Notes and Queries for Worcestershire

by John Noake

Crime.

From the earliest period to which the county rolls refer, the constables and churchwardens were charged to present in the Sessions all persons who regularly absented themselves from the service of the church and would not receive the sacrament, all innkeepers who made charges above the scale allowed, all tipplers and houses where tippling was allowed during divine service, to report whether due watch and ward was kept and all vagabonds duly punished; besides a variety of other returns. The beerhouse nuisance was even at that time the most fertile generator of crime. In 1602 one Edward Pearce was charged for that, "in November last past, he with one other of his companions were eatinge of fresherings with two women in an alehouse in Inkberrow, and when they had done, Pearce went to his chamber and did set a candle lighted in his window, and when he returned he said that he had done as the scollers in Oxforde did when they meant to doe aney exployt, to light a candle, that they might be thought to be at their book; and thereupon he and his companion in the night went abroade into the field with the two women very suspiciously;" it was also alleged that they set some corn on fire, and "riotously drew drink in kettles and drank it with apples;" and that Pearce drank so long and so hard that a catastrophe occurred which cannot be mentioned here; lastly, that about the same time he went into an alehouse and called for drink, and because the landlady did not make haste he laid her on the fire. A memorial signed by nineteen inhabitants of Bayton was sent to the Sessions in the year 1612, setting forth "that John Kempster and Thomas Byrd do not sell their ale according to the law, but doe sell a pynte for a penny, and doe make ytt soe extraordynarye strong that itt draweth dyvers ydle p'sons into the said alehouses, by reason whereof sondrye assaults, affrayes, blodshedds, and other misdeameanors, are there daylie comytted by idle and dronken companie which doe thither resort and there contyneue in their dronckenes three dayes and three nights together, and also divers men's sonnes and servants do often resort and contineue drinking in the said houses day and night, whereupon divers disorders and abuses are offered to the inhabitants of Bayton aforesaid, as in pulling down styles, in carrying away of yertes, in throwing men's waynes, plowes, and such like things, into pooles, wells, and other bye places, and in putting their yokes for their oxen into lakes and myery places," &c. A nice picture of young England in the seventeenth century. In the same year (1612) Henry Cartlage was presented "for hanging a pair of horns at the door of Kenelm Gritt, at Bromsgrove, insinuating that he was a cuckold," and for other bad actions. It was a very general custom in the middle ages to signalize the unhappy husbands of false women by means of horns. The origin of the custom has always been a matter of dispute. In an old ballad, called "The Merry Humours of Horn Fair," are these lines:

"The parson's wife rides with the miller;
She said, I hate horns I do declare,
Yet happy are the men who wear them,
My husband he shall have a pair."

The Corn Market in Worcester was the usual scene for whipping and using the pillory, as well for county as city prisoners, and from twelve to two o'clock on the market day (Saturday) the time generally chosen, for the sake of publicity. Mary and Elizabeth Squire, alias Skamp (!) were ordered to be whipped there in 1710; and the regular instructions, for women as well as men, were "to be whipped on their backs till they be bloody." On some occasions these floggings took place through the streets, as in 1732, when John Potter was "whipt at the cart's tail from College gate to the liberty-post in the Foregate Street," for a felony. This liberty-post stood at the north east corner of Salt Lane. At other times they were whipped from the bridge to the liberty-post in St. John's. On October 7th of the same year it was "ordered that the sentence passed on Richard Baylis, John Lawer, and Edward Jones, touching their being as this day putt in the pillory, be respited till next Saturday, the Corporation of the city of Worcester having taken down the pillery, and there being not time to get one erected to putt them in the pillery this day." In 1765 two guineas were paid to Mr. Baxter, the Under Sheriff, for erecting a pillory; and in 1797, Thomas Wilkinson was sentenced to the pillory in the Corn Market "for obtaining 4s. from John Waterson, miller, of Salwarpe, on pretence that he was an inspector for printing the prices of grinding in the said mill."

At Bromsgrove, men and women were whipt in the market place; and at Upton, from the bridge to the turnpike gate leading from thence to Gloucester. At the latter town, in 1737, John Willoughby and Adam Cook were presented for removing and carrying away the prison house or gaol belonging to the town! The circumstances of this very singular charge are not detailed, but the presentment was quashed.