QSR1836/3/5/27

Depositions and examination - Sarah Blows of Norton (Herts)

27 & 28 June 1836

From: 1836 To: 1836

John Howard of Stotfold, labourer – on Monday 4 April he was threshing in John Harris’s barn at Stotfold when between 9 and 10am he saw his master John Harris showing 2 fowls to William Plior. His master if he knew the light hail coloured hen he was holding up. He said he did because he had brought it up from a pullet. The hen was quite wet. He had swapped it with his master for a sitting hen. John Porter of Stotfold, labourer – on 4 April about 9am he was coming out of Stonehill field in the parish of Stotfold, coming up a lane called Mirehill lane. He saw Sarah Blows, Sarah Tansley and Elizabeth Gentle coming over a stile near the top of the lane. He saw Blows drop a light coloured hen which was dead. He looked at it and went on. After he had gone a little way he looked back and noticed that the fowl was gone. He saw Blows, Tansley and Gentle walking together down the lane. He watched them and when they got near the bottom of the lane they all went through the gap into a close. They went to the bottom of the close and went into the hedge. As soon as they had gone he went up to the hedge where he had seen them stop and found 2 hens, one of which he had seen Blows drop from the style. There is a brook close to the hedge and he took it out of the water. He put the fowls into his smock frock and carried them home. He then took them to John Harris of Stotfold who he heard had lost some fowls the day before. He gave the fowls to a young woman who was in Harris’s house and went to fetch the constable. Sarah Blows – on Easter Sunday morning (3 April) she came from Norton to see her cousins. She stopped all night as it was very rough. She stopped until about 9am when she had breakfasted the next morning and their garden takes her into some fields. She went along the footpath and her cousin Betsy Gentle and another young woman Sarah Tansley went part of the way with her. As they were going along the footpath they saw 2 hens lying in a ditch with a little grass over them. She picked them up and carried them a little distance. They did not know how they came into the ditch and did not know if they were eatable so she threw them away down by the side of a brook. She then went home to Norton. Her cousin and Elizabeth Gentle [sic] went a little further with her then left her.

item

Blows, Sarah,
Howard, John,
Harris, John,
Porter, John,
Gentle, Elizabeth,
Tansley, Sarah

STOTFOLD, Norton, Stotfold Mirehill Lane, Stotfold fields, stealing animals, fowls, hens, farm labourer, threshing