CRIME IN PAST TIMES

Rough justice for a fire raiser

Justice was swift and severe in the 19th century particularly in cases where property was involved because the magistrates who handed out punishment from the bench were invariably the landed gentry or wealthy farmers who were anxious to protect what they had and send a warning to the populace that theft and criminal damage would not be tolerated and offenders rigorously dealt with.

So it was that a young man from Cawthorpe, near Bourne, Amos Gilbert, a farm labourer, aged 25, found himself arraigned before Lincolnshire Assizes in the summer of 1832 accused of arson, or incendiarism as it was known, setting fire to hay and straw stacks belonging to his employer, farmer William Hardwicke, at the village of Dyke, a mile north of the town.

Gilbert, a married man with an 18-months-old daughter, was unable to read or write. He was described as being dark with a ruddy complexion, brown hair, brown eyes and had a deformed right hand.

The offence had actually taken place almost two years previously in December 1830 and rewards had been offered for the apprehension of the culprits of the midnight blaze, £500 by the Lords Commissioner of His Majesty's Treasury and 20 guineas each by the Bourne Association for Prosecuting Felons and Mr Hardwicke himself.

There was no immediate response but a year later Amos Gilbert was apprehended and charged with the offence when it transpired that he had an accomplice, his brother-in-law John Whitehead, a farm labourer who also worked for Mr Hardwicke, but he had disappeared. Then on 6th April 1932, the Stamford Mercury reported that Whitehead had deserted his wife twelve months before.

The report went on: “He is about 30 years of age, a thin person, about five feet seven inches high, thin visage, light brown hair, one of his feet clubbed and the other turns inwards. After he had absconded, it was reported that he was gone to East Norton, Leicestershire, and there died but this has lately been ascertained to be false.”

A reward was offered for Whitehead's apprehension and Gilbert was committed to Lincoln Castle to take his trial at the next assizes where he appeared on Thursday 19th July 1832. The court was told that he had confessed to setting fire to the hay and straw stacks at Dyke and he was found guilty of arson and sentenced to be executed.

The severity of the sentence caused an outcry in the county but when the date for his execution on the walls of Lincoln Castle was fixed for Friday 17th August it seemed that little could be done. But a petition was raised urging clemency signed by the prosecutor, the Mayor of Lincoln, William Wrigglesworth and 760 other people, and this was handed in at the next Lincoln Sessions where it was also supported by the jury, all of whom were farmers.

It was argued that Gilbert had been urged on to commit the crime by Whitehead and their wives who thought that their wages might be raised if they terrorised the farmer. The stacks were not close to any buildings and he moved the stock before starting the fire and had later confessed to his part in the action. “Whitehead lit the stack”, said the plea. “Gilbert does not realise the enormity of his actions and is of weak intellect. He has committed no previous crime and bears no malice and the countryside has been free from incendiarism since 1830 when the crime was committed.”

After the decision had been reached, the Stamford Mercury reported: “The case is deserving of the royal mercy inasmuch as no ferocious disposition was manifested by the prisoner. On the contrary, when the flames broke out he set at liberty the stock and it is a matter of doubt whether he with the animus which constitutes crime did set fire to the stack or was only the ignorant and feeble-minded tool of a more artful fellow. Powerful intercession has been made for this poor creature and there is a hope that the public will be spared the pain of seeing human life sacrificed in this case under the mistaken system of punishments.”

The death penalty on Amos Gilbert was therefore commuted to transportation for life and the court ordered him to be removed from Lincoln Castle where he was imprisoned to be delivered to one of the convict hulks until passage on a ship to one of the penal colonies could be arranged.

The hulks were notorious in England at that time, immortalised by the Victorian writer Charles Dickens in his novel Great Expectations, old navy ships anchored along the banks of the River Thames which were used as gaols, a system authorised by Parliament for a two year period in 1776 but continued to house prisoners for the next 80 years.

The appalling conditions were far worse than in the prisons and the standards of hygiene so poor that outbreaks of disease spread quickly with typhoid and cholera so common that the death rate among prisoners was high. During the day, convicts were put to hard labour on the docks or dredging the Thames and at night they were chained to their bunks to prevent them escaping ashore while crimes on board were punished by being placed in heavy irons or flogging.

This was the fate that awaited Amos Gilbert and nine other prisoners from Lincoln Castle who were sent to the Retribution hulk at Sheerness as part of their incarceration, in the words of the court, “for all the term of their natural lives”. John Whitehead, his accomplice in crime, was never found.

But the ordeal of Amos Gilbert was not yet over and on 4th February 1833 he was among the 230 convicts herded aboard the 536-ton sailing shop Asia bound for New South Wales with a military guard from the 21st Fusiliers Regiment, a voyage that was to take many weeks of hardship, hunger and deprivation with little hope for the future when he arrived.

Seventy-three of the convicts on board were serving life sentences and fifteen were boys under the age of 16. Ten of the prisoners had died by the time the ship arrived at Port Jackson on 27th June 1833, the voyage having taken 126 days but the convicts remained on board for a further 21 days until documentation had been completed and they finally landed on Monday 15th July 1833.

Amos Gilbert must have been a model prisoner because eleven years later, on 9th September 1841, he was granted a ticket of leave passport, a document of parole issued after a period of good behaviour which could be shown on demand to prove that they could be trusted. Seven years later he was recommended for a conditional pardon which was granted on 1st September 1848 with the stipulation that he did not return to England.

He therefore remained in Australia to begin a new life and settled in the Young area of New South Wales, a small town the size of Bourne with a predominantly agricultural economy, where he died on 3rd August 1872, aged 66.

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