Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    QSR1840/1/5/40/c
  • Title
    Deposition of William Guille of Dunstable and examination of Thomas Anderson, charged with stealing a cask and 36 gallons of beer from the executors of the late Thomas Burr
  • Date free text
    28 December 1839
  • Production date
    From: 1839 To: 1840
  • Scope and Content
    He is clerk to Mr Burr's Brewery at Dunstable. Mr Burr has been dead about 5 years and the business is carried on in the name fo the executor, the Revd James Horseman, and the executrix, Miss Mary Burr, who under the will of the late Thomas Burr were appointed trustees for Mr Edward Burr who is a minor. The previous day he was informed by William Culverhouse that John Ironmonger and Daniel Cook, two of the brewery dray men, were seen putting a cask of beer down into Thomas Anderson's cellar about 3.30am. He examined the storehouse and missed a cask of beer. He went to Anderson's house, which is a Beer House in Houghton Regis about 1/2 a mile from the brewery. Anderson's wife granted permission to go into the cellar, where he found a 36 gallon cask filled with beer which had not been accounted for. All the casks in the brewery are numbered and the cask numbered 244 which was in Anderson's cellar was not returned in the account as having been sent out. There was some wet dirt on the cask as if it had recently been put in the cellar. He reported what he had found to Mr Edward Burr who sent for Anderson and accused him of stealing the cask of beer. Anderson said it was no use to tell a lie about it - he took it from poverty, and he hoped Mr Burr would forgive him. Mr Burr said he could make no such promise. Anderson is a storehouse man in Mr Burr's Brewery and it is part of his business to take the casks from the storehouse the night before they are put on the dray to be sent to the different beer houses. The casks so taken out remain in an outer part of the building. Thomas Anderson - he has worked with Mr Burr nearly 13 years and he never knew such a thing of him before. He has nothing more to say.
  • Level of description
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