Drunk and Disorderly

The Easter quarter of 1883 introduced us to the character of Alfred Hirdle.  Alfred was married to Sarah and appeared in court charged with a violent assault on his wife.  She had taken a warrant out against him and in revenge he broke into their house in the early hours of the morning.  He went to his wife’s bedroom and violently hit her about the head with a stick.   He was sentenced to 5 year penal servitude.

Cases of assault appear regularly in the Quarter sessions, but we were curious to see if he was still with his wife at the time of the next census.  A little investigation saw that the couple had only been married approaching 4 years at the time of the attack.  It’s likely his wife knew the type of man she was marrying, as Alfred had been convicted (mostly of drunkenness) over 20 times before they married.  He was only 27.  He was even in trouble on the night of the 1871 census, being listed as a prisoner at Woburn police station.

We did find Sarah in the 1891, living with her mother in Ridgmont and she appears to have continued to have children in these years.  By 1901 she was still with her mother in Ridgmont with her mother, but this time she was described as a widow.   Obviously this meant we wanted to see what had become of Alfred.

A quick bit of Googling brought up the excellent MK Heritage site.  They have a section dedicated to the Fir Tree inn at Woburn Sands, where it appears Alfred Hirdle had become a frequent visitor.  The site talks of another case involving Alfred which was reported in local paper.  Once again it revolved around drunken behaviour.  The article adds an interesting footnote which solves the mystery of what became of Alfred:

 “Alfred Hirdle eventually passed away, whilst serving a sentence in Bedford Prison in 1900, aged 49. The doctors said cause of death was 'Profound Disturbance of the Brain and Apoplexy'.  Hirdle was infamous in the area, as his total of 59 convictions, mostly for being 'Drunk and Disorderly' bear testimony. Every landlord for miles around must have breathed a quiet sigh of relief!”

QSR1883/2/5/1
 

(with thanks to www.mkheritage.co.uk)

Billy the Sweep

We sometimes come across Quarter Sessions cases that read like episodes from a soap opera. Take this unfortunate incident from 1843 involving William Smith, a Leighton Buzzard chimney sweep known as Billy the Sweep. Putting together the various depositions and Smiths own statement the gist of the story appears to be as follows:

Billy the Sweep arrived home intoxicated and discovered his wife had taken out a contract with the tally man (buying goods "on tick" or hire purchase). He insisted on knowing what she had bought. When she refused to tell him how much she had paid for a shawl he carried out a threat to cut it up. Unfortunately as his wife tried to rescue the shawl her thumb got in the way of the knife Billy was using and she was badly cut. She cried "murder" and a couple of neighbours, Maria Gardner and Mary Gilbert, rushed to her aid and bound up the bleeding digit. Meanwhile a rumour reached the Royal Oak Public House that Billy the Sweep had chopped off his wife's thumb. A noisy crowd gathered outside Smith's house, laughing and teasing Billy. After a failed attempt to close the shutters and stop the crowd peering in through his window, Billy reached a pitch of exasperation in which he threatened to shoot the onlookers if they did not go away. Enraged he grabbed the nearest thing to hand. This turned out to be a potato fork - I presume this would have been similar to a modern garden fork - which he jabbed through the window into the face of an unfortunate bystander, Henry Munday.

The Royal Oak in Friday Street, Leighton Buzzard c.1925

Munday fainted, bleeding profusely. The fork had caused a minor wound to his left cheek, but a tine had penetrated deeply between his right eye and his nose. The surgeon who examined him, Philip Wynter Wagstaff, later measured the depth of the wound as greater than one inch. During that evening symptoms suggested to the surgeon that it was likely to proved fatal. Fortunately he was mistaken and by the time he gave his deposition he believed that Munday would not lose the eye and would make a full recovery. Meanwhile Billy the Sweep had been arrested and incarcerated in the parish lock-up, where he became maudlin and was heard threatening to hang himself. The constable removed his handkerchief and other items and "confined him by the leg". By this time however Billy had reverted to the furious and exasperated stage, declaring that he wished he had shot Munday and "should not care a damn if I had killed him". In the cold light of day, sobered up and facing examination by the magistrate, he was very apologetic. He was bailed to appear for trial at the Easter Quarter Sessions where he was convicted and sentenced to six months hard labour. [QSR1843/2/5/15]