Crime

In this section:

Crime and punishment in the 17th and 18th centuries

The Essex Records Office has hundreds of reports of criminal trials involving people from Hempstead during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. 

This doesn’t suggest that Hempstead was any more lawless than other villages. Search on a different village and you will find the same pattern.  Nor does it imply that there was no crime before 1600. However, record keeping in earlier centuries was less systematic and many minor offences were dealt with summarily by a justice or in the community.

The Quarter Sessions – so named because they were held in the county town on four set occasions each year – dealt with most of the crimes which could not be tried summarily.  However, more serious offences potentially subject to capital punishment were referred to periodic Assizes.

Broadly speaking, crimes coming before the Quarter Sessions or Assizes can be classified as crimes against the person, crimes against property and crimes against the state.   This last group can encompass anything from a minor breach of licensing laws, all the way up to preaching sedition or heresy.

Other than treason, heresy and serious offences against the person such as murder and rape, crimes against property were probably taken the most seriously.  From the mid sixteenth century, grand larceny – (defined as the theft of goods worth more than one shilling) attracted a sentence of hanging, as did highway robbery.  It is estimated that 75% of all hangings in Elizabethan England were for theft. 

Here are a few cases, chosen from the Essex archive, in which Hempstead people fell foul of the law.

Parish matters

The first is a familiar story.

At the Easter Sessions, 1608, it was held that “the highway in Hempstead, Radwinter and Walden leading from Walden to Steeple Bumpstead is very dangerous and unrepaired, and that the inhabitants of Hempstead, Radwinter and Walden ought to repair it.”  Hempstead inhabitants were fined 12d.  Radwinter was discharged without a fine being paid.

Illicit or poorly controlled drinking was a regular source of problems.

The Quarter Sessions of Epiphany 1615 heard that, on 26 November past, Robert Horner tailor and John Lagden husbandman, both of Hempstead, had “continued drinking above an hour together in the house of John Helgate,  alehousekeeper there”.  Holgate was charged that he did “wilfully maintain and suffer them to continue drinking, and sold less than a quart of beer for a penny”.   Similar indictments were brought for offences in 18 and 26 December. 

if thou were not a constable I would pull off thy beard and wipe my taile with it

The witness in the last case was another constable, John Coe. At the same sessions, Samuel Westley of Hempstead was indicted for insulting Coe on 28 October, calling him a “foole and old gray bearded knave” and saying “if thou were not a constable I would pull off thy beard and wipe my taile with it”

Thefts

The first pair of cases below involve items valued below the crucial threshold of one shilling.  Given the difference in severity of punishment, it is likely that the authorities had either formed a view about whom they wished to see hanged, or at least took a conservative view of the value of the theft

On 19 September 1617, John Jones, a labourer of Hempstead, confessed at the Quarter Sessions to stealing a grey riding coat there worth 10d. belonging to Robert Locket.   The sentence is not recorded but there is a note that this was treated as ‘petty larceny’.

Thomas Harvey, a labourer of Hempstead, was accused at the Quarter Sessions of Easter 1674 of stealing there two “peaces of lynnen cloath” worth 6d. belonging to Thomas Bangs gentleman.  He was found guilty and sentenced to be whipped.

The next group of cases shows that the mediaeval system of ‘benefit of clergy’ was still in operation.  A defendant could ask to prove their literacy by reading a passage from the Bible (in earlier times it had to be memorised).  If they succeeded, the verdict included the word “Reads” and would generally result in a lighter sentence such as branding instead of hanging.

Punishment for felons typically included the forfeiture of all their chattels.  When poorer people were accused of serious crime the verdict often reads “Guilty, no chattels”,  It isn’t clear whether this merely saved time in assessing them, or whether it attracted a harsher sentence as a result.

Richard Cowle of Hempstead, a  labourer, was indicted at the Assizes in Chelsford on 20 July 1613 for stealing three rams each worth 4s., ten white ewes worth 5s. and eight white lambs each worth 2s. 6d., belonging to Stephen Westley.   Although he pleaded not guilty;  the verdict was: guilty; read; branded

Richard Revell, a Hempstead labourer, was charged at the Essex Assizes in Witham  that, on 3 April 1635, between 1 and 2am, he broke into the house of William Ruggles and stole a hat worth 12d, a piece of cheese worth 2d, a piece of bacon worth 6d and “one veale pye” worth 8d.   He pleaded not guilty and although he was acquitted of the burglary element, he was still convicted of a felony because of the cumulative value of the items.  However, he escaped the noose: “read; branded”

Revell does not seem to have been deterred from stealing Mr Ruggles’s hat and supper by the fate that befell another Hempstead resident who burgled the same Mr Ruggles the year before.  However, Gowlett – the offender in that case – did not have the benefit of clergy to assist him.

At the Assizes in Chelmsford on 2 May 1618, Thomas Hills, a Hempstead labourer, was accused of breaking into the house of Francis Westley and stealing four cheeses worth 8s.

Hills pleaded not guilty but was convicted. He did not read and was hanged.

Personal violence

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In 1663, John Coe, a yeoman of Hempstead, was accused at the Midsummer Quarter Sessions of assaulting Joshua Allen at Great Sampford.  “Acknowledgeth and is fined 20s.”

In 1713, at the Midsummer Quarter Sessions, Richard Pettit of Hempstead yeoman was indicted on the grounds that he had “put away Edward Browne his servant, retained by him for a whole year, before the end of the year without any reasonable cause allowed by a justice.” Richard Bowlmer, a  gentleman, appeared as a witness.  Pettit pleaded not guilty: the verdict is not recorded.

Political crimes

Reuben Barker,  Hempstead’s blacksmith in the early part of Charles II’s reign, was unhappy with the Chimney Tax introduced by Parliament in 1662 to support the expenses of the Royal Household.   At Midsummer 1665, he was charged with “planning to disturb the government and to cause sedition among the King’s subjects” by speaking “these scandalous words, viz. that the chymney money was graunted for nothing mainetaine rogues and shaggs”.

Barker confessed to the crime,  His punishment – a fine of 13s and 4d (two thirds of a pound) needs to be seen in the context of what happened to the three Hempstead citizens who had bungled the matter of detaining him

Indictment. Whereas Thomas Mede, John Turner Esqs., directed a warrant to the constables of Hempstead, 17 June, for the arrest and carrying of Reuben Barker of the same, blacksmith, to Gaol, because he had refused to find sureties for his appearance at the next Quarter Sessions to answer for speaking dangerous (periculosa) words against the King, which warrant on the same day was delivered at Saffron Walden to John Coe, constable of Hempstead, who, 18 June, arrested Barker, and handed him over to John Allin shoemaker, John Westley tailor, and John Darcey labourer, all of the same, to carry Barker to Gaol, who had him in their custody at Hempstead that day for three hours but allowed him the same day to escape”,

Allin, Westley and Darcey pleaded guilty and were each fined 6s. 8d.!

Relations with other parishes

…..and she is thereby become a great charge to Haverhill

These three related cases tell an interesting story

In Midsummer 1700, three yeoman of Hempstead were summoned to the Quarter Sessions to answer for “combining to procure Mary Frogg of Hempstead, widow, she being one that takes alms and chargeable to their parish” to be married to John Slipper of Haverhill, Suffolk, labourer.

The effect of this would have been that the cost of supporting Mary passed from Hempstead to Haverhill.  At Midsummer the following year, Haverhill had another go:

“Recognizance of Jos. Horner, Samuel Smith and Robert Rutland, all of Hempstead yeoman; all to answer for their fraudulent causing and procuring a marriage to be made between John Slipper of Haverhill labourer and Mary Frogg of Hempstead widow, and she is thereby become a great charge to Haverhill.”

The case was sent for trial to the Essex Assizes, held at Brentwood 11 August 1701

“Indictment On 15 May 11 William III and for 2 years before that, Mary Frogg was a poor inhabitant of Bumpstead, non compos mentis and unable to work, etc., and was chargeable on the parish of aforesaid. Stephen Horner, Samuel Smith and Robert Rutland of Hempstead yeo, combining, induced John Slipper, a poor inhabitants of Haverhill, to marry the said Mary so that she became chargeable on that parish.”

All three were found not guilty.

And finally

In Midsummer 1664, Dorothy Bill of Hempstead, singlewoman, laid information before the Quarter Sessions that “she is with child and that Henry Badstone is the father and had the use of her body a fortnight before Christmas last and several times until Candlemas following, but not after Candlemas.”

The court heard that Henry Badstone denied that he ever had the use of her body.  The verdict is not recorded but one can only wonder what happened at Candlemas……

Where was Anser Gallows?

The first word in  Anser Gallows Farm (improbably suggesting a connection with geese, from the Latin anser) is at variance with the name of its location at Anso Corner.  However, passing over this etymological puzzle, the second word strongly suggests that this was a place of execution in past years.

Gerald Curtis dealt with this in his Story of the Sampfords.  He refers to a court record as documenting a hanging at Anser Gallows in 1567, and to a coroner’s report from the following year in which a suicide took advantage of the gallows by hanging himself there.   However, he points out that fifty years later in 1618, Thomas Hills of Hempstead (see above) was convicted of grand larceny and hanged at Chelmsford.  As it was a common practice for courts to order hangings to take place near the scene of the crime as a deterrent, Curtis takes this as evidence that Anser Gallows was no longer used by this date.

The precise location of the gallows is built on even shakier foundations.  Curtis states that “tradition has it that the gallows stood a few years west of the road junction, on the bank on the north side of the Radwinter road”  Assuming that he meant to write “north side”, this would place the gallows on the opposite side of the road from Anser Gallows farm and in the garden of what is now Apple Cottage, something which would undoubtedly delight the present owner, Chris Larlham.

However, this location does not accord with another piece of tradition reported by Curtis, which is that “the Anso vegetable garden below the bank and beside the road is the reputed burial ground of the fruit of the gallows tree.”

It seems more likely, therefore, that the gallows stood on the south side of the Radwinter road.   Curtis proposes a plausible theory to support this.   Since Saxon times, Hempstead has formed part of the Freshwell Hundred (a ‘hundred’ is an administrative area whose name still survives in the Chiltern Hundreds to which resigning MPs apply).  Its location at the geographical centre of the hundred (the other component villages stretch from Hadstock in the north west, Helions Hempstead in the north east and Bardfield Saling in the south east) makes it a logical choice of location for the Hundred Court.   

The name of the hundred is also significant.  The Freshwell is the name of the small stream which joins the Pant at Anser Gallows.  Why should the entire district be named after this obscure stream if it were not also a significant location?   And, Curtis argues, where better to erect a gallows than close to the meeting place of the court?

Some later crimes

The 1970s arson attacks

In the late 1970s, Hempstead was subjected to a series of arson attacks aimed at thatched houses.
Keith Coote, a local man, was eventually convicted and sent to Broadmoor.

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