Letitia Baker

338

Penny-Lyn Beale on 2nd August 2023

1810 - 23 June 1810. New South Wales, Australia, Colonial Secretary’s Papers. Granted certificate of freedom

343

Maureen Withey on 13th March 2020

Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 13 March 2020), September 1797, trial of LETITIA BAKER (t17970920-43). LETITIA BAKER, Theft > grand larceny, 20th September 1797. 526. LETITIA BAKER was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 26th of August , a tin box, value 1d. a shilling, two sixpences, and three dollars , the property of Christopher Prior . CHRISTOPHER PRIOR sworn. - I was quartered at the Queen's-head, in St. Martin's-lane: On the 26th of August, I was coming from Shadwell; I have a wife and four children; as I was going from my quarters to shadwell, I met the prisoner and another woman between the New Church and St. Clement's Church, in the Strand; the prisoner took hold of me by my knapsack strap, and pulled me round, and told me her sister and her had but one penny in the world; they asked me if I would make it up a quartern of gin; I told her I thought she had had gin enough; I told her I should not mind giving her a quartern of gin, but I thought there was no house open to get it at; and she told me, at the watering-house, the corner of St. Clement's-lane , she could get it; I went in, and stood at the bar where they serve the liquor; the prisoner called for a quartern of liquor; I pulled my box out of my pocket, which contained my money, to take sixpence out of it; it was a little round tin box, there were three dollars laid at the top, and I was obliged to take them out into my hand to get at the sixpence; I received three-pence in change out of the sixpence, and I put the dollars into the box, and put it in my left hand coat pocket; then I came out to come home; the prisoner laid hold of me, and wanted me to go to some place of abode with her; I told her I had no occasion, and to be content with what she had, I had got a wife and family of my own at home; while I was speaking to her, I felt her hand going out of my left hand coat pocket, and heard the dollars fall from one side of the box to the other; I griped hold of her arm with the box in it; she immediately handed the box out of her own hand into the person's hand that she called her sister, and she ran away immediately; I was a great mind to let this one go, to run after the other, but I thought if I did, I should lose them both; after she was gone she told me she took the money out of a joke, and would have given it me again, if the other had not ran away with it; I asked her if she knew where to find her, as she called her her sister, and she replied, she knew nothing at all about her, she was quite a stranger to her; I called the watchman, and delivered her up. Q. What time of night was this? - A. Between twelve and one in the morning. Q. Did you see the box in her hand? - A. Yes, and very near got it out of her hand, only the other was rather too nimble for me. Q. Where had you been that day? - A. I had been upon the Queen's guard that day, and then Ihad to go round from public-house to public-house till between ten and eleven. Q. Were you perfectly sober? - A. As sober as I am now; she asked me to have part of the gin, and I would not, for I told her I wanted to go home to my wife and family. Prisoner's defence. I met this man and another woman, and they asked me to drink with them, and I took a glass of liquor with them, and wished them good night, and then he came and charged me with taking his money; I went with him very readily; I had no money at all about me. GUILTY (Aged 24.) Transported for seven years . Tried by the first Middlesex Jury before The LORD CHIEF BARON.