QSR1842/3/5/8/a

Depositions of John Evans and William Coombs - Charles Morris charged with stealing from John Evans

9 April 1842

From: 1842 To: 1842

John Evans of Pilcroft Street, St Mary Bedford, baker - Charles Morris entered his service as a journeyman baker on Monday 28 March. Morris had helped him once or twice before. Since Morris had been in his service he often noticed his pockets sticking out when he went home, but not when he came to work. Since he had noticed the sticking out pockets, when Morris had taken off his coat for work he had looked into Morris's pockets and found there had been flour in them. The previous morning he saw Morris's frock coat lying under the dough trough in his bakehouse covered over with a sack. As he was suspicious he sent Morris out to give him the opportunity to search his coat. He found a quantity of flour in each pocket. This was in the morning before breakfast. in the evening about 7pm he found Morris coat again in the same place, searched it and again found flour in each pocket. He then gave information to Mr Coombs the chief constable. He first missed some flour from his trough the previous Wednesday morning. Since that time there had been too much flour in the trough for him to miss any. On Monday April 4 he missed 3 sacks marked HIPWELL & SON on one side and STOKE MILLS on the other. Messrs Hipwell & Son are millers at Stoke Mills and supply him with flour. The sacks in which flour is delivered to him remain until more flour is delivered when the empty sacks are returned. He has no doubt the 3 sacks produced by the constable are the three he missed but cannot swear to them as Messrs Hipwell have so many the same. On Tuesday April 5 he missed a sack marked J. CRISP in which flour had been delivered to him. Mr Crisp's name is on one side and CLAPHAM where he lives is on the other. After the prisoner was apprehended the previous night he went with Mr Coombs to Morris's house in Tower Court Gravel Lane. Mr Coombs searched the house in his presence. They found one of the sacks marked Kipwell & Son on the floor of the bedroom, another nailed to a child's bedstead, and the third to another bedstead in the same room, nailed and laced as sacking usually is on a bedstead. The bedstead was very rough as if not made by a carpenter. A sack marked Crisp was nailed to the head of the same bed. They found about a pottle and a half of flour in a bag in a cupboard below stairs. The bag is not his - it is marked with Mr Hilyard's name. The flour is of the same kind as his but he cannot swear to it. They also found about half a bushel of the same sort of flour in another bag in the bedroom. He knows nothing of that bag. The sack now produced with the name of Crisp on it is not the sack which he missed. The sack he missed was very ragged at the top. William Coombs, chief constable of Bedford - from information received from John Evans he met Morris the previous night in Pilcroft Street. He checked his pockets and thought he had flour in them. Morris was then going away from his master's. He took Morris back to his master's, searched him and took from his coat pockets 2 bags of flour. He then took him away to put him in the cage, telling Morris it was on suspicion of stealing flour. Morris said he had stolen no flour - it was ordered to take home. He then went with Evans to Morris's house in Tower Court in St Paul's. He found a bag of flour marked B. Hilyard in the cupboard. He then went upstairs and found another bag of flour which the woman who lives with Morris tried to conceal. On a child's bedstead in that room he found a sack marked HIPWELL & SON nailed to the bedstead. On a larger bedstead in the same room he found another sack marked the same way nailed and corded to the bedstead, and another sack marked the same lying on the floor. On the larger bedstead another sack marked J CRISP was nailed and corded. The bedsteads appeared to be recently made, from different sorts of old wood such as railings made in a very rough manner and not by a carpenter. The sacks had been recently nailed on as the nails were new. He found carpenter's tools of different kinds about the house and fresh shavings upstairs. He found two other sacks cut open on the larger bed marked B HILYARD and in the upper room in the garret he found 3 or 4 sacks cut open and sewn together forming a bed tick. Some of them are marked HILYARD. The three sacks now produced with the name of Hipwell & Son on them are the ones he found in the prisoner's house. The small bag now produced is marked I x E No 5. He took it out of Morris's left hand coat pocket after he apprehended him and took him back to his master's. From the other coat pocket he took the other small bag with no marks on it. John Evans - the small bag marked I x E No 5 is his property. It was in the prisoner's coat pocket when he searched it the previous evening with flour in it. The other bag was in Morris's other coat pocket and he knows nothing of it. He sold the prisoner 1/2 a quartern of flour on the previous Tuesday and allowed Morris to take it away in one of his bags. He had sold Morris no flour since. When he searched Morris's pockets the previous morning and found flour he did not notice the bag.

item

Morris, Charles,
Evans, John,
Coombs, William,
Crisp, J,
Hilyard, B

stealing, flour, baker, Journeyman, Hipwell & Sons, millers, BROMHAM, Bedford St.Mary, Bedford Pilcroft Street, Bedford Tower Court