QSR1837/3/5/11

Depositions and examination - Thomas Williamson charged wtih stealing 2 fowls from James Walker and a basket from John Smart

12 May 1837

From: 1837 To: 1837

Sarah Smart wife of John Smart of kempston, labourer – she and her husband are employed by James Walker to look after a farm belonging to him in Kempston and they live there. She takes care of the poultry and her husband manages the farm. On Monday 8 May Williamson came to the farm house and said he had come for 2 fowls for Mr Walker of Box End. She said she though Mr Walker had some of his own and she only had fowls that lay. Williamsaon answered that he was to have two that laid. She asked if he knew what Mr Walker was going to do with them and he said he did not. Williamson said he had been working for Mr Walker for 2 days and said that morning Mr Walker had talked of sending him to ploug instead of Ike (meaning a boy named Isaac employed by Mr Walker). She asked him if he saw John (meaning her husband) at Box End and he said he had not. She asked if he was going to buy the two pullets from Mr Walker. He said he was not and that Mr Walker sent him for them and wanted him to make all the haste he could back. She asked what he had to put the fowls in. Williamson said Walker had said she would lend him a cloth and basket. She then went and caught 2 fowls, put them in a basket and gave them to Williamson. About 1pm that day Mr Walker came to the farm and he said he had not sent a boy for the pullets. On Wednesday morning she went to Mr John Allen’s who lives about 300 yards from Mr Walker’s and saw the 2 fowls there. She told Mr Allen she had owned her fowls. Last night she applied to Mr Allen’s servant for them but Mr Allen was from home and they were on the roost in the hen house which was locked so she could not have them. When Mr Allen returned he sent them. John Allen of Kempston, farmer – on Monday Wiliamson came to his yard gate and offered to sell him 2 fowls. Williamson said they belonged to his father who was very unwell, that he had been to the doctor’s at Bedford for him and had been all round Bedford trying to sell them. Williamson told him his father lived at Wootton near a farmhouse belonging to Mr Rolls. Williamson said the farmer would not let them kept them and threatened to shoot them so they were obliged to sell the fowls. Williamson asked for 18d each but he bought them for a shilling a piece. On Tuesday he heard Mr Walker had lost 2 fowls and last night he sent them to Walker’s farm. Sarah Smart had been and identified them as Mr Walker’s fowls. James Walker of Kempston, farmer – he resides at his farm at Box End, Kempston, and has another farm in the village where John Smart and his wife live. He does not employ Williamson and has never sent him for fowls. He believes Williamson assisted at the time of bean and pea setting at the beginning of the year. Philip Hill of Wootton, constable – from information received he applied to Thomas Lilley who keeps a beer shop at Kempston Wood End for a basket which Williamson had left in pawn last Monday. He saw Mrs Lilley. She said it was not in pawn, that her husband had taken it in payment for a pint of beer. When she showed the basket to Mrs Smart she claimed it as her property. Thomas Williamson - he was persuaded by 2 chaps named Jim Balls and Tom Burroway to do it. They told him what to say.

item

Williamson, Thomas,
Walker, James,
Smart, John,
Smart, Sarah,
Allen, John,
Hill, Philip,
Lilley, Thomas,
Balls, James,
Burroway, Thomas

KEMPSTON, Wood End Kempston, Kempston Box End, WOOTTON, stealing, stealing animals, fowls, farmer, constable, poultry, beer houses