On This Day in Wembury – 10 January 1857
At the Exeter and Plymouth Assizes a Wembury labourer, William Axworthy, aged 34, was brought before the court charged with theft.
The first count accused him of stealing a vermin trap belonging to Vincent Pollexfen Calmady Esq of Langdon Hall. Gamekeeper Henry Peckins gave evidence that he had set several traps in November and found one missing the next day. Police Constable Bloy, searching Axworthys house on another matter, had discovered several traps and summoned Peckins to identify one as his. Axworthy claimed he had merely found it in a garden near his home and kept it in case the owner came forward. The jury accepted his explanation and returned a verdict of not guilty.
The relief was short lived. A second charge followed, this time for stealing a flour sack marked with the name of miller William Towl of Plymstock. Farmer John Hind testified that he had received several sacks from Towl but when preparing to return them noticed two missing. Suspicious, he notified the police. When PC Bloy searched Axworthys cottage he found one of the missing sacks stuffed between the bedclothes. Asked for an explanation, Axworthy said he had intended to give it back.
The jury found him guilty on this second count. He was sentenced to three months hard labour.
The case illustrates how tightly watched rural life was. A single missing sack or trap quickly set tongues wagging, and a man’s cottage could be searched without ceremony. In small parishes like Wembury even the humblest thefts were pursued through the full weight of the courts, with reputations ruined and months of punishment imposed for what today might seem a petty matter.
Source: Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 10 January 1857
