Genealogy Chat

These new records have proved useful. My 3Xggrandfather was a bit of a tearaway and I have copies of newspaper articles about his crimes. However not all of them give details of the punishment he received.

Thanks to Ancestry, I now know he got 7 days and a whipping for fraud when he was 14 (and a serious hangover as he'd obtained flaggons of sherry by deception and they had to wait till he was sober enough to interview him)

The following year he was convicted of larceny for stealing 2 lace pillowcases from his landlady (another 7 days and the whip)

A year later he was found not guilty of stealing a shopkeepers frockcoat but his friends got 3 months for that.

Finally, a year later (aged just 18) he was found guilty of larceny again (he stole screws from his employer, sold them to a scrap dealer who then sold them back to the employer) This time the Judge sentenced him to 7 years deportation. Thankfully, he never got to Australia but spent a few years in Millbank prison and then married his step mum's sister.

I think he must've turned his life around or perhaps he just became a clever criminal and avoided detection :-)

Found this-

Following the CARRIER case in 1473, the law of theft expanded and developed throughout the 16th 17th and 18th centuries with the decisions of the 18th century playing the major role. "Larceny by Servant" became established in the 16th century. Over time the courts interpreted cases expanded the legal definition of "possession of the Master" to include instances where the master had never seen the goods, so long as the servants placed goods received by them in a receptacle of their master. The courts also broadened the the interpretation of "Servant" to include cashiers, clerks and persons hired to transport goods from place to place.

Thanks Jonesey, I will go and have a look!

I have an ancestor who was found guilty of "larceny by a servant" in 1875 - thing is, I think in his case he actually did it! He was an accountant and got twelve months with hard labout for taking money on three different occasions that amounted to just over £400.

But I think you could be right that, perhaps if an employer didn't like the servant for personal reasons, it might be an easy way to punish them even if they hadn't done anything wrong. They say these days that employers aren't allowed to give a bad reference but I imagine back then, they could say whatever they liked and they would be believed because they were probably higher in status than their servant.

It's either that or somebody wasn't interviewing their employees properly - I don't think my ancestor was technically a "servant", being an accountant but if he was providing a service to somebody I suppose the law would classify him as that, in a broad sense.

Sorry to be so dense - but where are the criminal registers on Ancestry?

Of course a it would be a great opportunity to dismiss a servant without giving them any references, so they couldnt find a similar job.

Just found one of mine " ARSON" she burnt a house down ,thats one way of gettting rid of a nasty employer !

I have been going through the newly available criminal registers on Ancestry trying to see if I can match any ancestors on the list. One thing that struck me was the offences column contained endless rows of the allegation "Larceny by Servant".

Given that the acquittal rate was also quite high tends to lead to one of two conclusions. Either the evidence collecting process, (if any), was very poor or the easiest method of explaining any misplaced item was for the owner to automatically accuse the servant of theft irrespective of the distress the accusation caused.

Does anyone have any other explanations?

Michael