Men of Bad Character: the Witham Fires of the 1820s

Witham and the Fires

The parish of Witham had a population of about 2,700 in 1828. It had a weekly market, and was usually referred to as a town rather than a village. It was in the centre of Essex, on the main road from London to East Anglia, with the larger towns of Colchester, Chelmsford, Maldon and Braintree situated to the east, west, south and north respectively. Witham was known for its religious dissent, and its past cloth industry. The brief flourishing of a spa in the 1740s had left it with something of a reputation for gentility. About a quarter of the population lived in the area of the main street, Newland Street, with another sizeable group about a mile to the north at Chipping Hill, around the parish church. In addition, the parish's extensive boundaries incorporated a number of farms. This and the influence of the surrounding villages, meant that the fortunes of agriculture had a considerable influence on Witham; the poor included a high proportion of farmworkers, and farmers were important in local administrative bodies. Another influential group were the professionals. There were also a variety of occupations in trade and service activities, and in some of the processing industries which were typical of all small towns, such as malting, milling and brewing. The only manufacturing process that was more specific to Witham was brushmaking, in Thomasin's brush yard off Newland Street, which had a work force of 30 to 40, mostly men.¹³

The Select Vestry was the elected body responsible for distributing Witham's poor relief from the income provided by the rates. From 1822 it sought to control its spending.¹⁴ 1828 saw the first of a series of three poor harvests, and the price of wheat shot up from 60 shillings (£3) a quarter in September to 72 shillings (£3.60) in October.¹⁵ This was the highest price since 1820, and it remained above 70 shillings (£3.50) until June 1829. The increase seems to have caused remarkably little comment at the time, but then the farmers were usually quicker to draw attention to low prices than to high ones.

In the evening of 5 November 1828, two fires broke out in Witham. One was in the barn of John Crump, an Anglican overseer, at Freebornes Farm in the main street, and the other in a stack belonging to James Catchpool, a Quaker maltster, in the Lion Fields behind the street. At first the cause was thought to be rockets from Guy Fawkes festivities; then an 'organised gang' was blamed, and rewards were offered for the apprehension of its members.¹⁶ Arson was subject potentially to the death penalty. It was not new, but riot and machine-breaking had been a more typical feature of rural protest in previous years.¹⁷

So the relative severity and novelty of the offence contributed to the great sense of alarm that spread through the town. During the following weeks William Wright Luard, a magistrate who lived at Witham Lodge, carried out assiduous investigations and interrogations. Two more fires took place at the beginning of December. One of them was at Motts Farm in Witham occupied by Henry Barwell, a butcher, and the other was in the neighbouring parish of Rivenhall, on property belonging to the Whig Member of Parliament for Essex, Charles Callis Western of Kelvedon. Several men were interviewed by local magistrates and then released.¹⁸ Peter Du Cane of nearby Braxted Lodge wrote from London to ask his solicitor, William Henry Pattisson of Witham, to check that his stacks were insured as well as his buildings.¹⁹

On 6 December, the MP Western chaired a meeting of 'land-owners, tradesmen and most respectable occupiers of land' at the Blue Posts inn. Speakers began, reluctantly, to admit the probability of a local arsonist, and to deplore the ingratitude of the well-treated poor. Western offered a reward of £200, and also announced the promise of a free pardon from the Secretary of State to any accomplice who gave evidence leading to a prosecution. An Association for 'the Protection of Life and Property against Fire' was formed, a watch system established, and a new fire-engine purchased from London. The vicar of Witham, Revd John Newman, moved a vote of thanks to Western. At the end of December the magistrates in Petty Sessions swore in ten new Special Constables from Witham.²⁰

In January 1829 there was a spate of fires in north Essex at Saling, Finchingfield and Great Yeldham, for which no-one appears to have been prosecuted. There was also a machine-breaking incident at Toppesfield for which the suspects were eventually found not guilty.²¹ On 19 and 20 February there were two more fires in Witham, the first in a hay-stack belonging to William Whale, an innkeeper, and the second in William Green's barn at Olivers Farm, south of the town. The new fire engine performed well.²² In the latter case the crowds who rushed to watch were said to have found that 'the reflection of the light of the flames on the clouds was singular. The trees looked like spectres, and it seemed to the spectators as if the world was on fire'.²³

Suddenly, events moved rapidly. On 25 February James Cook, a cow boy who lived over the brewhouse at Olivers Farm, was interrogated about the fire there.²⁴ He was sixteen, and the oldest of the six surviving children of James and Dorcas Cook. His father, a labourer, had died in 1827 at the age of 35.²⁵ Since then Dorcas and her children had been maintained by the Select Vestry, although the amount they received had decreased considerably during her widowhood, as had all poor relief payment in Witham.²⁶ On 2 March Dorcas went to 'the Committee' to collect a further two shillings, but was 'unable to walk alone from illness', and had to be helped by her sister Harriet Hales.²⁷ On this same day there was yet another fire in Witham, this time in a stack of oats belonging to the Quaker miller, Hoffgaard Shoobridge. On 4 March, William Luard and Revd John Newman sent James Cook to the new Convict Gaol at Chelmsford, the county town, to await trial for causing the fire at Olivers Farm. Two days later, on 6 March, the Anglican farmer William Hutley of Powers Hall received a letter threatening him with arson, and the following day an outhouse belonging to William Grimwood, a maltster, was set on fire.²⁸

Although these last events took place while James Cook was in custody, his prosecution for the Olivers Farm fire continued. At various times he made three contradictory 'confessions'.²⁹ His case was heard on 12 March at the Lent Assizes at the Shire Hall in Chelmsford. The jury found him guilty but recommended mercy, as did the prosecutor, farmer William Green. However the judge, Mr Justice Alexander, sentenced him to death. In this period the judge nearly always granted an instant reprieve after a death sentence, and reduced the penalty to transportation or imprisonment. But on this occasion he did not do so; he said he felt that 'a severe example' was necessary to 'put a stop to such national calamities', and that James Cook should therefore be hanged. The newspaper reported that 'the boy appeared to feel but little during the trial; at the conclusion, however, he burst into tears'.³⁰ It was said later that 'feeling in the neighbourhood was greatly excited by the severity shown by the judge ... it was considered a cruel act of injustice'.³¹

No appeal was possible. The only means of obtaining mercy was to petition the Crown, via the Home Office, for a Royal Pardon. Luard, the magistrate, desperately pursued this course, writing to Peel, the Home Secretary, on 18 and 19 March, and sending copies of the relevant depositions. He also wrote to Western, the Member of Parliament. The following day, 20 March, there was yet another fire, and Luard wrote again to point this out.³² It was in an outhouse belonging to a wealthy Dissenter, Thomas Butler, a grocer, draper and farmer.³³ Western was persuaded to visit Peel to discuss the matter; both were engrossed in the Second Reading of the Catholic Emancipation Bill. J M Phillips, as under-secretary at the Home Office, wrote to Luard that it would be reckless to pardon Cook, in view of his confessions.³⁴ So he was hanged on 27 March outside Chelmsford gaol. A hanging was in itself a fairly rare occasion; no other person was hanged in Essex in 1829. This one was made particularly awesome by the widespread feeling against it, and by Cook's youth; the Chelmsford Chronicle honoured the event with a large illustration.³⁵

The execution of James Cook as shown by the Chelmsford Chronicle, 10 April 1829

The Times newspaper was also by this time taking an interest in the affair; it reported that following Cook's trial he had named other culprits, and that 'nine persons have already been apprehended and the constables are in pursuit of others'.³⁶ No further details of this allegation are available. Only two further suspects reached the criminal records, namely Robert Ling and Edmund Potto. Ling was a labourer or thatcher aged 50, who lived in the Chipping Hill area. He was a Dissenter, and had been a soldier, probably having enlisted as a Regular from the Volunteers in 1813. The parish of Ramsey had returned him to Witham in 1825 under the Poor Laws; since then he had received occasional poor relief.³⁷ The reason for his arrest was that one of Cook's confessions had said that Ling had been involved with him in the fire at William Green's Olivers Farm, though another had contradicted this. Ling had been working there win-rowing on the day of the fire. This was rather beneath him as a thatcher, and he was said to have complained about what he was paid, thus giving him a possible motive for arson.³⁸ Furthermore, on 2 March 1829, after Cook's first interrogation, Ling was 'out of employ' and received 2s.6d. (12_p.) from the Vestry. While collecting it, he had met James Cook's mother and aunt, and remarked to them about the fire at William Green's that 'it is a pity he [Green] was not in the middle of it'.³⁹ He was widely reported to have made many scurrilous statements about the 'parish' of Witham and its harshness to him.⁴⁰ The magistrate, Luard, had hoped to convict him to save Cook, according to a letter he sent with Cook's petition.⁴¹ On 28 March, the day after Cook's execution, Luard committed Ling to gaol for trial at the next Assizes in August, for the fire for which Cook had already been hanged.⁴²

It is a little unclear what happened next. It is possible that there were two further fires; if so Luard must have been dismayed to find that putting Ling in gaol was no more effective than had been the committal of James Cook.⁴³ For whatever reason, there was further magisterial activity by William Luard, and on 18 April he and the Dissenter Samuel Shaen, a newly appointed magistrate from the neighbouring parish of Hatfield Peverel, made another committal to gaol. This time the suspect was Edmund Potto, and they subjected him to a six-hour examination. He was a nineteen-year old apprentice tailor from Witham, and the local newspaper rejoiced that the agricultural labourers were thereby vindicated.⁴⁴ His father was Nathaniel Potto, a Witham currier. Nathaniel's sister was the wife of James Thomasin, owner of the brush manufactory in a yard off the main street of Witham, and they were also related to the Bentalls, who were ironfounders in the Maldon area. All the families were non-conformists. The acquaintances of Edmund Potto, the suspect, regarded him as rather odd and solitary; he was short with a 'ruddy, freckled complexion, light brown hair, hazel eyes, and a mermaid and anchor tattooed on his right arm'. Although it was not mentioned in the press, he appears to have spent a month in gaol in August 1828, Witham Petty Sessions having sent him there for leaving his work after an argument with his master.⁴⁵

This time the sending of a suspect to gaol did seem to produce the desired result, and there were no more fires in Witham. Crimes carrying a potential death penalty could not be tried by Quarter Sessions, so like Ling, Potto had to await the Summer Assizes in August. Although the intervening four months were relatively peaceful in Witham itself, there were signs of anxiety in the high level of committals for trial in Essex as a whole.⁴⁶

At the Summer Assizes, eight charges were brought against Edmund Potto. One was for writing the threatening letter to William Hutley at Powershall; it had said 'There is 4 of us in the Gange we will have a tucker of a fire 4 Deape feallows yo dame sett fools when the Whind is hie'. The other seven charges were for all the known Witham fires except for the one for which Cook had been executed, and the one at James Catchpool's stack.⁴⁷ Catchpool was a Quaker and possibly reluctant to prosecute, though fellow-Quaker, Hoffgaard Shoobridge, did prosecute, and another, Josiah Marten Sanders, gave evidence for William Grimwood.⁴⁸ The victims who were prosecuting were a representative group of the Witham middle class, both tradesmen and farmers, Anglicans and Dissenters, with Joseph Howell Pattisson, a Witham solicitor, advising their counsel. As was usual, the charges were first considered by the Grand Jury in private. They dismissed four of the arson charges for being inadequate to proceed. The other charges continued to the open court, where the case concerning one of the fires at William Grimwood's outhouse was heard on 6 August, the third day of the Assize, before a crowded court room and Mr Justice Park.⁴⁹

Unusually, Potto was defended by a lawyer and had many witnesses to support him. This was said later to have been entirely due to the efforts of the 'young man's relations in the town'.⁵⁰ The hearing opened with one of the most singular occurrences of the whole affair when Potto's lawyer challenged all ten farmers who appeared to be sworn into the jury. No other instances are evident of juries being challenged in criminal cases in the 1820s in Essex. The Sheriff and the Clerk of Peace who compiled the jury panel were clearly unprepared for such an event, and they only had 56 jurors to cover the thirteen cases expected on this and the following two days. However, they were left with little alternative but to replace all the farmers and produce a jury consisting entirely of tradesmen. The local newspaper took the unusual step of publishing their names .⁵¹

This trial attracted even more attention than James Cook's, earning a full page report in the Chelmsford Chronicle. It lasted all day, from 9 am to 8 pm, whereas an average Assize day heard about twenty cases. Evidence was given that Potto had been seen running from the fire and that he had made a confession in the gaol, wrongly implicating four other men and saying that if he 'could have got a little of the reward he would have gone up to London, and there were people there who would have got him a berth, and he would never have been found'. Then it was suggested for the defence that Potto was a 'monomaniac', insane on the subject of fires but not in other respects. Dr Henry Dixon of Witham later claimed credit for raising this point, since he had just been reading about the ailment in the Edinburgh Review. Dixon was a Dissenter who sat carefully on the fence when called to give evidence on the question himself, and was praised by the judge.⁵²

In the end, monomania turned out to be a red herring which the jury claimed to have disregarded. However, it provided a golden opportunity for the inhabitants of Witham to take sides. The prosecution called thirteen new witnesses including several doctors, in addition to its eight original ones. They all assured the court that Potto was sane. Prosecution witnesses such as these usually had their expenses paid by the county. The defence called fourteen people at its own expense to testify to Potto's insanity. These included James Thomasin, the brushmaster who was Potto's relative by marriage. He found himself in a cleft stick when the judge admonished him for not taking care of Potto if he was as odd as Thomasin claimed. Included in Thomasin's supporters were two of his own brushworkers, one of whom was James Mount, the secretary of the local branch of the workers' organisation, the Brushmakers' Society.⁵³

The judge summed up the case in the evening; it was reported by the newspaper that he 'clearly expected a verdict of Guilty'. The jurors took so long discussing the case that, unusually, they had to retire from the court room. On their return the foreman pronounced the prisoner 'Not Guilty', explaining to the judge that they 'had not dwelled upon the subject of insanity', but considered that 'there had not been sufficient evidence generally to convict the prisoner'. The report added that 'the Verdict was received with the greatest astonishment by a crowded court'. Dr Dixon noted many years later that 'the jury were probably partly influenced ... by the cruel hanging of the little boy ... and they did the best they could to save Potto from the like fate'.⁵⁴

Next morning Mr Justice Park called for a fresh jury. Potto's lawyer had clearly decided not to test his luck further, and put in a plea of 'Guilty' to sending the threatening letter to William Hutley. The judge sentenced him to the maximum punishment for this offence, transportation for life. When speaking of the previous day's events he said that 'The Jury ... came to a decision, no doubt satisfactory to their consciences, but, I must confess, unintelligible to my own'. Addressing Potto, he said that 'your conduct has been most frightful ... how a young man of your appearance ... could be so deeply immersed in guilt it is most difficult to conjecture ... I hope you will endeavour to make some compensation by deep and sincere repentance in your future conduct for the injury you have committed'.⁵⁵

The remaining charges of arson against Potto were dropped. Robert Ling followed him into the dock in an atmosphere of anticlimax, to answer for the fire at Olivers Farm. His bad relationship with the victim and with the 'parish' was described, 'but after a few minutes consideration the jury acquitted the prisoner', and 'the learned Judge expressed himself satisfied with the verdict'.⁵⁶ A week later Edmund Potto was taken with three other Essex convicts to the Leviathan hulk off Portsmouth, and in March 1830 he went in the convict ship Lady Faversham to New South Wales. On his arrival there he was registered as 'John Potto, protestant', and sent to work for Thomas Potter MacQueen, on a new ten-thousand acre model estate at Segenhoe.⁵⁷ Meanwhile, in November 1829, the Witham Association for the Protection of Life and Property against Fire had held a meeting at which William Luard was presented with an inscribed silver salver for his 'great exertions', and 'as the evening proceeded the utmost hilarity continued to prevail'.⁵⁸

Late in 1830 a wave of protests by farmworkers began in Kent, and spread to the whole of south-eastern England, far exceeding any earlier movements in their scale. They included arson, riots, machine-breaking, and the threatening letters, often signed 'Captain Swing', which gave the protests their name.⁵⁹ When the Royal Commission on the Poor Law sent out a questionnaire to parishes in 1834, it included a question about 'the causes and consequences of the Agricultural Riots and Burnings of 1830 and 1831'. Two of the respondents from Witham disagreed about whether unemployment was to blame; it was the magistrate William Luard who thought it was. The third respondent was the vicar, Revd John Newman, who said firmly that, 'there were no Burnings or Riots in Witham Hundred in 1830 and 1831'.⁶⁰ In the circumstances this was perhaps being economical with the truth.

In the same year, 1834, Dorcas Cook, James' mother, died at the age of 44.⁶¹ Robert Ling lived until 1859 when he died in Witham at the age of 73.⁶² Edmund Potto only survived eleven years in New South Wales, where he died in the service of Mrs Katherine Harper in 1841. But his fate does not seem to have been common knowledge in Witham. In the 1870s Dr Henry Dixon still remembered the Witham fires vividly, but wrote of Edmund Potto that, 'I know nothing of [his] fate afterwards, or whether he is now living or not. I have never asked the question of his friends'.⁶³

Next page: THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND THE WITHAM FIRES