The story of George Wyatt, who admitted to robbing a jeweller on Houndsditch in January 1883, resurfaced in Monday’s papers. Wyatt had been remanded by the alderman magistrate at Guildhall Police Court on the Friday and was back up before him on Saturday. Now readers learned a little more about the case and we find out today why it never reached the Old Bailey.

Mr Samuels (the jeweller) told the court that he had been in the jewellery business on the  border of the old City of London for 35 years. In that time he recalled Wyatt (an engineer employed by the Electric Light Company) being a regular customer. However, he was also someone he hardboard his suspicions about. There was something about Wyatt that Mr Samuels did not trust and so he decided to keep an eye on him.

On his last visit he stated that he had seen Wyatt lift six gold rings from a tray pad and place them in his pockets. The jeweller called him out and accused him of stealing, which the engineer vehemently denied. In a slightly different version of events than had been given the day before, Samuels said he then called a constable who took Wyatt into custody. The difference is probably best explained by some clarification rather than anyone altering the substance of what happened. Instead of pursuing Wyatt out of his shop, Samuels had simply detained him and sent for the law.

Wyatt had a lawyer to defend him in the Guildhall court, a Mr James Chapman. Mr Chapman presented the case much as Wyatt had the day before, arguing that his client felt aggrieved by the jeweller selling him unsatisfactory poor quality goods.  Wyatt bought ‘watches from time to to time to sell and repair for a living’ he said, and when hew ent to Samuels’ shop on the 21st he:

‘showed his temper and said, “You have robbed me, and I mean to be level with you”, and he took the goods mentioned’.

He was only taking, he suggested, what he was owed. He accepted that this was ‘very wrong’ but it was ‘not an act of felony’, and therefore not something that required him to be formally indicted and tried before a judge and jury. Indeed it was a trades dispute, Mr Chapman suggested, and best dealt with by a county court not a criminal one.

The magistrate, Alderman Hadley, agreed up to a point. He did not send the case up for trail but nor did he leave it for the civil law courts. Wyatt had ‘acted very improperly’ he declared, and sentenced him to a month in prison with hard labour. Given that this probably also entailed him losing is position with the electric company, the engineer paid a heavy price for his actions.

NB: This week I am following the court reportage for a full week in the same year (1883), one whose calendar aligns with our own for 2018. If you want to see how this case started then look back to yesterday’s post. 

[from The Morning Post (London, England), Monday, January 29, 1883]

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