"Thief" is the prompt from this week's "52 Ancestors" year long challenge, and I am featuring the family of my husband's great great grandfather - Moses Armitage of Yorkshire - a miner, and with his sons, a frequent miscreant before local courts. The thefts included such items as a canary, six cabbages, a pig and a woman’s dress; also the pursuit of game and rabbits, but charges for assault were also common.
Background:
The starting point to research was my husband's grandmother Alice Armitage, whose father, according to her marriage certificate, was Aaron Armitage, a miner (deceased).
Standard Records identified Moses Armitage and Sarah Ann Galloway as Aaron's parents.
Moses Armitage
A photograph of Moses Armitage, courtesy of an internet contact
who was also a descendant of Moses.
Census returns confirmed the births of a growing family. By 1861 it was a household of parents and six children under 12 years old - Mary Elizabeth 12, Aaron 10, Moses, 8, William 6, lohn 3 and Ann 6 months. The two youngest children were born in Dodworth, suggesting a move from Silkstone. around 1858.
The family were still in Dodworth in 1871, at no. 24 (Crown/Town Street ?), with four more siblings on the scene – Sarah Ann 8, Benjamin 6, Ada 5 and Albert 3; a household of eleven with eldest daughter Mary Elizabeth no longer living at home. The three eldest sons - Aaron 20, Moses 18 and William 16 were all coal miners, like their father.
Beyond the Basic Research Tools With research I always like to take a look at the British Newspapers Online at FindMyPast, as you never know what you might find. The results were revealing on the criminal activity of both Moses and his sons
1857 - "The Sheffield Daily Telegraph" of 8th December reported that Moses Armitage was charged with stealing "a favourite canary", the property of Mr Jeremiah Fisher at the Horse and Jockey Inn, Dodworth. He was sentenced to Wakefield House of Correction for two months, hard labour.
1858 - Moses Armitage and brother Joseph Armitage were charged with assaulting P.C. Richards at Dodworth. Fined 5 shillings with costs.
1858 - Moses Armitage and brother Joseph Armitage were charged with assaulting P.C. Richards at Dodworth. Fined 5 shillings with costs.
1864 - Moses eldest son Aaron had an early brush with the law. At the age of 13,
he was charged and found guilty of causing an obstruction on the
railway, with Leeds Assizes sentencing him to one month's
imprisonment and six strokes of the birch.
Sheffield & Rotherham Independent: 16th August 1864
His conviction was recorded in the England and Wales Criminal Register (available on Ancestry).
1867 - "The Barnsley Chronicle" of 21st September reported that "Moses
Armitage and Thomas Sykes were charged with being drunk and fighting
at Dodworth - the occasion the marriage of Moses eldest daughter Mary to
Thomas's son Fergus. It appeared that they were having friendly spar
in celebration of the happy event. Fined 5 shillings with costs."
1868 - "The Barnsley Chronicle"
of 18th July reported Aaron as being charged with the pursuit of game.
He was fined 20s plus costs or 14 days imprisonment by default.
1869 - Aaron was a witness in the case of three men charged with breach of the peace . In the witness box, Aaron admitted that " he had been charged many times with various offences". As reported in "The Barnsley Chronicle".
1869 - In this instance Aaron was the victim of "violent intimidation" in a dispute at the coal pit, where reductions in wages resulted in many miners had gone on strike, and violence erupted between-union and non-union members. Aaron and his brother William were attacked as they left their home at 5am to go to work. The attackers were sent to prison. ("The Sheffield Daily Telegraph" 29th July)
1870 - "The Barnsley Chronicle" : 18th June reported Aaron being charged with trespassing a field and doing damage.}1872 - "The Sheffield Independent" of 6th January reported "Two Scrapes" involving Aaron - for leaving his employment without giving notice and for pursuing rabbits.
1874 - Sheffield and Rotherham newspapers of June 1874 reported that Moses Armitage of Dodworth was charged with throwing a bottle at a policeman. He was fined 10 shillings plus costs, or two months detention by default.
1875 - Aaron Armitage was charged with assault and biting a man on the nose at a Dodworth pub. He was described as "a bulldog of a man". Fined £5 which he could not pay so was sentenced to prison for two months. (Barnsley Chronicle: 3rd April)
1875 Aaron Armitage "an old offender" was charged with stealing a pig, value £2 15s. Committed to Wakefield Prison for six months. (Sheffield Daily Telegraph: 9th November).
Moses, senior, died 26th February 1878, aged 54, with his son Aaron continuing his downward spiral into crime.
1884 - On June 7th 1884, "The Barnsley Chronicle" reported that Aaron Armitage was charged with assaulting Fergus Sykes (his brother-in-law) and was fined 1s plus costs - total 17s.
1884 - A month later the same newspaper on 5th July reported that Aaron had been charged with assaulting Charlotte Lawson and fined 10 shillings plus costs.
1884 -"The Sheffield Independent" of 9th September noted that Moses Armitage (son), a miner of Dodworth was charged with stealing six cabbages, the property of John Smith. The house where the prisoner lodged was searched and three cabbages were found in the cellar, which being comaprfed with teh stalks lefty in the garden, exactly corresponded. Fined 20 shillings with 3 shillings costs or one month detention in default.
1885 - A more serous charge was to follow when Aaron was accused of violently assaulting Sarah Ann Cuthbert, and with his brother John stealing a dress to pawn, the property of Sarah Ann Cuthbert - as reported in "The Leeds Times" of 6th June.
Aaron was sent to Wakefield Prison, with the description of him as "5’6” in height with brown hair and with a cut on his forehead and burn marks on his shoulders."
"The Barnsley Chronicle" gave a particularly detailed graphic, blow by blow account of this domestic assault.
Yet two years later, 36 year old Aaron married the same Sarah Ann Cuthbert, (at 21 years old, fifteen years his
junior) on the 16th
of May, at All Saints South Kirkby - Sarah's mother being Charlotte Lawson. On 3rd of
January 1888 Aaron's daughter Alice was born, (my huband's grandmother) but before she marked her
third birthday, her father was dead.
Aaron died 26th October 1889 with his certificate giving the cause of death as Fracture of the Lumbar Vertebrae, one year and eight months a Lumbar Abcess" - which sounds a very painful condition. It occurred to me had Aaron's suffered the fracture as a result of a mining accident, but have found nothing to bear this out - or had it resulted from one of his many brawls?
Further Research
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Note: 20 shillings is equivalent in today's money to £59.
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Very interesting range of offenses - the railway obstruction, for instance, could have been a foolish prank or dare, or intentional. As you note, a very harsh life.
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