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

Sentences and Petitions

With all the opportunities for 'failure' already described, only 52 per cent of the Essex cases which started out in 1824 and 1829 towards the jury courts, ended with a guilty verdict.¹⁰⁴ They then became subject to the vagaries of sentencing. There was some overall relationship between the severity of the offence and the sentence, but only maximum sentences were laid down by law. Although it was just a matter of timing that determined whether non-capital suspects went to Assizes or to Quarter Sessions, this could well affect their sentence. It was widely believed that magistrates at Quarter Sessions were more severe than judges at Assizes.¹⁰⁵ There is some evidence for this being true in Essex, and also that they passed a wider range of different sentences for similar offences.¹⁰⁶ Their ability to exercise personal discretion was described by an article in The Times in 1829, which said that they 'possessed local information, and a knowledge of the individuals accused, which the judges of Assize must be without'. So they had 'better opportunities of discriminating as to the degree of punishment which is likely to effect the reform of offenders or secure the peace of the district'.¹⁰⁷

The judges, however, did have particular powers of discretion, namely in their exercise of the reprieve system. After passing a death sentence, it was their personal decision whether to issue a reprieve and a reduced sentence. They nearly always did so. At the Essex Assizes of 1824 and 1829, 27 per cent of people found guilty were sentenced to death, but 95 per cent of those were reprieved; this reprieve rate was the same as the national one. 72 per cent of the people reprieved in Essex were transported overseas, most of them for life; the rest were imprisoned.¹⁰⁸ The power of the judge lay in his ability to decide who should be amongst the unlucky five per cent to be executed, as did Mr Justice Alexander for James Cook; this particular judge seemed to use more discretion than his fellow judges on the Home Circuit, having a less consistent stance in many aspects of sentencing.¹⁰⁹ More commonly, the young tended to be treated with leniency, as was also illustrated by King for 18th-century Essex.¹¹⁰ Also influential in securing a lighter sentence was proof of previous good character, and the wording of pleas for clemency shows that the public was aware of this.¹¹¹

Of course many of these elements of discretion in the conduct of the trial exist today. However, there is now considerable scope for appeal against a verdict or sentence. In the 1820s there was not. In a few cases the judge himself changed his mind about the sentence after he had left Chelmsford.¹¹² Otherwise the only challenge was a petition for a Royal Pardon. No expenses were provided for this process, and it was thus confined to those suspects who knew about it or could afford it, except in unusual cases like those of James Cook whose petition was submitted for him by a guilt-stricken magistrate.¹¹³

None of the twelve petitions for pardon from Essex in 1829 had any effect, but their tone suggests that the petitioners did believe that they had some chance of success.¹¹⁴ The one submitted by Luard for James Cook was unusual in not troubling itself with Cook's character, and in suggesting that he may have been innocent. Several of the other Essex petitioners admitted the actual offence, and relied heavily for their effect on the petitioner's character. King found that this was also the most common element in 18th-century petitions from Essex.¹¹⁵ Those of the 1820s spoke of such matters as the petitioners having received a 'religious and moral education', and of their 'care and attention to their children'.¹¹⁶ Most petitions therefore reflected what has been seen throughout the 'career' of a suspect, that one of his best means of avoiding punishment was to establish that he was not a 'man of bad character'.¹¹⁷

Next page: THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND