Chapter 20

Courts, Crimes & the Police

As the centre of large estates and a seat of local government Cockermouth naturally became the location of a number of courts. These were held first in the castle, then later in the Moot Hall, the Court House, Grecian Villa (from 1954) but moved to Workington Magistrates Court (from 1979).

The exception was the Court of Audit, formed by the lords steward and the commissioners responsible for the management of the various manors, which remained in the castle. Its area of jurisdiction and purpose were described thus in 1777:

” … the barony of Cockermouth, and the several manors of the five towns, DelWent Fells, Braithwaite, Coldale, Westdale, Aspatric, Bolton and Westward. And all leases are there granted of all demesne lands, mills, mines, profits of fairs and markets; and all rents, fines, profits are paid in there by the bailiffs and tenants of the respective manors.” [I]

The ‘fines’ mentioned above, payable when property changed hands, have already been explained. Two instances from nine in the first nine months of 1898 [2] show how varied the amounts could be:

PERCY MANORS

In the Manor of Braithwaite & Coledale the Tenant  Jno. Wm. Postlethwaite – Fine Assessed on Death of Wm. Postlethwaite £15-0s-0d

WHARTON MANORS

In the Manor of Great Broughton the Tenant Thomas Dobie on the Event Admitted Surr of Robert Beattie the Amount of Fine Assessed is 1s 8d.

Cases of trespass, recovery of debts of up to 40s. and some grievances of tenants were the concern of the Court Baron, still to this day never officially abolished but in effect superseded by the County Court Act of 1867. This court, with a jury summoned by the steward and bailiff of the Borough, met every three weeks. In 1829 it was being held in the Buck Inn, [3] but this may have been an interim arrangement between the demolition of the Moot Hall and the opening of the Court House, for it was in the Court House soon after this date. There were, however, earlier occasions when an inn was used, as in this sample case from the Court Baron records:

“Holden at the House of John Mackreth Innholder of Cockermouth in and for the said Borough on Wednesday the Nineteenth Day of December in the Year of our Lord 1792 …

Daniel Satterthwaite Complains of John Thompson in a plea of Trespafs on the Case upon Promises To the Plaintiffs Damage of 39-11″ [4]

The castle archives contain the records of such cases from 1678 to 1857.

The Court Leet or Manor Court, active until the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1848, dealt with minor criminal offences, administering royal jurisdiction through delegation to the lord of the manor. We have given elsewhere examples of this court’s work in appointing town officers and in drawing up byelaws, [5] and give here a selection from the many hundreds of criminal cases recorded.

At a court in 1664

“We amerce Antho Plaskett for drawing blood upon the Borough Bailiff 6s. 8d. We amerce Antho Plaskett for calling the Bailiff a robber and that he robbed him of seven shillings 21s. We amerce Antho Plaskett for speaking falsely and undecentiy of Leonard Scott 20s.” [61

Pollution of becks and streets brought frequent prosecutions, as

“We amerce John Peile, fellmonger, for lying skins in Bitter Beck contrary to payne 6s-8d.” [7]

“Jurators presentent James Busby and his wife for disturbing Thomas Plaskett Scavenger in ye Execution of his office and for taking (?) his Dunghill to lye in ye Queens high street contrary to paine and amcie him 0:6:8.” (£0-6s-8d) [8]

The work of the various searchers brought many to court

“On the Information of Joseph France Leather Searcher and Leathe~ Sealer, we Amercie Frands Fisher the Elder, Frands Fisher the Younger, Miles Sawrey, John Gasgarth, Joseph Thompson, and Henry Wood all Tanners in the sum of six Shillings & eight Pence severally for selling Leather unsearched and unsealed – and for refusing the Leather Searchers to do their office.”

Three further examples to show the range of affairs dealt with

“We do continue Michael Todd and Wm. Lancaster surveyors of the highways for this ensuing year since they have acted nothing in the fonner year.”

 “We amerce Hy. Atkinson for having a house office at his garth end in Bitter Beck to the greate annoyance of his neighbours 6s-8d.”

We amerce Mary Towerson for beating the Constables 3s-4d.”

As there was no ‘Towerson’ in the cess list at this time Bolton suggests that the irate woman may have been a visitor to the town.

Local lords and gentry were first given judicial powers in 1361 and their powers increased over the years until they were concerned with all crimes except treason and had wide administrative powers (wages, licensing, roads, vagrants, etc.) which eventually passed to Poor Law Guardians, Police Watch Committees, etc. – bodies largely formed of the same lords and gentry! Later much administration passed to local and central government, but their work in the courts remained, except in large cities having professional stipendary magistrates. Justices are now selected from differing occupations and have some training for the task.

In the 17th century the inhabitants of Cockermouth successively petitioned that “assizes and sessions might be held at Cockermouth” The earliest surviving record of Cumberland Quarter Sessions is a minute book for 1668-95, in which period they were held in Penrith at Michaelmas, Cockermouth in January and Carlisle at Easter and Midsummer.

The ‘Pacquet’ of 22 January 1782 recorded the cases just dealt with at Cockermouth Sessions oaths taken by various officials of Whitehaven and Harrington ports, certifying the prices of grain, a young man charged with embezzling sacks of flour (given two months hard labour in Cockermouth House of Correction) and a great number of appeals for inheritance by bastards.

In 1858 a monthly county court was being held alternately in Cockermouth and Workington. Having jurisdiction in bankruptcy the bailiffs appointed (14 of them by 1910) were auctioneers, house agents or debt collector. [9] This court covered the area from Arkleby to Loweswater and from Keswick to the coast.

The Cockermouth Petty Sessional Division covered a much smaller area, from Plumbland to Buttermere and Wythop to Broughton Moor. [10] This was a magistrates’ court dealing with minor charges, meeting every Monday. The last Petty Sessions held in Grecian Villa were on 29 January 1979; the following week the court moved to the new court house in Workington, Cockermouth cases being heard by Cockermouth magistrates although away from the town. Three or four of the ten JPs sit at anyone time (Appendix 13).

The press announcement still appearing early in the 20th century [11]

” that The Court Leet and view of Frankpledge of our Sovereign Lord the King with the Court Baron of the Rt. Hon. Charles Henry, Baron LeconfieId, Lord of the Honour of Cockermouth, etc. , will be held”

on a certain day takes organisation for keeping good order back to Anglo-Saxon times. Under the Norman system of frankpledge the heads of a group of families bound together for the good conduct of each other, a system which led to the Leet or Jury system. The Anglo-Saxon equivalent of frankpledge was frith-bonds under which the members had to answer a summons to appear at a time set by the lord to witness for and against those accused of crimes against life and property or neglect of duties. [12]

Then followed the system of juries elected by the Court Leet. The list ofjurors was read at the Michaelmas and Easter courts. In 1691 we read

“Terrewestell Peile for not answering his name at the court amerced 6d.”

He was an important Cockermouth burgess and lived in property out of which the Cocoa House in Kirkgate (No. 22) was built. [13] The juries from outside the town were sworn in from the ‘turnsmen’ of each village. In 1705 there were fourteen villages or groups of villages making appointments of 1 to 5 jurors, the list beginning

“3 Lorton Johos Wilkinson Jur

Josephus Peile eqr. Jur

Thomas Peile Jur

(Jur represented jura, signifying they had been sworn) [14]

Quakers refused to swear oaths and we find the following in the list for October 1711

“Blindbothel James Dickinson Quaker & John Gill Jur

Eaglesfield Thom Hudson Quaker” [15]

If a juror failed to attend a fine was levied on his village.

The crimes with which these courts had to deal might have a different emphasis from today, although few have disappeared completely. Ill-treatment of horses was very common at one time, as were press notices advertising for news of apprentices who had run away or warning the public against pickpockets on market days. It is interesting to find vandalism 100 years ago – a band of young farm men going about breaking into larders and senselessly stripping washing off clothes-lines and scattering it around (1877), 20 panes of glass broken in empty property (1876), damage to trees in the cemetery (1876), breaking of street lamps by catapult, one lamp having a new glass every day for a week (1877). [16] Two interesting press items from the same period – a prosecution for failing to report an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, [] 7] and a comment that the profanity of young children playing in Cockermouth was worse than anything one would hear in the army or Billingsgate. [18] In 1843 John Parker of Pap castle thought up an unusual offence when he threw a cabbage down William Massey’s chimney “a most disgraceful act” which cost himl1s.” (55p) [19]

Going back another 100 years, we find in the early numbers of the ‘Pacquet’ – several carts and a beached boat thrown into Whitehaven harbour and windows and doors in houses broken (1776); a reward offered for a piece of cloth 52 yards by 3 yards stolen from the bleach green in Bridekirk (1783); Mary Wilson, who kept a house of ill-fame in Workington, sent to the Cockermouth House of Correction for falsely claiming money for children expected, with a note that others would be joining her (1783); and an advertisement seeking to trace a Scot, Jane Kennedy, believed to be the mother of a three-month old girl found deserted in a Cockermouth street (1779). [20] In 1912 John Bolton was incensed by

“those who not only smash the lamps and windows in our streets, but disfigure painted and cemented walls in such a disgraceful manner with chalk, … The striking of matches on newly-painted shop doors is nothing to the disfigurement of the town by the idiotic chalking now so common.” [21]

(Some things never change)

If punishment was by fine the amount was less than £2, for the Court Leet was not allowed to recover through the bailiff this amount or more, so penalties of £ 1-19s-11 d. were common. Physical punishment was also used. We have travelled a long way since the ordeals of the 12th century – by combat for knights, fire for freemen and water for serfs – but comparatively recently punishment could be barbaric. In 1756 a horse-thief was sentenced by Quarter Sessions

‘to be publickly whipped until his body be bloody at the post in the publick market in Cockermouth’,

so Cockermouth had a whipping post as well as stocks, of which a ruling in 1679 says

“it is put in paine that ye Constables shall put ye stocks in good repair before they goe out of office sub poena 6s-8d.”

The last person to sit in the Cockermouth stocks was a plasterer named Corrie, a Scot. who was fined 5s. or a spell in the ‘bilboes’. He chose the latter for a day and as he sat there occasionally placed half-a-crown in each eye to show that he sat there because he refused to pay the fine and not because of poverty. [22]

Cockermouth also had liberty of pillory and liberty of tumbrill, probably the cucking stool used for ducking women offenders.

If the culprit went to gaol it might be to the cells of the police station or to the house of correction. The first police station in the town was in the present Challoner Street, earlier known as Globe Lane and Chandler Went and also as Kitty Went,’kitty’ being the slang term for the local lock up. But at the same time there was in existence the House of Correction on the bank of Bitter Beck, opposite the Bowling Green Inn in St. Helen’s Street. This was possibly built because the accommodation in Kitty Went was too small. The house had iron doors and iron-lined ceilings, with rings used to shackle prisoners by the ankles. They slept on a concrete slope near the fireplace. [23] . The County Treasurer’s accounts for 1741 include a payment to Thomas Holloway, “Master of the House of Correction at Cockermouth his salary £2-10-0”, so this was a county responsibility.

For a period the House of Correction was known as ‘Billy Macbeth’s Parlour’, after the keeper, who lived on the upper floor. The building was recently demolished.

In 1854-6 a new police station was built on the bank of the Cocker behind the Court House. It incorporated a new ‘house of correction’ – five good cells, a charge room and an exercise yard, [24] and one feature was direct access by a ramp to a door in the rear of the Court House which opened into the court room.

In 1894 came a further move, to the present building on the site of the Horse and Harness Inn and occupied the site of ‘Hunters’ yard to the rear, which contained several cottages and workshops. In common with other towns, hangings took place in Cockermouth. Over 200 offences carried the death penalty and 400 more meant transportation to Australia until 1823, when Peel removed 180 crimes from the capital offences list. The situation had arisen where a humane jury would sometimes refuse to convict rather than hang a man for a petty offence. Hangings were public until the middle of the 19th century. Two raiders of a house at Cleety Bank

”were taken to the top of Gallowbarrow Field, as was the custom of the time, to within sight of the place where the crime was committed. There, on a gallows or gibbet, they were hanged…. The exact spot where this execution took place is opposite the road leading to Brigham on the site now occupied by the reservoir of the new waterworks. From this circumstance the place obtained the name of Gallows Barrow, by time changed to Gallowbarrow.” [25]

To be ‘within sight of the place where the crime was committed’ the gallows may have been erected at different places along this stretch of road, which would account for differing traditions of the exact location.

For centuries people lived in fear of violence and theft and we have seen that steps were taken to make life more secure and orderly. For a long time the only policing in Cockermouth was done by the two constables appointed annually by the Court Leet. But the populace was expected to help them

‘Every tenant refusing to raise hue and cry’ after a felon the same shall be amercyed for every default 6s-8d” [26]

In 1820 the town had one constable, helped occasionally by the poorhouse master. [27]

Peel’s London force was formed in 1829 and a series of acts in the following 30 years extended the police powers and responsibilities of local councils, with the help of government grants. In ]847 the Challoner Street station had a superintendent and three men, covering Cockermouth, Keswick, Maryport and the villages, [28] and when a select committee enquired in 1852-3 there were still only four men in this Derwent Division.

The chief constable complained that with three men he had insufficient for a night patrol Justices were empowered to form county police forces in 1839 and they became compulsory in 1856, jointly under local and national control in administration, discipline and finance.

The castle records contain actions for distraint, usually by the bailiff on behalf of the earl for rent arrears. Sometimes the matter was settled by selling stock, as in two cases [29] on 15 August 1766 when Thomas Green, bailiff to George, Earl of Egremont, seized three geldings and three cows from Hugh Cowperthwaite of Cockermouth, tanner, and George Beeby, also of Cockermouth, a leather dresser, they being given five days to pay rent and costs before the stock was sold. Some cases of distraint are more pathetic reading. Joseph Harrison’s is a good example. On 27th September 1792

“An Inventory of all and Singular the Goods Chattels and Cattle Seized and Distrained … By George Ramsay Bailiff of the Right Hon’ble George O’Brien Earl of Egremont for the Sum of Eight Hundred and Sixty ffour Pounds and Nineteen Shillings being Rent due and in Arreares … for certain Mefsuages Lands and Tenements Situate at and near Park House in the Parish of Cockermouth.” . [30]

There follows a long and detailed list of all stock, field by field, some 473 animals. Then comes the inventory of the house, missing nothing:

“In the Dwelling House [living room].One Clock and Case, two Dining Tables with some Knives and fforks in the Drawer One Stand Table, One Arm Chair – Six Small Chairs – One Snap Table, One Drefser on the same Six Pewter Plates – Three Pewter Dishes, Three Delf Dishes Six Glafsed Pictures – two Other Pictures – on the Chimney Piece three Iron Candle Sticks One brafs Candlestick two Tea Canisters one Pair of Tongs and Poker In the Clofsett Eighteen Delph Plates – One Gun hanging in the House – one ffender – one Weather Glafs – one Pair of Toasting Prickers. Upon the Shelves Twenty Cheeses.”[31]

This continued throughout the house, room by room. The outside premises were then examined – the swine hull (two young swine) and all the equipment, carts, etc. in the stackyard, the barn, the garden, the fold, the stable, the byre and “Six Hundred and ffifteen Stooks of Oats Cut, Eighteen Stooks of Barley Cut” in Whinney Park.

There followed the concluding statement that unless arrears were paid within five days goods would be sold.

The castle records also contain the verdicts of inquests in the Liberties of Cockermouth and Egremont. The life and service of each person in a manor having once been regarded as the property of the lord, inquests and inquiries into death by misadventure or violence were a matter for the lord’s courts. The first is dated 4 May 1610, when Thomas Watson had hanged himself, and after a few more occasional records they become complete for the period 1693 to 1875. The right to appoint coroners in the two liberties can be traced back to 1292, the time of Isabella de Fortibus and Thomas de Lucy. The coroner for both was then the constable of Cockermouth Castle, appointed by Thomas, with Isabella’s steward as his assessor. [32] (Appendix 14) The Great Survey of 1578 stated that the coroner must

“doe and execute all and whatsoever to the said office belongeth for and conceminge all attachements of the Crowne and likewise of all felonies burglaries theftes murthers manslaughters robberies and of all felonies whatsoever …” [33]

The duties of a coroner were thus wider than the conducting of inquests. The Liberty of Cockermouth included the Borough and Manor, the Lordship of Derwent fells and the Lordship of the Five Towns. There are records [34] of many drownings in the Derwent, Cocker and Tom Rudd, even in a horse trough, and often the victims were drunk, though one was crossing the Derwent on an illegal fishing expedition. Causes of death which recur include excessive drinking, being run over by a cart, falling downstairs, house fires, suicides by cutting one’s throat or taking arsenic (sometimes when pregnant), fits and the killing of infants. Many verdicts reflect the industries of the time. Subtle changes occur, such as the replacement of the description of ‘lunatic’ by ‘unsound mind’, and in the 1850s ‘no violence’ is added to some verdicts and in the 1860s ‘temporary insanity’ appears for the first time.

A few of the great number of verdicts are given here because they reflect aspects of life in earlier times

1702 5 Dec. Infant daughter of Margaret Linde\L Thrown into river.

1727 1 Sept. Thomas Hodgson. Drowned by falling from High Dam Bridge.

1729 17 Dec. Lancelot Hudson. Drowned by falling from Cocker Bridge while intoxicated. This gave Richard Baynes, the coroner, the opportunity to comment on the state of the bridge.

1750 18 Feb. John Gash, infant. Accidentally smothered in bed. The bedding which had caused the death was confiscated for the deodand.

1777 4 June Joseph Dickson. Drowned in cistern at dyehouse.

1811 1 Aug. George Wrangham. Drowned in milldam, River Derwent.

1828 28 March Thomas Beeby. Drowned himself in water pit at tanyard.

1832 5 March James Smith 8 and Josepb Banks 9 : Killed by falling wall in school in Back Lane, the opening day of the General Sunday School. [35]

1836 9 Nov. John Mitchell. Found in hayrick at the Woolpack with bruises.

1840 2 Dec. Fletcher Wilson 41 . Hanged himself in the House of Correction.

1840 24 Sept. lsabella Casson 22. Caught in carding machine at Rubby Banks Woollen Mill.

1842 14 April John McAdam. Natural death at workhouse. Criticism of Loweswater overseers for allowing him to go about semi-naked.

1856 5 July William John MaxwelI 30. Injured at the railway station.

1864 15 July John Winder 2. Drowned at Paper Mill. No violence.

1870 7 April Margaret Craig 82. Burnt by clothes catching fire in bed when lighting her pipe.”