MyTheme for the A-Z Challenge 2023
Family Traits, Quirks and Characteristics
C for CRIMINAL
My Husband’s Great Grandfather - Aaron Armitage
Aaron Armitage (1850-1889), a miner in West Yorkshire was my husband's great grandfather and with his own father Moses, made frequent
appearances before local CRIMINAL courts. The charges - breach of the peace, assault, and thefts, which included such items as a
canary, six cabbages, a pig and a woman’s dress; also the pursuit of
game and rabbits.
A photograph of Moses Armitage, Aaron' father, courtesy of an internet contact
who was also a descendant of Moses.
Aaron
was the eldest son of Moses Armitage and Sarah Galloway, with census
returns confirming 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, John 3 and Ann 6 months. The 1871 census saw 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.
A search on the British Newspapers Online at FindMyPase was 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 his brother Joseph Armitage were charged with assaulting P.C. Richards at Dodworth. Fined 5 shillings with costs.
1858 - Moses Armitage and his 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.
His conviction was recorded in the England and Wales Criminal Register (available on Ancestry). “. 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.
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.
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 husband'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. I did wonder if Aaron had 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? Interestingly the death certificate named as Informant C. Lawson - his mother in law.
This was a classic case of the newspapers online being an invaluable source of information on an ancestor.
Further Research
It would be interesting to find out more about mining in the Barnsley area in the late 19th century. Some of the CRIMINAL activity committed by Aaron and other members of his family seem to us today a bit laughable, but were some of those thefts a consequence of a large family going hungry? Both working and living conditions must have been very, very harsh.
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Onto D for DEVOUT
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