Note: This is the first post in a series on the children of Johnson and Sarah Edgar.
The momentous events that were to lead to two court cases
involving my great-grand-uncle Edmund Edgar began to unfold on the morning of
November 14, 1879. The scene was Monks Eleigh, a picturesque hamlet about three miles from the Edgar base-camp of Preston St Mary, a historic place...
Village sign, from 'Welcome to Monks Eleigh', http://monkseleighpc.onesuffolk.net/our-village/
...whose charms were increased by the River Brett which flowed through the middle. At the start of the 1870s there were about 700 people living there in about 160 houses. But the idyllic setting and the tiny population didn't mean the absence of fear - in fact the inhabitants have always lived under the threat of flooding, and in the late 1870s the riverine location was actively encouraging one particular form of crime. The good citizens of Monks Eleigh understandably liked to feast on their local duck....
Duck
...and, as our story begins they were on a hair-trigger because of the terror inspired in their hearts by the sinister figure of the duck-rustler.
On that mid-November morning, George Phillips, a veterinary surgeon, acting on information received, entered
the house of Edward Stowe, a local dealer in fowls. Phillips was a few years
under 50 at the time, and Stowe about 25. The vet didn't have far to go, as he
lived with a large family at 1, the High Street and Philips was at number 44 of the
same street. Phillips had known Stowe since he was a child - in fact, when the
person he was later to accuse of theft was a boy of 8, he was living
next door to the vet at number 2 with his father, Samuel a shoemaker. These
points will become important later.[1] He
saw two partly-plucked ducks on the table, and claimed to recognise one of
them, a drake, by its tail. He removed them and later confronted Stowe with the
dramatic words:
You have killed my
crooked-tailed drake!
Stowe denied the charge, claiming to have bought the two
ducks from Mr. Deacon, the keeper of the White Horse in Lavenham. The resulting
disagreement came to court at Long Melford Petty Sessions on November 28 when
Stowe appeared before the bench accused of duck theft. [2]
The River Brett at Monks Eleigh today: copyright Jennifer Vaughan, licensed for re-use under Creative Commons license (http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/349550)
George Phillips began the case for the prosecution by
outlining the events of November 14 and stressing that he knew the drake was
his because of its crooked tail. Daniel Bramford, a blacksmith who lived close
to Phillips at number 6,[3]
was the first witness. He lived in a house on a meadow that ran by the River and he testified that on that fatal
fourteenth Stowe had come to his house with a boy and asked to take ducks that
he said belonged to him. Stowe took three or four ducks - the blacksmith seemed
uncertain as to the exact number and was unable to say who they belonged to,
but he too had noticed that one of the ducks 'kept his tail down'.
Stowe had told Bramford he'd come for the ducks he'd bought
from Alfred Deacon, and the publican came before the court to confirm this. In a statement that gives an astonishing
insight into business practises in the Preston St Mary region, Deacon stated
that he'd bought the ducks for 2s. 6d. and sold them on to Stowe at - the same price! No wonder Suffolk 's rural economy was depressed during
this period. Oh, and I got the name Alfred from the CAMRA website,[4]
which claims that it was our ancestor Edmund who was accused of theft - let
this post be a complete and sufficient refutation of such foul lies and let us
always remember that we must be ceaselessly vigilant if we are to foil the
plots of the enemies of our family.
What then was the true role played in this saga by the
Edgars?
Well, who do you think bred those 'very fine' ducks and sold
them to the philanthropic Deacon in the first place? And, knowing the Edgar
spirit as we do, who would you expect to rise up in court and stand between
the unjust (but influential) accuser and his hapless victim?
Edmund and Emily Edgar of course - it was my great-grand-uncle and aunt
themselves who'd been the origin of the ducks that caused so much trouble!
Edmund - Johnson and Sarah's second child, and now in his late 50s - took the stand to give evidence that was crucial in exonerating Stowe:
I live at Mill ((actually
Hill - the reporter must have mis-heard)) Farm,
Preston . On the 13 inst. I sold Mr. Deacon 12
ducks for 2s. 6d. each. There were five drakes and seven ducks, very good ones.
I bred the ducks. The ducks produced are two of those I sold to Deacon. I never
heard anything against the prisoner.
Then, turning to Phillips- the accuser - Edmund -upright,
magnificent and fearless - clinched the case for the defence:
I can swear to the
general appearance of them.
But Mr. Jones, Stowe's indefatigable defence counsel, wasn't
leaving anything to chance. He called Edmund's wife, Emily to the stand. Emily
deposed as to the selling of the 12 ducks to Deacon and identified the drake
before the court as one of that dozen...This was enough for the magistrates
and, without further ado, before all the evidence was taken, they acquitted
Edward Stowe, who walked from the court without a stain on his character. [5]
River Brett at nearby Hadleigh, copyright J. Thomas, licenced for re-use:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2941920
You might have thought this would be enough for the honest
(as we now know) 'poulterer' - so he is described in the 1881 Census. But Edward
decided that he deserved compensation for the inconvenience, expense and damage
to his reputation ('no smoke without fire'). In an astonishing development he
turned the tables on the vet Phillips by hauling him in front of the court on a
charge of malicious prosecution.
The case came up at the King's Bench at Ipswich
on February 12, 1880 in front of Mr. Justice Denman. This time Mr. Jones, who
had triumphed in the first case, was merely the assistant to the much grander
Mr. Bulwer Q. C., M.P., who led the charge for Stowe, with Mr. Baggallay trying
to hold the breach for the vet Phillips, the prosecutor turned defendant.
The learned Bulwer began by explaining to the court that his
client (wrongly called Stone throughout the newspaper report) was seeking damages for a prosecution brought without 'due
and sufficient reason'. He pointed to the harm done to his professional reputation
by the accusation of fowl theft. Stowe was not, he assured the court, seeking
'heavy' damages, but only as much as the court thought just and reasonable.
Stowe was called to the stand and went over the story of how
he'd bought 13 'very fine' ducks on November 13. He'd had them put in the 'duck
court' by the river but they'd got loose and mixed with those of a 'gentleman'.
When he went to collect his property, all the ducks came into a riverside
orchard and his obligingly separated themselves from the others, so he caught them,
took them home and - rather ungratefully - had them all killed. Ten had been
plucked, his wife was at work on an eleventh, when Phillips came in and
insisted the two unplucked ones were his. Stowe had seen Phillip's ducks in an
orchard close to his (Phillip's) house, so he took him there, and pointed out
that, contrary to the vet's protestations of being two short, all ten were
there. Phillips refused to be convinced and made the accusation that Stowe had
'changed them' - substituted inferior ducks for the two he'd purloined. The
poulterer denied the charge, and asked for his two ducks back, but Philips said
they were his and he was keeping them. Stowe heard no more about the matter
until he was summoned to appear before Melford magistrates on November 28. He'd
engaged Mr. Jones and subpoenaed witnesses - the whole thing cost him £10 - and
the case was thrown out before he'd finished giving his evidence.
In his testimony Stowe described the events of the
fourteenth, claiming to have actually helped Phillip's apprentice drive the
vet's wandering ducks home. He told the court that there was a lot of duck stealing on
the River Brett and he had himself suffered in this rural crime wave. But perhaps
his best moment was when he told the court that Phillips had claim to recognise
his two ducks by their 'crook or ring tails' (tails on one side) but that he
had triumphantly rebutted him by stating that five others had the same kind of tail,
but when he'd told Philips and the vet had simply refused to look at them.
Stowe's case grew stronger still when 14 year old Alfred
Watts - it was he who'd plucked the ducks - came forward to confirm his account.
True, Watts was his brother-in-law, but the next witness, the landlord Alfred Deacon,
had no reason to be biased in his favour, nor did our own Edmund and Emily
Edgar, who came to Ipswich to repeat their
story. Indeed Edmund's testimony must have delighted Stowe, as he was
absolutely sure the ducks were the ones he'd sold, whereas Deacon had not owned
them long enough to know them for sure. Emily added the detail that the ducks
weighed about five pounds.
Stowe must have thought the money was in the bag when Bulwer
produced his final witness, George Taylor, a groom at the Lion Inn in Monks
Eleigh - there was no shortage of pubs in that part of Suffolk - who told the
court he'd seen three ducks escape from the poulterer's yard at about half past
six on the morning of the fourteenth and go down to the river.
But Mr. Baggallay struck back, reminding the jury that the
question was not whether or not Stowe was guilty but whether or not Philip's
had acted reasonably in prosecuting him. He said his client had been told by 'a
gentleman' - Bramford as the court soon learnt - of a possible theft and when he'd examined the ducks he'd
bought he'd found that two of them were of inferior quality.
Phillips himself took the stand and, under relentless
questioning, was soon making a stunning admission. He went over the saga from
his point of view, claiming that he had good reason to believe that Stowe had
been substituting inferior ducks for his own much better ones. He had, he
claimed, acted quickly on the day because Bramford had told him the ducks would
be killed otherwise and had then taken out the summons on the advice of magistrate. He refused to believe the
witnesses who told a story contrary to his own. He admitted that he had been
driving (some form of horse-drawn carriage) within half a mile of Deacon's Inn yet hadn't thought it worth diverting there to check
Stowe's claim that he'd bought the ducks from the landlord. This admission was damaging enough, but, no
doubt harassed by Bulwer's questioning, Philips suddenly found himself presenting
his jaw for the knock-out punch:
Witness had been
wanting to get the plaintiff and his family out of the house in which they
were, because of their extreme dirtiness.
'Shit,' we can imagine him thinking, 'I didn't mean to say
that'.
But too late; the merciless Bulwer wasn't the one to let a
chance like that slip by:
And putting him in
prison is a very good way to get rid of him?
The desperate vet didn't answer; instead he addressed the
judge and pointed out irrelevantly that his were Rouen ducks and much larger. Mr. Justice
Denman seemed willing to help the defendant out here, and, in the course of
some merry banter elicited the statement that the dozen ducks in question had
'disappeared in a graduated manner' down various throats. But neither this nor
the two final witnesses, Bramford the blacksmith and Woodgate the farmer, who
corroborated some details of Philip's account, seemed likely to undo the
impression made in the minds of the jury by the confession of the defendant's
desire to drive the plaintiff and his family out of the parish.
Justice Denman gave a fair summing-up, the jury retired and
if I'd been Stowe I'd have been planning where to enjoy a celebration drink -
as I pointed out earlier, he had plenty of choice.
But this matter was not be resolved without one final thunderbolt.
The jury returned after just a few minutes:
Mr. Justice Denman:
How do you say the prosecution was taken?
Foreman: Not maliciously, but hastily.
The bemused Bulwer asked for a stay of execution, a legal manoeuvre
to allow a little wriggle-room for the losing party; Judge Denman granted it, but
removed all hope by saying that he in no way disagreed with the jury's verdict.
Bulwer's response resonates through the succeeding years and finds an echo in my
own breast:
Mr. Bulwer said that
perhaps after a few days the first sensation of extreme surprise would pass
away.
George Phillip's desire to drive Stowe out of the parish came
to nothing. The 1901 Census finds Edward and Alice still living in Monks Eleigh High Street - they've moved
from along from 44 to 22, even closer to Stowe, who must heave learnt to
tolerate their filth as he was still at number 1. They now have 8 children and he's
a 'farmer and dealer', so he seems to have gone up in the world.
But for us Edgars there's a tragic sequel to these events.
The next time Edmund appeared in court he was no longer the tenant of Hill Farm
but a 'cow keeper and dairyman'.[6]
And he wasn't' a witness but the defendant. On Friday July 8, 1881 Edmund Edgar
came before the Long Melford Petty Sessions. P. C. Marsh (hiss! boo!)
prosecuting proved his case, and Edmund was fined £1 with 5s costs for allowing
four cows to stray on the highway at Lavenham.[7]
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