Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    QSR1842/3/5/37/a
  • Title
    Deposition of Henry Mason - Samuel Tompkins
  • Date free text
    24 May 1842
  • Production date
    From: 1842 To: 1842
  • Scope and Content
    Henry Mason - he is nearly 13 years of age. His father Robert Mason is a police officer on the London and Birmingham Railway stationed at Chelsea. Yesterday 24 May he was going to school at about 2pm in company with James Goodall and 2 others. When he reached North End in Leighton he saw a sovereign laying in the High Road. He picked it up. He then saw Samuel Tompkins coming down the road. Thomas Claridge told Tompkins he had found a sovereign and asked Tompkins if it was a good one. Claridge asked him [Mason] to let Tompkins look at it. He held it in his hand and at first refused to let Tompkins have it. Tompkins said "Honour bright I don't want it". He then let Tompkins take it out of his hand. Tompkins said "it is only a bright farthing", put it in his pocket and walked away. He later met Tompkins coming back again and threatened to tell his father if he did not give him the sovereign. Tompkins then gave him a shilling saying he ought to be very well satisfied, that he had lost it and had been looking for it all the afternoon. James Goodall was with him all the time. Tompkins did not ask him if he had found a sovereign until after Claridge had told him he had. Tompkins did not say then that he had lost a sovereign. Henry Mason repeals his previous evidence and says - he wiped the sovereign before he jinked it on a stone. It was 2 or 3 minutes before Tompkins came to them. Tompkins went away with the sovereign and he followed him. Tompkins turned back and it was then he said he had lost a sovereign and gave him a shilling. Thomas Claridge and Goodall were with him all the time. Tompkins never asked him to look for a sovereign. He is sure Tompkins was not near the place when they went towards it. [First part of depositions of Henry Mason retaken and 2nd part taken in presence of Samuel Tompkins on 27 May]
  • Level of description
    item
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