Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    QSR1839/1/5/13d
  • Title
    Examination of Joseph Walker the younger of Wirksworth (Derbys) - case of John Endersby, charged with stealing clover seed.
  • Date free text
    2 November 1838
  • Production date
    From: 1838 To: 1838
  • Scope and Content
    He had been a small farmer at Colmworth. The morning before Mr Wilson's clover seed was stolen he was in the cow hovel when John Endersby and John Yarrill came up to him in full view of William Scarbrough. They proposed taking his horse and cart to "fetch away" the clover seed from Mr Wilson's barn. They arranged for him to take his horse and cart to the Crown at Little End where they would meet him. They did so and all had some beer. Joseph Endersby left first, then he and Yarrill went to the cart and drove it about 200 yards up the road towards Wyboston, before turning round towards Eaton. He waited with the cart a short distance away while Endersby and Yarrill took the clover seed from the barn. When they were ready he took the horse and cart up to Mr Wilson's premises and backed the cart into the ditch. Some of the fence palings were taken down and the seed loaded into the cart. There were five sacks, four belonging to Mr Wilson and one Endersby and Yarrill had brought with them. They went down the road a little towards Paxton, then turned around and went up towards Eaton. They left him just before they got to Wyboston. He turned up through Chawston. They met him again just before he got to Mr Metcalf's barn at Colesden and had some beer in a bottle which they said they had got from John Minns at the Three Horse Shoes at Wyboston. They went on to Colmworth, where Endersby and Yarrill helped him to unload the clover seed into his barn. The next morning he moved the seed into a ditch. That evening Yarrill and Endersby came to his house to secure the seed so that it should not be found and he told them it was moved. Mr Wilson came to his house twice the same day. That night he went with them to the ditch and found there were 4 men watching the clover seed. Endersby and Yarrill ran away. He was arrested, tried at the Bedfordshire Assizes and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment which he has served.
  • Level of description
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