Charlotte Webb: Strumpet in Sheep Market

This post is a Christmas-based case about a woman who paid heavily for a quick theft. It’s not a Christmas story, but it is set in the snowy December of 1836. A large part of my current research focusses on Victorian prostitutes in England. I find the stories of the poorest women in Victorian England absolutely fascinating, and it is a delight to be able to construct the lives of these women through newspaper, census, and court records.

Let’s set the scene. It’s Friday 2^nd December 1836 and it’s a cold dark evening in Stamford. Robert Smith, a farmer of 186 acres, has travelled in from nearby Tallington and stopped for a drink, or as the paper put it: ‘quaffing libations to his “evil genius”’ (I would love to know what his evil genius was!). He’s been drinking in or near St Mary’s Street, a very busy thoroughfare with many drinking establishments situated just north of the Town hall and gaol. As a farmer he would have known the street well as it merges into the street known as Sheep Market, which was always busy with farmers.

Robert set off on foot along St Mary’s Street towards Sheep Market when Charlotte Webb, a 'tramping strumpet' appeared and started paying him amorous attentions. This is classic prostitute behaviour from the time that would either result in her taking him to a dark alley or room in an inn (there were many close by) or pickpocketing him without him realising. Unfortunately for Charlotte he was not interested in her attentions (so he later claims), but she walked with him from St Mary’s Street to Sheep Market and past the remains of the castle on to ‘a nook’ on St Peter’s Hill.

It was there, on St Peter’s Hill, that he noticed his purse, containing £48 and 10 shillings, was missing from the pocket of his breeches (yes, Austen fans, regency-style breeches), and accused her of the theft. Her grabbed her arm and was attempting to take her back to the Town Hall, but she shouted ‘murder’ and was immediately assisted by Thomas Johnson who had been watching the whole scene from the door of the nearby Old Salutation inn. He attempted to free Charlotte from Robert’s grip, claiming she was his wife and Robert had been taking liberties, but without success. Charlotte was ‘dragged’ to the Town Hall by the help of a passer-by and given to the police.

She didn’t have the purse on her when she arrived at the Town Hall, so there was some confusion about where the purse had ended up. Charlotte could have claimed complete innocence and with a good legal representative could have claimed that drunk Robert had lost his purse before he met her. That could have been enough to have had her acquitted. Charlotte probably thought that the money would turn up though, and that by telling her captors where the purse was, she could receive a lesser sentence. So where was it?

As Charlotte explained to a woman a couple of days later, when she was being dragged down the hill through Sheep Market she flung the purse at a wall on what was known as Castle Dykings but is now Castle Dyke. This particular wall was near to the sheep pens and behind a wagon, and also home to a healthy pile of manure! Amazingly, after over 24 hours exposed to the elements the purse and entire contents were still sitting in the manure where Charlotte had thrown them. Robert got his money back and Charlotte probably hoped she would be free to leave.

Alas, a trial ensued, Robert being bound over for £50 to appear there to prosecute. The trial was on New Year’s Eve after weeks of incredibly heavy snow that had crippled the local road and mail network. Even once the snow had abated, travellers were still having great difficulty moving about due to the terrible state of the turnpikes, so it’s amazing that the trial went ahead at all. Charlotte Webb was found guilty of the theft of £48 10s, which was a considerable sum at the time. She was sentenced to 14 years transportation.

Robert Smith had requested costs in the case but in a moral swipe at the farmer Mr Hildyard, the Recorder, claimed he would not use the town money to protect ‘the property of a man acting as Smith had done on the occasion of the robbery.’ He was under no illusion of the interaction that had happened between Smith and Webb. Having identified many such cases of farmers travelling to Stamford for sex, this writer is not under any illusion either!

Charlotte was transported on the Henry Wellesley ship, which left England on 17^th July 1837. She arrived in New South Wales on 22^nd December 1837, over a year after her initial arrest. It’s not known what happened to Charlotte after her sentence, but she potentially never returned to England. Those December weeks locked in the cellar-like gaol under the Town Hall were weeks of snow and freezing temperatures and would have been incredibly bleak. But for Charlotte they might have been the last time she ever saw snow. After her ordeal she probably never wanted to see the snow again, and who can blame her?

At the same sessions Harriet aka Jane Smith and Robert Riley were accused of an almost identical case in the same location a month earlier. This time the couple had clearly worked together with another unnamed man and both Harriet and Robert had the spoils of their theft upon them. They too received 14 years transportation. According to the Convict Records website Riley was sent to Tasmania, however Harriet was on the same ship as Charlotte. It’s possible that the women had become friends in gaol and that their friendship on the long voyage made their ordeal a little more bearable.  

 

References:

 

Stamford Mercury, 9 December 1836, p.3.

Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette, 10 December 1836, p.8.

Stamford Mercury, 30 December 1836, p.3.

Stamford Mercury, 6 January 1837, p.4.

Convict Records.com.au