James Walsh

342

Maureen Withey on 16th April 2023

DUBLIN, JUNE 29. Patrick Hinchy, Michael Seery, James Carty, Timothy Maher, Joseph Walsh, and Thomas Cullen, were indicted under the Ellenborough Act. English Chronicle, 5 July 1825.

342

Maureen Withey on 16th April 2023

Irish Convict Database, by Peter Mayberry. James Walsh, age on arrival, 34, Phoenix III (1826), tried 1825 at Dublin, Life. DOB, 1792, native place, Wexford. Trade, Clothier comb maker. Married , 2 children. --------------------------------------------------------------------- COMMISSION COURT— OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK MR. BUTTERWORTH. Patrick Hinchey, James Carty, Timothy Maher, Laurence Seery, James Walsh, and Thomas Cullen, were put upon their trial an indictment, charging them with having, on the 17th of April last, feloniously assaulted James Butterworth; Hinchey as having cut and wounded the prosecutor, with intent to murder him, and the other prisoners being aiders and abettors in the crime. A second count stated the offence have been committed with intent to maim, disfigure, and disable the prosecutor. Mr. Townsend, K. C., shortly addressed the Jury, stating the nature of the offence, designated the Act of Parliament, and detailing the circumstances which led to the prosecution, namely, a most savage assault upon Mr. Butterworth by the prisoners, for other cause than his having introduced into his cloth manufactory some machinery, which the process of shearing was expedited and improved, and the prisoners fancied their interests prejudiced, they accordingly lay in wait for the prosecutor, on the day laid in the indictment, when he went take a walk in the neighbourhood of his house. The prosecutor observed them, suspected their design, and endeavoured to avoid them ; attempted leap over ditch, but not in state of health which enabled him accomplish it, fell into the ditch, and they seized him he lay in the dyke, and beat him with bludgeons, and one of the party inflicted a wound on his head with a sword. This, Gentlemen, remarkable feature the case, and gives it a different aspect from any former occurrence, and therefore has become necessary to prosecute these prisoners under an act which has been recently passed, and which makes an attack upon any person with a mortal weapon, with intent murder or maim him, a capital offence; and, for the same reason, all modes of defence which would admissible in a case of murder, are accessible to the prisoners in this case. It most melancholy that these deluded men cannot be dissuaded from courses, at once injurious the good order of society, and prejudicial to their own immediate interests. If they could brought to listen to reason ; if they would individually associate with others, who understand the subject sufficiently to instruct them in what is conducive to their real advantage, I am persuaded there would no difficulty in convincing them, that it is the interest of workmen to have much of the manufacture done by machinery. True it is, the particular work for which particular machine has been constructed, will not any longer afford employment to those persons by whose manual labour the work was before done, and therefore those who view the subject without sufficient attention or judgment, naturally conceive themselves injured, but truth, nothing can tend more promote the general prosperity of trade, and consequently to increase the sources of individual employment, than the introduction of machinery manufacture, and nothing on the contrary can so effectually destroy prosperity, as the prevention of its use. Why it that that great and powerful country that is placed next on the globe, exceeds all others in manufactures and in prosperity ? .... The report continues in The Dublin Morning Register, 30 Jun 1825.