Grandmother stolen at 2 years of age (1897). Help?

[seahall]

Hi.

giblet can you do me a favour and say what page of the article you most
kindly typed up was on as I can not find it in the paper I am looking at although
it does say Leciester Chronicle and correct date you mentioned.

T.I.A.

I did find the Nottingham article.

Beautiful photo of Mary Ann.

EDITED: Just re-read Ruskies brilliant time line.

Sandy

[Ruskie]

Cocksie, Harriet says she is single in the 1901 and 1911 censuses. Maybe she disliked James Hall so much that she did not take his name? (unsure this would have happened in that era though). She was in institutions so with no husband around I suppose that they could have assumed she was single. No idea about the surname though ...

I am wondering if it would be an idea to contact the owner of the Fisher / Hall tree on Ancestry, to ask what their sources are? If deemed worthwhile will someone be kind enough to contact them?

[giblet]

Hi.

giblet can you do me a favour and say what page of the article you most
kindly typed up was on as I can not find it in the paper I am looking at although
it does say Leciester Chronicle and correct date you mentioned.

T.I.A.

I did find the Nottingham article.

Beautiful photo of Mary Ann.

EDITED: Just re-read Ruskies brilliant time line.

Sandy

Here you go 

Leicester Chronicle and the Leicestershire Mercury (Leicester, England),
Saturday, January 15, 1898; pg. 2; Issue 4536

[giblet]

Cocksie, Harriet says she is single in the 1901 and 1911 censuses. Maybe she disliked James Hall so much that she did not take his name? (unsure this would have happened in that era though). She was in institutions so with no husband around I suppose that they could have assumed she was single. No idea about the surname though ...

I am wondering if it would be an idea to contact the owner of the Fisher / Hall tree on Ancestry, to ask what their sources are? If deemed worthwhile will someone be kind enough to contact them?

Maybe wait and see what Carol wants to do 

[seahall]

Thanks giblet.

Got it now, thanks again.

It kept sending me to page 5. 

Sandy

[majm]

I, too, just noted the "imbecile" note in 1911 census for Harriet Fisher. Listed as a scholar when living with father in 1881.
Apologies if I am missing something but, given she married, why would she not be a Harriet Hall?

As far as I know, in the UK (as in Australia) it has not ever been against the law to use whatever name you want, so long as you are not using a name different from your birth name (or your husband's surname) for the purpose of deceiving or otherwise committing a crime.    If she has left her husband, or has been deserted by her husband, then to all intents and purposes the marriage is over, even if no formal declaration of a civil court has finalised any divorce.   

I think you will find that "Mrs" as a title in any decade of the 19thC could have a broader meaning than say our mid 20th century families would have understood or expected ....   

There's actually plenty of examples of females in New South Wales (Aust) in 19th Century who continued to use the surname they arrived with, long after marrying in NSW.  While some of those females were transported under sentence of a civil court, some were simply transported as part of the household of the officers of various regiments sent as garrison forces (UK garrison forces in NSW to about 1870s, some came as wives of men chasing their fortunes in the gold rushes, some came as Orphaned girls, and the various immigration schemes can provide many other reasons ...   


Trying not to get too far off the track, but females could live under their birth surname in the 19thC, and it was not something 'new' to the Feminist Movement of the 1970s  .....

Obviously I cannot speak about UK records in the 19thC, although I do have a fair working knowledge of NSW official record keeping (or lack thereof) in the 19thC (and it varied widely through each decade ! ) and NSW was of course just one of the British Colonies in the Antipodes 

Question of the Aussie RChatters reading this thread .....  Anyone searched Trove or Papers Past for any sightings of colonial reports of this dastardly horrible man .... that giblet has so carefully typed up for Carol and us all. 
 

Cheers,  JM
 

[Ruskie]

I am wondering if it would be an idea to contact the owner of the Fisher / Hall tree on Ancestry, to ask what their sources are? If deemed worthwhile will someone be kind enough to contact them?

Maybe wait and see what Carol wants to do 

That is certainly a wise idea. 
Carol, maybe you would also like to place a request on the Nottinghamshire board, for a lookup of the Workhouse records which are kept at Nottingham Archives? Please provide a link to this thread so that anyone willing to help can get the full story. 

[Added: Majm, I had a quick look on Trove after I'd read your reply but couldn't see anything about this case - I wouldn't trust me though if I were you, so maybe another pair of eyes would be wise.  ]

[majm]

May I please make things easier for us  to refer back to 

See how we go this time  Hope i didnt leave anything out.

Saturday, January 15, 1898

GROSS CRUELTY  TO A CHILD AT LOUGHBOROUGH
HUNG UP BY STRAPS
CRAMMED IN A CUPBOARD
At the Loughbourough petty sessions on Wednesday before Mr S Wells [in the chair]The Mayor Ald Tidd, Messers U Goodacre, P Winsor, J G Shields, James Hall, labourer no fixed address was charged by Inspector Barnes, NSPCC  with cruelly ill treating a female child, aged 2 years on November 14. Mr H J Deane prosecuted for the society and said this was not a case of cruelty by neglect or indifference of parents but one of actual violence by the prisioner. This child was 2 years old and no relation to the prisoner as far as could be ascertained nor of the woman whom he cohabited. But he had the custardy of the child and was responsible for her.  He had been tramping between Loughborough, Leicester, and Derby, and at varous times he and the woman had stayed at the Model Lodging House Loughborough and on several occasions he had treated the child with great cruelty. This culminated on Fair Saturday and Sunday when he treatment of the girl was so bad that the female deputy at the lodging house complained to the police. The prisoner left  the town the same day and was arrested on a warrant on Tuesday last. After describing the acts of cruelity which would be proved by the witness Mr Deane said he thought the bench would have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that this was a case in which a penalty should be inflicted as would show the prisioner and men like him that even children who did not belong to them could not be treated as this child had been,.
Martha Haywood female deputy at the Model said that on Fair Saturday about noon she saw the prisioner kick the child against the sink causing a bruise on the forehead the size of a half crown. On Sunday witness saw him hang the child up  by a belt around her waist  from a nail in the beam. It hung there for five minutes face down afraid to cry and witness added " The child is in court and full of measles as it can be"  Prisoner - Its only a cold it got the last day or two.- Witness, continuing  said there is a small cupboard in the kitchen. and witness had seen him push the child into it, doubling up its head and limbs to get it in. He kept it there for tow hours. On varous occasions witness had heard in the bedroom occupied  by the man, woman and child, a sound as of a strap had been used and a child crying.
Mr Winsor- Were there no other people present when he did all this? - Yes.- And they did not try to stop him? - It seemed to amuse them.
The Magisstrate's Clerk ; Didnt you people want to take it out? - The misses of the lodging house fetched it out but he repeated it.  Witness had repeatedly stopped the man from ill treating the child. - Prisoner:  I could get into the cupboard myself.
Ellen Marshall, wife of Herbert Marshall living near the Model said that on Fair Saturday November 13 the child fell down in the kitchen the prisioner slapped it for falling. He followed it to the yard, kicked it in the back, and it fell against the sink, wounding its forehead. Prisioner took it back into the house and made it lie on a form saying if it got up he would kill it.  The child lay still for a while and then moved, the prisoner slapped it, and made it lie down again. The man was quiet sober on these occasions.
Mary Sheriff, who said she was 78 last October, and walked all the way to Whitwick on Tuesday and had been fetched back by police was the next witness.  At the fair time she said she was staying at the Model and knew the prisioner and the woman with him and the child " little Mary Ann". Witness went on to describe how she saw prisoner turn his wife out and put the baby on the floor. Then he took the little baby put a strap under her little jaws and around her head and hung her up for two or three minutes. After that he put her little hands together and tied the strap around them and hung her up again. The other people in the room had a hearty good laugh but witness hid her face in her hands and could not look.
Inspector Agar, deposed that ?  ?? the prisoner on a warrant on Tuesday at the  ?  Lodging House. He told him what the charge was and prisioner said - " Who's going to give me away?"  Witness said he thought the old woman was going to give evidence against him. Prisoner remarked " Thats after giving her two two-pennorths.
Inspector Barnes said he had  measured the cupboard referred to and found it was 13 inches deep, 12 inches wide, 27 inches long. It would be impossible to get the child in without doubling its knees up to its head. The cupboard was by the side of the fireplace where a roaring fire was always on the way and it would be very hot. It was used for drying fire wood.  Witness saw the man's wife in Loughbourgh three weeks ago looking for him, and she told him that they purchased the child at Derby for the purpose of getting their living by it and it did not belong to the prisoner.
Prisoner was proceeding to dispute this statement when the Magistrate's clerk remarked it was not evidence against him and he would be wise not to ask questions as to make it evidence.

[majm]

Prisoner said that about 2 years ago he cohabited with the child's mother at Ilkeston and married her when the child was two or three months old. He had been with her ever since till last December when they come to Loughbourgh. The wife of his was going about town with another man and he thought it was time to " get shut of her" as quick as he could.  She and another youngster went away and prisoner had always had this baby girl with him. He had never done anything wrong to it and it always had plenty to eat and a bed to go to.
Florence Lea said she was keeping company with the prisoner. She had never seen him ill use the child during the three months she had been with him. It is not true he hung her up with a strap or kicked her. The affair in the yard was when she fell against the sink and cut her forehead.
By Mr Deane:- She come to Loughborough at the beginning of the fair and made prisoners acquaintance at the Model, and went away with him on Sunday and has been with him ever since.
The Bench convicted and the Chairman said they considered it a very gross case of cruelty. Prisoner   would go to goal for ten weeks - hard labour.
Mr Deane applied that the child should be sent to the Workhouse till instructions had been received from the society as to its custody.
The Clerk said the bench had no power to make a order of that kind after the father had been convicted.
The Deputy Chief Constable however stating that the woman Lea was not willing to take charge of the child, Mr Bosworth said the relieving officier would have to see to it. The court would not need to make any order...

Oh deary me I forgot to say those two magic words to our transcriber, Giblet ..... 

THANK YOU.