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Date:January 10, 2019

Richard & Mary Shellaker

CHAPTER III

Arrest, Imprisonment and Death

RICHARD’S GRANDMOTHER JAILED
Four years after the 1851 Census, the year 1855 brought a startling event to impact upon Richard’s family as back in Tugby his paternal grandparents, William & Sarah Shellaker were charged and faced trial for a criminal offence.

Sarah Shellaker, who was 61 years old, is charged with two counts of theft; one for the theft of a Counterpane* for which she alone is charged and the second charge of the theft of a Napkin, jointly with husband William, who was 67 years old.

* A counterpane was another name for a bedspread or a quilt.

Both William and Sarah have the additional related charge of receiving stolen goods.

The couple are listed in a ‘Calendar of Prisoners’ for the County of Leicester for the Midsummer General Quarter Sessions held on the 2nd of July 1855 at the Castle at Leicester. 

William & Sarah endured a trial by Jury and before the local magistrate, John Dick Burnaby, Esq. The verdict – William Shellaker was acquitted of larceny (theft) and released. However his wife Sarah Shellaker was found guilty of the charge of larceny (theft) and was sentenced to….

“Imprisonment with hard labour, for 3 calendar months, in the County House of Correction, at Leicester

 

IMPRISONMENT
Details of the trial was reported in the local newspaper, The Leicestershire Mercury, a few days later on Saturday 7th July 1855.

Leicestershire Mercury - 7 July1855

LEICESTERSHIRE MERCURY SATURDAY JULY 7, 1855

NISI PRIUS COURT.
Before J.D.Burnaby, Esq.  PETTY JURY. – Messrs. John Weston (foreman), Job Woodcock, John Webb, Black Underwood, James Wright, John Toon,Timothy Summers, Wm.Smith, John Smith, Geo. Pittaway, Robt. Orchard, and Arthur Musson.
WEDNESDAY – Before J.D.Burnaby, Esq.

1855 - William & Sarah in CourtAN UNFORTUNATE DISCOVERY. – Sarah Shillaker and Wm Shillaker, two aged persons, were indicted, the former for stealing, and the latter for receiving, a counterpane the property of Wm. Shilcock, of Tugby. – Mr. Cockle prosecuted, and Mr. O’Brien defended prisoners. 

The robbery, it appeared, took place on the 1st March, 1854. The counterpane had been hung out to dry on a hedge in prosecutor’s garden, and it was forgotten till the following morning, when it was missing. Inquiry was made of Sarah Shillaker, who was then employed by Mrs. Shilcock, but said she knew nothing about it. On the 29th ult., it was discovered in a box in the prisoner’s house, and, before the magistrates, Sarah Shillaker accounted for its possession by saying she had found it in the path before her house. There being no evidence to show the male prisoner had any guilty knowledge of the article, he was acquitted. His wife was found guilty.

Another indictment, for stealing a towel, the property of the same party followed. Four towels had been missed after the funeral of Mrs. Shilcock’s child in July, 1854. On the 29th ult., on going to the prisoner’s house, she saw, upon a table, one of these towels converted into a table-cloth. She remarked, “What a nice table-cloth you have there, is it homespun?” Prisoner replied, “No, it was one of my husband’s mother’s.” Mrs. Shilcock then lifted up the corner of the cloth, and saw the initials. J.B., 12, upon it; having bought it at Mr. Bright’s sale at Skeffington. 

There being no evidence against Wm. Shellaker, he was again acquitted, and Sarah Shellaker was sentence to three months’ hard labour.

 

Sarah Shellaker was imprisoned in Welford Road Gaol in 1855THE COUNTY HOUSE OF CORRECTION, AT LEICESTER 
I have established the Gaol in which Richard’s grandmother was imprisoned – “the County House of Correction, at Leicester” – was Welford Road Prison, a building which still stands and remains in use, housing some of the country’s most dangerous criminals.

The prison was designed to resemble a castle, as can be seen from the picture on the right. The oldest parts of which date from 1825, and it was opened in 1828, around three decades prior to Sarah Shellaker‘s incarceration. In 1855 the prisoners held were both male and female, although the prison now holds men only.

We do not know the exact conditions Sarah Shellaker endured during those three months as no records from Welford Road Prison remain but there is no reason to believe conditions were any different from those endured by other women in the various gaols in Victorian England. All physically fit criminal prisoners had to work in their cells for up to ten hours a day. Female prisoners knitted stockings, carried out other sewing work or worked in a Laundry but as Sarah’s sentence was for 3 months ‘hard labour’ it is possible she picked oakum*.

Oakum is a preparation of tarred fibre used in shipbuilding in wooden vessels it was recycled from old ropes, which were painstakingly unravelled and teased apart into fibre into its individual fibres so that they could be used again – hence the saying “money for old rope”. The task of picking and preparation oakum was a common occupation in prisons and also in workhouses. Prisoners were expected to pick between 2 and 5 lbs of oakum each day.

Click on the link for comprehensive detail of William and Sarah trial and imprisonment

 

1855 – THE DEATH OF RICHARD’S GRANDFATHER WILLIAM 
At present I do not know if Sarah Shellaker served her full sentence of three 3 months in prison, but if she did, she would have been released during October 1855 in time to celebrate her 40th wedding anniversary which occurred on the 15th November 1855.

However 10 days after this anniversary her husband of forty years was dead.

On Sunday 25th November 1855 William Shellaker, the husband of Sarah Shellaker (née Esther) of Spittlegates, died at the age of 67 years.

He had outlived three of his children by a considerable amount of time; Mary who died as an infant nearly thirty years before in 1826, his son William who had died, also as an infant, around twenty years ago in 1834 and Mary Jane, who died in 1842 at the age of 14 years, some twelve years before William’s own death.

He was survived by his Widow Sarah, who at this time was 61 years old and by his son and only remaining child, Richard who had reached 25 years of age.

William Shellaker was buried in the churchyard in Tugby, alongside the graves of his three children.

 

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