• Reference
    QSR1840/3/5/41-42/a
  • Title
    Depositions of Henry Bailey, Mary Wagstaff, Thomas Mossman, Richard Taylor and Thomas Henshaw, and examinations of Joseph Brown and Thomas Skilleter of Biggleswade, accused of stealing 4 bushels of oats from Thomas Henshaw
  • Date free text
    29 April 1840
  • Production date
    From: 1840 To: 1840
  • Scope and Content
    Henry Bailey of Shefford, yeoman, police constable - on Saturday evening 25 April at about 6pm he saw Joseph Brown asleep in his cart on the road betwen Biggleswade and Shefford. He woke Brown and he set off driving furiously. Soon afterwards he overtook Brown again as his wheel had come off, and he found Brown was drunk. He helped Brown get the wheel on the cart again and took him and his cart to the George at Shefford. In the cart was a sack half full of something. The next morning as a result of information received he went to Biggleswade and apprehended Brown on suspicion of stealing oats. He said he had paid Mr Henshaw's man for the oats. Mary Wagstaff of Shefford, spinster - she is servant to Mr Mossman. About 5am last Sunday on looking out of her bedroom window she saw Joseph Brown sitting on a sack which appeared to contain about 2 bushels of something. There was another sack containing about the same quantity near him. It is clos to the highway, and whenever anybody passed by he "skulked down" so as not to be seen. She told her master. Thomas Mossman of Shefford, yeoman - being called by his servant he got up and went with his lad Richard Taylor along the road to Campton and saw Brown walking along Mr Gay's Close. Brown was walking along with a sack on his shoulder containing a bushel or more of something. He said to Brown "Joe you have been doing something that you ought not". He said it was his property and he had had a row with the policeman overnight. He took the property from Brown and gave the sack to his lad to take to his house. The lad told him there was another sack in the corner. He turned round, missed Brown and called out "Joe where are you?". He saw Brown in Gay's Close in the act of doubling up an empty sack and going towards Shefford. He found about a bushel and a half of oats in the corner of his own close, with some having fallen over into Gay's Close. They put them in one of his sacks, took them to his house and informed the policeman. Richard Taylor of Shefford, labourer - he went with his master. He spoke to Brown over the fence in Mr Gay's Close and asked him what he had got. he said "I have got a few oats but do not you say anything". Thomas Henshaw of Biggleswade, corndealer - he has a shop at the White Swan under the care of himself and his clerk Thomas Skilleter. His sack carrier is employed to deliver out oats from the shop to anybody to whom he or his clerk sells them, but he has no authority to sell them himself. He met Skilleter coming out of the yard about 6pm on Saturday night with the bushel and keys and asked if he had been waiting for anybody. Skilleter said he had not. A little before 5 he saw Skilleter and Brown talking in the Swan yard. Both his oats and the oats produced by Mr Mossman are exactly alike - they both have barley amongst them. Joseph Brown - he bought the oats from Thomas Skilleter for 14s 6d - four bushels of them. He gave Skilleter a sovereign and he gave him 2 half crowns and a sixpence. He took them all in one sack. Thomas Skilleter - he sold Brown the oats. Master always allowed him to sell them.
  • Level of description
    item