More Crime & Punishment in the News

CREWE CHRONICLE
SATURDAY 2ND OCTOBER 1875

A WARRINGTON FARMER ASSAULTING HIS WIFE –

Samuel Stretch was charged at the County Police court, Warrington, on Wednesday, with assaulting his wife.
From the evidence it appeared that the defendant, a well-to-do farmer, at Croft, near Warrington, had been drinking heavily for the last two years, and had lately turned his wife out, causing her to sleep in outhouses.

​Dr. Spinks and Dr. Fox stated that the defendant was not in a fit state to be able to plead. If he did not change his mode of life, softening of the brain would ensue.
Ultimately, the prosecution withdrew the charge on the above plea, defendant in the meantime to be taken charge of by his friends.

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LEIGH JOURNAL AND TIMES
SATURDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER 1877

OVERCROWDING AT CULCHETH –

On Monday, at the Leigh Petty Sessions, Thomas Larney appeared to a summons charging him with overcrowding at Fowley Common, Culcheth.

Mr. Hamilton, inspector of the Leigh Rural Sanitary Authority, deposed that he visited the defendant’s house on the 24th ult., finding in a bedroom, containing only 936 cubic feet of air space, the defendant, his wife, and four children. In the next room, containing 812 feet of air space, there were seven men lodgers.

On the 9th inst., at a quarter past eleven at night he found eight men in the last named room, and as he entered a ninth was making his exit through the window.
The stench in the place was unbearable, there being no room in the house for lodgers.
The Bench inflicted a fine of 21s. and costs, or one month in default, and ordered that no lodgers be kept hereafter.
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James Marsh was summoned under the Nuisance Removal Act, a petty and two pigstyes being built against his property at Fowley Common.
The Bench made an order for the immediate abatement of the nuisance.

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LIVERPOOL ECHO
WEDNESDAY 3RD AUGUST 1892

PRESENTATION OF WHITE GLOVES AT WARRINGTON

Today is the date for the Warrington County Petty Sessions. The magistrates were Mr. John Crosfield (in the chair) and Mr. J. J. Bleekly.

The Magistrates Clerk (Mr. Henry Greenall) said that there were no cases to be heard, and it gave him great pleasure to present the chairman with a pair of white kid gloves.

Mr. Crosfield, in reply, thanked Mr. Greenall, and said that he was very pleased that Warrington and the surrounding district were in such an excellent condition, and he hoped that there would be no more cases for the next twelve months.

Mr. Bleekly also congratulated Mr. Crosfield. Mr. Crosfield said he did not think this had ever happened to borough magistrates. Police Constable Chantler, of the Warrington borough police force, said that he never remembered such an occasion. – The borough magistrates sit six days in the week unless, as sometimes happens, there are no cases to be dealt with. The county magistrates sit the first and third Wednesdays in the month, and exercise a jurisdiction over the following townships: - Warrington (extra-municipal), Poulton, Rixton with Glazebrook, Southworth with Croft, Houghton, Culcheth, Cuerdly, Penketh, Sankey and Burtonwood.

White Gloves with a Judge's Gavel

For over 800 years, the King's and Queen's Judges have been sent on circuit from London to each of the counties to try serious crime.  Criminal Justice was at that time and for many centuries after very cruel and barbaric. 

Many crimes however minor they seem today were punishable by death.  On the few occasions the judges didn’t have to sentence the defendant to death, the sheriff of the county presented judges with a pair of white gloves as a symbol of the purity of the county.

​As our Criminal law became much less cruel and death as a sentence much less common during the 19th century the custom was adapted so judges were only presented with White gloves if there was no serious crime at all.