QSR1863/2/5/1

Depositions of Thomas Askew, shoemaker of Odell. Thomas Cooke, police constable of Harrold. Elizabeth Cryer, spinster of Wellingborough. Mary Ann Foskett, spinster of Odell. In the case of Ezra Foskett accused of stealing a coat and a cotton handkerchief.

17 March 1863

From: 1863 To: 1863

Thomas Askew: on the afternoon of 1 March he was going to Harrold from Odell and had on his great coat. He did not like walking in it and took it off and tied it up in a cotton handkerchief. He put it in the rack in a hovel belonging to Mr George Kendall of Odell. The hovel stood in a field in his occupation near the road between Great Odell and Little Odell. He went to Harrold. He was alone. He returned after about an hour and his coat had gone. He enquired about it and told all his friends. On 4 March the coat and handkerchief were brought to him at his father’s house by Mary Ann Foskett, the sister of Ezra Foskett. He knew it to be his property. The coat was worth 16 shillings and the handkerchief 2 pence. He did not take the coat to the policeman, the policeman came for it and he did not instruct the police to take the prisoner. PC Thomas Cooke: from information received on 3 March, he made enquiries after the coat. He went to Mr Arthur Cryer’s at Wellingborough. He found the coat had been pledged there the day before for 6 shillings by a young man by the name of Foskett. He met the prisoner in Wellingborough and asked him what had become of the coat he had pawned the day before. The prisoner denied the coat. He told the prisoner he knew he had pawned the coat and got it out again the same evening. He took the prisoner into custody. As they were walking together to the pawnbrokers; the prisoner said “there will be nothing said about it will there?” He told the prisoner the man wanted his coat and he replied the man had got it. The prisoner said he had pawned it the day before and when he got home he found whose it was and returned to Wellingborough and took it out of pawn. The prisoner agreed to meet his father on the road the following morning and gave him the coat with instructions to take it back to the owner. On Wednesday he collected the coat from Thomas Askew. Elizabeth Cryer: she assisted her father on Tuesday 3 March in his business at the pawnbrokers. A man, the prisoner, brought a handkerchief and coat and offered them for pawn. She did not recollect the sum given on them. She saw the prisoner in custody the next day and knew it to be the same man. Mary Ann Foskett: Mrs Askew came to the house and enquired about the coat and whether her brother knew anything about it. She said that he was away from home but she said she would speak to him when he came home. She did so and her brother said he had taken the coat to Wellingborough and that he would fetch it. She received the coat and handkerchief from her father and took it to Askew’s and he said that there were his. She left them with Askew. Statement of the accused: nothing to say.

item

Foskett, Ezra,
Askew, Thomas,
Cooke, Thomas,
Cryer, Elizabeth,
Foskett, Mary Ann

ODELL, HARROLD, Wellingborough, stealing, handkerchief, coat, shoemaker