Margaret Anderson

338

Penny-Lyn Beale on 10th January 2025

Place of origin: Ayr, Ayrshire TRIAL; 15 April 1828. Scottish Indexes - High Court of Justiciary Trial Papers. Title Trial papers relating to Margaret Anderson, Mary Baird Name Margaret Anderson Role Accused Designation daughter of William Anderson, weaver, Drygate Street, Glasgow Crime Theft Trial Date 15 April 1828 Trial Location Ayr Verdict Guilty Sentence Transportation - 7 years NRS Reference JC26/1828/34 LIST OF ACCUSED; - * Margaret Anderson, daughter of William Anderson, weaver, Drygate Street, Glasgow * Mary Baird (m.s. Frew), widow of Thomas Baird, Ayrshire. Verdict; Not proven. Sentence; Assoilzied and dismissed

343

Maureen Withey on 11th November 2023

National Archives. Criminal Petitions. HO 17/12/32. Prisoner name: Margaret Anderson. Prisoner age: 25. Court and date of trial: Ayr Circuit Court [Ayrshire], April 1828. Crime: Stealing bank notes by robbing a drover from Glasgow [Lanarkshire], staying in Ayr, of a pocket book containing £40 worth of notes. Initial sentence: Seven years transportation. Annotated: The case is a bad one but request the Lord Advocate to make some inquiry about her. If he thinks her a fit subject for the Penitentiary let her go there. Petitioner(s): Margaret Anderson, the prisoner, undersigned by John Kennedy, Gaoler, testifying to her good conduct in Ayr gaol, and the provost and chief magistrate of Ayr, stating that she was not the principal culprit in the crime. Grounds for clemency: The prisoner is young and, being deprived of her father from an early age, has been seduced into wrong doing; she has an aged mother who relies on her for support; she requests commutation of sentence to imprisonment in Millbank. Other papers: Letter from William Eaton, Ayr, stating that the prisoner is a very bad character, often in custody, and previously tried, along with David Glen, James Anderson and Mary Frew of the murder of John McClure. Anderson and Glen were found guilty and the women were acquitted. Letter from [William Bell], forwarding his opinion that 'this lady is better fitted for New South Wales than for the Penitentiary'. Additional Information: Prisoner held in Ayr gaol. Tried with Mary Frew, brothel keeper, who was acquitted. Date: 1828 July – 1828 Aug.

110

Ron Garbutt on 18th March 2020

Victim's Statements and Account of the Crime from the Trial of Margaret Anderson Alexander McPherson told the Sheriff Substitute of Ayrshire that he was a servant to a Flesher at the head of Stockwell Street, Glasgow, and about three weeks ago had gone ‘about the country to purchase cattle’. He was carrying more than £75 in bank notes. When he reached Ayr, ‘he had some dinner and drink and about eight o’clock at night he went out to the streets of Wallacetown and he was then a little intoxicated’. There ‘he met with a woman on the street whom he never saw before and she asked him into a house and he went with her accordingly’. She took him ‘into a room by themselves and he called for two gills of whisky which they drank together’. While he was drinking, the bank notes were ‘in a black leather pocket book in a pocket on the left side of his coat’. Eventually, ‘overpowered with drink’, McPherson ‘threw himself down on the bed and fell asleep’. About half an hour later he awoke to find Margaret Anderson ‘shuffling his pocket book into his side pocket’. He jumped up, looked into the pocket book, ‘and found that £40 of his money was gone’. Margaret Anderson was arrested along with Mrs Baird, the brothelkeeper, in whose house McPherson was robbed. Both women were well known to the police, as the Sheriff Substitute wrote to the Advocate Sheriff: ‘This is the same nest that we have been so often troubled about, something must be done to get quit of them. Anderson is the same person that was tried for the murder of McClure, and has been often in prison for similar robberies’. A shoemaker and sailor who were in Mrs Baird’s ‘house’ gave their accounts, as did the woman to whom Margaret fled, ‘with her clothes all loose and asked for the loan of a plaid and she said that she had stolen a £5 note from a man who had slept with her the night before in Mrs Baird’s and that she was afraid the man would go to the Sheriff’. Source. SCOTTISH ARCHIVES 2016 Volume 22 The Scottish Records Association In Search of Margaret Anderson: Scottish Female Convicts Transported to Van Diemen’s Land. by Lucy Frost