Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

William Bennett, a bookkeeper, was arrested and charged with three offences of taking money from his employer, was tried by jury and sentenced to seven months in prison with hard labour. The sentence was given on 19 May 1851.

Can any of our experts in prison matters suggest whether he would have been sent to the Borough Gaol in Gt Howard Street or to Kirkdale Gaol? Or elsewhere? Are there any records available?

[I am not suggesting that anyone has first-hand knowledge...]

Thanks
Daggers

Have you got your information from the Criminal Records on Ancestry or from the newspapers? Just so we don't duplicate where we are checking.

Reading various mentions online it looks like Great Howard Street as the Borough Gaol (later replaced by Walton Gaol) only had prisoners from the Borough of Liverpool while Kirkdale had prisoners from Liverpool and elsewhere in southern Lancashire. Looking at the 1851 census Great Howard Street was still being used so he could have been sent to either prison. Here is information about Kirkdale Gaol:-

http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/kirkdalegaol.html


Blue

Thanks to you both.
Mary: The information came from Lpool RO, ref 347QUA quarter sessions records. The trail goes cold after sentencing.
Blue: Thanks for that information. Will follow up on it.

Sorry for delay.

D

That's a lot of money for the times!! Perhaps he paid off a gaoler with proceeds from his previous crimes and absconded as I can't find any mention of him on the criminal register on FMP which usually comes up trumps......

Thank you for the extra snippet.
D

My ancestor John Trevaskiss (Father of my Pirate ) was tried for Dept and Sent to Lancaster Gaol

GEORGE HIGHTON wrote:My ancestor John Trevaskiss (Father of my Pirate ) was tried for Dept and Sent to Lancaster Gaol

That's where the prisoners from all over Lancashire were sent before towns starting building their own prisons.

You should do a tour of Lancaster Castle/Gaol very interesting it is too.

Thanks very much daggers for posting on my behalf. I have now joined the Forum so can reply myself! Thanks BarbaraW for the newspaper report, which I had not seen. You are correct that after he went into prison ( and IF he went into prison), there is absolutely no paper trail I can find for him subsequently. He is my 3xg grandfather. His wife refers to herself as 'married' on censuses up to 1881, but I cannot find him anywhere on 1861, 1871 1881 or after. Bit of a mystery really.

I wonder if he changed his name or skipped the country to avoid the shame and embarrasment caused to his family?

Yes, who knows? When his daughter years later got married in Liverpool the groom's father is mentioned in the newspaper announcement, but she is just down as 'of this town' with no mention of William Bennett as being her father. I have been wondering how he would have got along in prison doing 7 months hard labour, given he was not used to manual work, and am open to suggestions I am coming to think he was in the Borough Gaol rather than Kirkdale, having looked at the Kirkdale chaplain's records recently.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Have you ever watched some of these Who Do You Think You Are series? Trying to think which one, but it won't come to me, but one in particular had an ancestor who was remanded on a number of occasions, I believe all for quite short periods, and "hard labour" was described in a number of ways. One would have been breaking up stones, for no apparent reason, another was a treadmill that was tightened up every so often so that it became ever increasingly harder to work, and another was similar, worked by stepping but on a waterwheel.

All sounded very hard work.

It must have been tough if the heaviest thing you'd ever lifted previously was a pen!!

http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/page11362-t ... abour.html

Thanks Barbara. I promise I will be very good.

Sorry Barbara, I forgot to ask which paper the snippet was from? According to measuringworth.com £300 would buy around £30,000 worth of goods these days. No wonder he was "well-attired"!

Luckily I always save newspaper snippets by using the newspaper and date as the "save as" phew!!

Liverpool Mail, 17 May 1851