CRIME IN OLD ROTHERHAM: Theft on the farm

He searched for them and found the skins, feet and heads of the two sheep left in a ditch in another field, adjoining the one where the rest of the flock were. The remains of the sheep had been butchered inexpertly, and the joints had been removed.

The following Monday night a sack of wheat was stolen from one of several trucks at Rotherham Station, which were awaiting collection by Messrs Moorhouse and Hague of Canklow Mill.

The thief who stole the wheat was easily traced by the police as all along the train tracks leading to New York, were grains of wheat. Inspector Handley and Sergeant Timms followed the trail and it brought them to the house of a 34 year old man called William Cross. When informed the police were going to search his house Cross refused them permission, but when it was pointed out that the police simply would leave a man at the house, until a warrant was obtained he reluctantly gave his consent. 

When the house was searched, underneath the window in the parlour was found a box  which containing the stolen wheat, and even more wheat was found upstairs. Cross told the two police officers that his children had gleaned the wheat which had been found upstairs, and that the box had belonged to a neighbour called James Cardwell.

He had asked Cross to store it for him because he was expecting the bailiffs. His neighbour had told him that it was a keepsake of his mother, and he did not want the bailiffs to take it away. During the search, officers also found a pancheon filled with joints of mutton and a knife which appeared to have been used in the butchering process. When Handley charged Cross with stealing the sheep, he replied ‘that’s it; it is the first time I ever did anything of the sort, and poverty has driven me to it. I could not stand to see my wife and children starving’. 

William Cross was brought into court on Monday September 29 and Mr Moorhouse identified the wheat as that which had been stolen. The Chief Constable told the magistrates that far from starving, the prisoner had been receiving relief from the workhouse officials for some time, and recently had been given extra in the form of 3lbs of meat per week. The prisoner read out a lengthy defence in which he expressed his regret for what he had done. Cross stated that his neighbour Cardwell and his wife had taken the stolen meat and the wheat to his house on the Monday night, and promised him half, if they could leave the items with him. Cross said that in 'a foolish unguarded moment' he had agreed.

He told the court that Cardwell and another neighbour had tried to get him to join them to steal the sheep, but he had refused. The prisoner also repeatedly denied taking the wheat, stating that the box had been locked when it had been brought to his house. 

The prisoner made a great show of ‘thanking God for bringing him to justice on this the first time he had yielded to temptation, as otherwise he might have gone on to the ruin of both body and soul’. He also expressed a hope that Cardwell would be brought to justice, piously intoning that if ‘he escaped justice here, he would not escape it hereafter’.

The prisoner was committed to take his trial at the next York assizes. On Monday October 6 James Cardwell, aged 20, was brought into the court and he reported that rather than being the instigator of the crime, Cross had blackmailed him into committing the two thefts.

He then told the magistrates of the exploits of himself and Cardwell which had taken place three weeks earlier. The two men had stolen a 14 stone pig, from Dalton and drove it towards an isolated spot. However when they went to kill the pig, at the feel of the knife it had run off squealing. The two men had chased it over a field, but were brought up short by the sight of a ferocious bull. The farmer Leach, to whom the pig belonged, had no idea how his prize pig came to be found in a field some distance away with two deep gashes in its neck. Cardwell too was sent for trial.

The two prisoners were brought to York assizes  on December 10 1856 charged with stealing two lambs. Cardwell pleaded guilty but Cross maintained his innocence. Both men were sentenced to penal servitude for four years each.