Gibbon Gardner

342

Maureen Withey on 2nd April 2024

Digitised Indent for William and Mary. Gibbon Gardner, tried at Assizes for county of Kent at Maidstone, 17 March 1788, seven years. ------------------------------------------------------------- LAW PROCEEDINGS. Maidstone Assizes. —Saturday Morning, the Trial of Gibbon Gardner. The prisoner was tried for stealing a bank-note of ten pounds, being the property of Messrs. Tyler and Ashton, Masons Vine-street, Piccadilly. The prosecution was instituted by the Post-office, and conducted by Five Gentlemen of high rank at the bar : the prisoner was defended by Mr. Garrow alone. The circumstances the case were these. In latter end of the year 1785, the prisoner was letter carrier for the Chatham division, and in this office continued for some time afterwards, with a character excellent and irreproachable in every respect, ...In the November, Tyler and Ashton put a letter, containing a bank-note for ten pounds, into the Receiving-house, the corner Vine-sfreet, Piccadilly, directed to George Ayres  at Chatham, which letter Mr. Ayres never received. The most industrious efforts were at first used, to discover the cause of this miscarriage the Post-office offered reward sa!. but the various hands through which letters pass, joined to the loose manner in which they are sometimes collected from the Receiving boxes, the hurry of the Post-office towns, and the irregular delivery of them the country, afforded much probability that this letter might have been accidentally lost .or mislaid, that all exertion soon vanished in despair. March, 1787, one Farris, an itinerant carpenter, who had been in habits of intimacy with the prisoner from his childhood  proposed the prisoner at Chatham to pay visit to his uncle at Great Peckham; and accordingly he and Farris set out together for this. At the of the altar Arms, in London held, they met one John Russell. Russell asked the prisoner where his watch was ? The replied, that he had watch, but here,” says he, pulling out the bank note, is that will well.” Farris and the prisoner proceeded on the way, during which time they stopped at public-houses on the road, where they endeavoured to get cash for the note. They arrived at Great Peckham where they stayed a night and on their departure in the morning, Farris presented the note to his uncle, as his own property, and his uncle gave gave him cash for it. Soon after, it was carried to the Bank and paid but being recollected, that this was the identical note which had been contained in the letter directed to Mr. Ayers, at Chatham, a new enquiry was commenced; Farris gave information that he had received it from the prisoner, and a warrant was immediately issued for his apprehension. The officers received intelligence that he was at Chatham ; they knocked at the door. A female voice within asked, Is it you, mother?” One of the officers effeminately the affirmative, the door was opened they, rushed into the prisoner ran stairs; got upon the tiles ; one of the officers followed, the prisoner had placed advantageously , by pelting the officer with tiles and bricks, drove him behind a chimney upon the precipice of a high wall, and obliged him to cry for mercy for the safety of his life. The other officer perceiving the danger of his companion, but not being able to get to his relief, fired a pistol over the head, in order, he expressed it, to bring him to. This shot, however, not producing the effect, he fired another pistol at his head, and the ball went thro’ the fleshy part of his thigh. He fell down upon the tiles, and surrendered. The first officer with some difficulty, got from behind the chimney. The prisoner was taken in the garret window, and after several attempts by the populace to rescue him, carried the Mitre Tavern, where he was put bed, and continued all night in the greatest agonies, from the pain of his wound- this condition made a sort of indirect confession, by asking the officers if they had apprehended any other persons, saying, that Farris was much more in fault than he. The learned Judge remarked upon the nature of the evidence with great judgment and discrimination, and the Jury found the prisoner guilty. But from the humanity of the prosecutors, in not indicting him upon the Statute for stealing the note out of the letter—but only for stealing the note generally, this verdict will not be for his life. Kentish Gazette, 28 Mar 1788.