Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    QSR1841/1/5/29/a
  • Title
    Depositions of Joseph Kennings and Thomas Armstrong - Thomas Yerrell charged with housebreaking
  • Date free text
    23 December 1840
  • Production date
    From: 1840 To: 1841
  • Scope and Content
    Joseph Kennings of Harpur Street, St Paul Bedford, collar maker - Yerrell was his servant. He hired him on 17 November to lodge and board in his house. Yerrell was in his service until Sunday evening 6 December when he left saying he was going to Church. He followed a few minutes later after doing all his downstairs doors and windows. The window of his bedroom upstairs is a sliding window which was closed but not fastened. He locked the outer door himself and went to Church leaving no one in the house. When he arrived he saw Yerrell standing at the Church door. He went in leaving Yerrell still standing there. He did not see him again until the previous night. When he got home he unlocked the door. Reaching for his matches to make a light he realised they had been moved since he left. He found the drawer of a square table in which he used to keep money standing empty on the table with about 6 or 7s in coppers missing. The cupboard door was open and a cooked leg of mutton, part of a plumb cake and a dumpling missing. He found the kitchen window open, with no marks of violence about it. A tea caddy which had been in the front room was in the back kitchen. He found part of a pair of snuffers broken in it in an attempt to break the lock, and pieces clipped off in an attempt to break it open, but it was not open. Upstairs all the drawers but one were open. He missed some silk handkerchiefs, he thinks at least 8. He lost a new twig whip out of his shop. The upstairs windows were all shut but he saw a ladder standing against the sliding window of his bedroom. The back door from his shop to his yard was open. His yard gate which he kept locked stood open and the key which he left hanging in his shop when he went to Church was in the lock of the gate. The next morning he missed his donkey from a close which he occupies in the parish of St Cuthbert on the Goldington Road where it had been staked the previous afternoon. He missed a bridle from the hovel in the close. On December 19 he missed a spade from the same hovel. On the morning of 16 December he found his donkey and bridle at the Three Tuns, Eaton Socon - he heard it was there. George Richardson of Goldington brought him the spade the previous night. The bag now produced by Beech the constable he believes to be his property, but he had not missed it until then. He went to his cottage in the close where he usually kept such backs and one was missing. Thomas Yerrell said in response - "He has said more things in money and the handkerchiefs - nothing else - than I taken. I know I am guilty and will tell all about it - but I don't wish to ask him any questions". Thomas Armstrong of Goldington, labourer - he bought the spade from Yerrell the previous Saturday at Putnoe in the parish of Goldington for a shilling. Yerrell said he had had no work for nearly a month and was "quite broke down and in distress".
  • Level of description
    item
Hierarchy browser