Bewdley, this morning underwent the extreme penalty of the law in front of the County Gaol. Both men met death with firmness, but without bravado; and Joseph Carter addressed the populace from the scaffolding, warning them to avoid Sabbath breaking, drunkenness, and bad women. The crowd on this occasion behaved with unusual decorum, and seem really to have been impressed with a feeling of sadness at seeing two persons hurried out of life so early.
1834—March12—Robert Lilly, convicted at the Lent Assizes of the murder of Jonathan Wall, at Bromsgrove, was executed in front of the County Gaol. Wall had interfered to prevent his ill-using his wife, and Lilly stabbed him in the abdomen with a clasp-knife. There was a large concourse of spectators at the execution—principally females, but the culprit did not address them, and he died without a struggle.
1837—March23—William Lightband, executed in front of the County Gaol for the murder of Joseph Hawkins, shopkeeper, of Areley Kings, on the 8th September, 1836. He was a carpenter, entirely without education, and had pursued a sottish and irregular mode of life. However, the instruction he received when in prison seemed to have had effect upon his mind, and he met death in becoming manner. Though it snowed during the whole morning there was a great concourse of spectators, and the Rev. Mr. Dodd, assistant minister at the Lady Huntingdon’s Chapel, afterwards addressed them. Their behaviour was more decent than usual on such occasions.
1849—March26—The last execution which took place in Worcesterwas that of Robert Pulley, who was condemned to death for the barbarous murder of a poor girl, named Mary Ann Staight, at Broughton, on the 5th of December, 1843. The manners of the prisoner were so brutish and careless as to induce a doubt in his sanity; and at the expense of the High Sheriff, Mr. John Dent, counsel was provided at his trial to defend him on this ground. It was also made the plea for a memorial to the Home Secretary on his behalf, which was signed by many benevolent persons, and by those opposed to all capital punishments. His conduct after trial, however, was such as to convince all who conversed with him of his perfect rationality. He was lamentably ignorant; but listened with much attention to the exhortations of the ministers who visited him. He displayed great firmness in his last moments. The execution took place at noon on the roof of the County Gaol, in the presence of a large crowd of spectators, who behaved with much propriety.
The excitement occasioned by this execution produced much discussion as to the expediency of capital punishments. A public meeting was held in the Guildhall, Worcester, by those who wished their abolition, at which Mr. Charles Gilpin attended and spoke. Mr. George Grove attempted to show that Scripture contained a command which was conclusive on the subject, and required us to shed the blood of the man who took away the life of another; but a resolution, declaring capital punishments to be opposed to the spirit of Christianity and inexpedient, was carried almost unanimously. The Rev. W. H. Havergal and Dr. Redford also preached upon the subject—the former in favour of, and the latter against, death punishments.
TheCounty of Worcester has hitherto been very poorly supplied with Railway communication—a strange fatuity having attended the various undertakings which have been projected for meeting its necessities in this respect. Worcester itself was, indeed, almost shut out from this advantage, now so indispensable to prosperity, till the half century had closed; but a brighter day appears now to be dawning upon us.
Thisis the only railway which has yet been completed in this county, and it was promoted chiefly by parties living at the termini, who made it their only object to carry it in as straight a line as possible from point to point, with very little reference to the convenience of the towns by the way. If the shareholders could have foreseen the disastrous influence of such a policy upon their own funds, they would certainly have taken a different course, even though they felt no interest in the prosperity of the places which they so much injured by passing at considerable distances. The scheme wasfirst projected in 1834, and the directors obtained their act on their first application to Parliament in 1836; the line was opened from Cheltenham to Bromsgrove, in June, 1840, and throughout the whole distance on the 17th of December in that year. The share capital subscribed was £1,142,125, to which £380,076 was afterwards added of money borrowed on debentures, &c. Though the line, except at the Lickey, presented no engineering difficulties, and was cheaply constructed, yet the rate of profit was very small; and in October, 1842, the £100 shares were quoted as low as 41. In January, 1845, it was amalgamated with the Bristol and Gloucester Line; and in 1846, when the broad and narrow gauge interests were each making such struggles for the ascendancy, the Midland Company entered into an arrangement to lease the line for 999 years, paying 6 per cent. upon the capital. The Great Western bid 5½ per cent., but would go no higher.
This undertaking was first introduced to the notice of the citizens of Worcester at a public meeting held on the 15th of January, 1834. The Company were at this time about to determine upon their route, and had two plans before them—the one eventually adoptedviâCheltenham, and another that was to have come by way of Stourbridge, Kidderminster, and Worcester; the former was marked out by Mr. Brunel, the latter by a Mr. Wooddeson. In consequence of this state of things some gentlemen had formed themselves into a provisional committee with a line of their own, and Messrs. Gwinnall and Hughes, the solicitors employed, procured the calling of this meeting, in the Guildhall, Worcester, with the Mayor, W. Dent, Esq., in the chair. The committee laid their plans, in the rough, before the meeting, and asked a vote of sanction and support from the meeting. Sir Anthony Lechmere wanted no railways at all. Major Bund and Mr. Gutch proposed a month’s adjournment. But a resolution to stand by the committee, and to approve of no railway but one which came right through Worcester, was passed by a large majority. The Grand Connection Railway project took its rise from the suggestions of this committee.
The Birmingham and Gloucester Company making no attempt to obtain an act in the session of 1835, the matter was not again discussed till the 22nd October in that year, when a meeting was convened, over which Mr. J. W. Lea, Mayor, presided. Some of the provisional directors were present, and admitted that they intended to carry the line through Spetchley. Mr. John Hyde proposed that the directors should be requested to include a branch to Worcester in their scheme. Mr. Pierpoint said the main line ought to be brought, and could be brought, much nearer Worcester; and if it were not so brought, the city of Worcester ought to oppose the line by every means. A committee of conference was appointed, and the meeting adjourned for a week. It was then announced that the provisional directors of the line had agreed to have a survey taken of a deviation line from Abbott’s Wood to Norton, as well as of a direct branch to Spetchley, and lay them both before Parliament to choose from. Several speeches were made to show that the whole line had been contrived without any regard to the interests of the city and county of Worcester; and on the motion of Mr. Hooper, seconded by Mr. Deighton, it was resolved that no railway should be sanctioned by the people of Worcester that did not bring the main line within a mile of the city. On the 4th November another meeting was called, to consider the propriety of surveying a line for a railway on the western side of the Severn, to go by Kidderminster. It was evident that the Birmingham and Gloucester directors intended to adhere to their original plan, and so the citizens of Worcester determined to oppose them vigorously, and entered into a subscription, headed by fifty guineas from the corporate body, to survey a fresh line.
On the 31st March, 1836, a public meeting was called to consider the expediency of further opposing the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway Company. The directors of that company had bound themselves in a penalty of £70,000 to make a branch to Worcester, to join there the Grand Connection Railway to Wolverhampton, and on that score the opposition to their bill, on the part of the citizens of Worcester, had been withdrawn, and it had passed through committee in the Commons. Mr. Waters, who had been chiefly instrumental in calling the present meeting, said that he thought Worcester ought to join Tewkesbury in opposing the measure in the House of Lords. Mr. Pierpoint said the sum subscribed after the former meeting had been totally inadequate for the purpose of opposing the bill, and so they had to make the best terms they could—which were, that the Railway Companyshould make a deviation line from Abbott’s Wood to Oddingley, or forfeit £70,000. Mr. Pierpoint represented this as altogether distinct and separate from the Grand Connection Railway, although, he said, he would put the bond on the fire that night if the opposition were determined on. The Mayor asked him how he could do that if the bond were given him on behalf of the city, and he replied that he had been well advised upon the point. A great deal of personal altercation took place, and hot party feeling introduced, but the meeting ended by Mr. Pierpoint proposing the following resolution: “That in consequence of certain satisfactory arrangements having been entered into between the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway Company and the Grand Connection Railway committee, the interests of this city have been so consulted that this meeting think it unnecessary to interfere.” Mr. Waters, in a few days afterwards, published a letter in answer to “A Grand Connection Shareholder,” in which he declared Mr. Pierpoint to have been proved, by this very letter of his brother shareholder, to have deceived the whole body of his fellow citizens; inasmuch as there was only an agreement between the Birmingham and Gloucester Company and Grand Connection Company to carry out the deviation line between them; or if the Grand Connection Company did not obtain their act, then the Birmingham and Gloucester line were to make a branch from Worcester to Abbott’s Wood.
In April, 1839, the Company attempting to get a bill—to extend their rails to the Berkeley Canal at Gloucester, and to raise more capital—through Parliament, they were opposed by the Worcester Chamber of Commerce on the ground that they had not fulfilled their engagements with the city of Worcester. The bond which they had given to Mr. Pierpoint, as Chairman of the Grand Connection Railway Company, binding them in a penalty of £70,000 to make a branch from Worcester to Abbott’s Wood, was, they said, null and void, because the Grand Connection Railway Company had ceased to exist. The Parliamentary committee, principally in consequence of the able and zealous exertions of Mr. John Hill, the Town Clerk of Worcester, determined that the Company should be compelled to introduce into the bill clauses obliging them to complete the Abbott’s Wood branch before opening the main line for traffic. The Birmingham and Gloucester Company, after this decision, gave up their bill.
In 1842 the Company, having been threatened with proceedingsunder the bond, offered to construct a branch with a single line of rails from Spetchley to Sansome Fields, Worcester. A public meeting was called on the 15th of August, to consider this proposal. Mr. Pierpoint and Mr. John Dent moved the acceptance of the proposal. Mr. E. L. Williams and Mr. Waters moved, as an amendment, that the city should abide by the bond, and be satisfied with nothing less; and after a long discussion the Mayor put the matter to the vote, and declared the amendment carried.
In 1843 the Company brought two bills before Parliament—the one a money bill, and the other to get powers to make a branch from Bredicot to Worcester. The latter was opposed in committee by Mr. Berkeley, of Spetchley, on the ground of an agreement between him and the Company that such a division of his lands should not be made. The other was opposed by the Worcester Town Council and Chamber of Commerce, with a view of getting justice done to the city; and they procured the insertion of clauses binding the Company to abide by an award of the Board of Trade in the matter. General Pasley was accordingly sent down by the Board of Trade to survey the county in September; and upon his report, and a hearing of the several interests, they issued their award in the following April. By this the Railway Company were called upon to make a branch from Bredicot to the Bath Road, Worcester. But no further steps were ever taken in the matter. Such a branch as the one proposed would only have been in the way when the Oxford and Wolverhampton line was constructed; and with that the public mind was now occupied. As to “the bond,” that is still a subject of profound mystery, and much perplexes the good people of Worcester.
Theorigin of this project has been already mentioned.
In December, 1835, a public meeting was held in Worcester, over which the Mayor, J. W. Lea, Esq., presided; at which it was fully determined to proceed with this Railway, which was to go from Gloucester to Worcester, on the western side the river; to cross the Severn at Worcester, thence direct to Kidderminster, and afterwards to Birmingham in one direction and Wolverhampton in another.The capital was to consist of 800,000 shares of £50 each. The shares were taken up pretty freely, and the bill was read a second time, and went into committee in March, 1837. It was strenuously opposed there by the Birmingham Canal Company, and by several landowners. The preamble was, however, declared proved. The committee divided on the point, and the numbers were—for, 15; against, 14. General Lygon, the chairman of the committee, was most indefatigable in promoting the undertaking. The bill was thrown out on bringing up the report in the House of Commons, by a majority of 165 to 88. The principal argument used against it was that it would destroy the beauty of the county of Worcester. Its defeat was principally owing to the landowners. It was attempted to be revived in the following year, but without success.
In1840 the Railway Commissioners were engaged in determining what would be the most desirable route for a grand trunk line which should connect the metropolis with the Welsh coast, so that the quickest possible communication might be made with Ireland. One project was to carry a line from Port Dynllaen, in Brecknockshire, to Didcot, on the Great Western line; and in this the people of Worcester felt much interested.
1840—March17—A public meeting was held in Worcester in favour of this line; and in the absence of the Mayor, Mr. Chalk, who was in London to present the address of congratulation from the town council to Her Majesty, John Dent, Esq., was called to the chair. A report from the Chamber of Commerce on the subject of the meeting was read by Mr. Alderman Edward Evans, and it was resolved to procure subscriptions in order to obtain another survey of the line of country from the Royal Commissioners. A similar meeting was held in the next week at Evesham.
The Chester and Holyhead route, though the longest by several miles, was eventually preferred by the Commissioners, because Holyhead was the better harbour and starting point for vessels.
In1842 a branch railway was projected to connect Evesham with the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway at Eckington, but it was strenuously opposed by the owners of lands through which it must have passed, and was thereupon abandoned.