Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    QSR1842/3/5/18-19/a
  • Title
    Depositions - Sarah Houghton and Martha Houghton, charged with stealing a pair of shoes from John Goddard of St Paul Bedford
  • Date free text
    7 May 1842
  • Production date
    From: 1842 To: 1842
  • Scope and Content
    John Goddard of St Paul Bedford, shoemaker - on Saturday April 30th the prisoners came to his shop. Martha Houghton asked to look at some shoes. He had none that suited them so he took an order and measured Sarah Houghton for a pair to be done by today. Immediately after they left the shop he missed a pair of seal patent enamelled slippers. He saw them less than 1/4 hour before they came into the shop. The only person to come into the shop after the prisoners left was a Mrs Garry of Little Staughton. She did not come to purchase shoes. About 1/2 hour after he missed the shoes he went up the street to look for the prisoners. When he found them he set a person to watch them to see where they went while he went for Mr Coombs, who then took them into custody. He is quite sure that only two people came to his shop from the time he saw the shoes in the window until the time he missed them - Mrs Garry and William Foskett, a neighbour. The slippers produced by Mr Coombs are the ones he lost. He made them himself. Martha Houghton was there the whole time he was measuring Sarah Houghton. No one else came into the shop while he was measuring her. James Lovell of Wilden, carrier - he rents a little land and sometimes when he comes to Bedford he carries things home for his neighbours. He was at Bedford the previous Saturday. He knows Sarah Houghton. On that day she gave him the pair of shoes now produced to take to his house at Wilden until she called for them. He marked each shoe with a cross across the foot. She gave them to him at the Fleur de Lis. He did not see anyone else with her. He kept the shoes until last Tuesday when he gave them up to Mr Coombs. William Coombs, chief constable of the Borough of Bedford - from information received from Mr Goddard last Saturday he went to look for the prisoners. He found them at a shoemaker's stall in the market. Martha Houghton the mother was carrying a basket. He asked Martha Houghton if she had been in Mr Goddard's shop. She said she had. He then asked to look in her basket. Sarah Houghton said "that is not your basket that girl [pointing to another girl in the market] has got your basket". He left them and followed the person pointed out. He lost sight of the prisoners for about 10 minutes. They had time in the interval to go to the place where the carrier has stated they delivered the shoes to him. From information he received last Tuesday he went to James Lovell's at Wilden and received the pair of slippers he now produces from him. Mr Goddard identified them as his property.
  • Level of description
    item
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