QSR1838/2/5/2

Depositions and examination - John Hodsdon

15 March 1838

From: 1838 To: 1838

George Donaldson of Market Street, innkeeper - he keeps the Swan at Market Street. On 23 February at about 11pm he went into the yard and into a stable where Mr Goodyear’s horses are kept. There was a candle burning and the horses were uncovered but nobody was there. Hodsdon looks after Mr Goodyear’s horses. There is a door out of the passage joining the stable into his back yard. He asked his ostler if he barred that door. The ostler said he did, but it was open. He went to the first gate that goes into his garden and racked a footstep. He went up to the top his garden where a gate opens into the fields. He opened the gate part of the way but could not open it any further on account of a sack of corn on the outside. He put his lantern out and they stood there for ½ hour. He then went to fetch Henry Foster, Mr Goodyear’s nephew and foreman and left the ostler there to watch. He came back with Foster and they stood there for ¾ hour. He sent the ostler back to the horses as the man was gone. He said to Foster that they must have been seen, and as it was very wet they might as well take it in. He fetched the ostler with a light, put the corn on the ostler’s back and shut the gate. He found Hodsdon sitting on the ground in the garden with his back against the pales about 10 yards from the gate inside the garden. He said him “Jack you’ve done it at last”. Hodsdon said he knew nothing about it and did not bring it there. He told Hodsdon to come along but when they left the place he did not follow. Hodsdon did not come to work again the next morning and he had not seen him since. He opened the sack and found corn and chaff mixed and over half the sack full. Henry Foster – Donaldson’s evidence is true. The sack produced is the sack they found. He gave the sack out in the morning with corn in it to Thomas Allen who is one of Mr Goodyear’s horsekeepers. The custom is for the horsekeepers to take the corn to a loft in the [town?] to be mixed with chaff. John Hodsdon – he never touched the corn himself. Two men gave him some beer to throw it over, but how it came there he does not know. He was quite egged on. He found the corn up against the garden gate. Thomas Allen and William Ellingham came to him and asked him to do it. They gave him a part of 2 or 3 pots of beer to throw it over. Thomas Allen was to fetch it away. He never did any such thing before in his life. He does not know who was going to have it. Allen and Ellingham are both horsekeepers to Mr Goodyear.

item

Hodsdon, John,
Donaldson, George,
Foster, Henry,
Allen, Thomas,
Ellingham, William,
Goodyear

Market Street, stealing, corn, innkeeper, Markyate Street Swan, horses, ostler, horsekeeper, beer