Mrs Sarah Ann Mott had just come out of a shop in Fenchurch Street and was heading home with her partner to their home in Ratcliffe, east London when she told her husband to walk on and she’d catch him up. She had noticed a confectioner’s and had decided to pick up ‘some cakes for my baby’ and popped inside. Having made her purchases she hurried on after Mr Mott.

She’d not gone far when a well-dressed man veered into her path and made a grab at her thighs. ‘How do you do, my dear’ he leered and moved around behind her. As she turned to face him he laughed loudly, right in her face.

The man’s actions elicited a cry from Sarah that brought her husband running to her rescue.

‘How dare you insult my wife in the public streets, do you think she is a common prostitute?’

‘She may be for what I know’ said the stranger, prompting Mr Mott to place his hand on his shoulder and shout for a policeman. Not wishing to be arrested the man aimed a punch at Mott but missed, connecting with Sarah instead.

When the police arrived and Mott explained what had happened the man, who gave his name as Edmund Henshaw, a wine merchant living in Mincing Lane in the City, denied everything and called Mott ‘a ______ liar’.

They all went to the nearest police station where Mott demanded an apology. Henshaw’s attempt at an apology was so clearly a sham that Mott insisted on charging him and bringing him before the Lord Mayor at Mansion House. There he again denied the charge, said he’d brushed against Sarah’s leg by accident and was only defending himself when he’d hit her.

Despite the difference in class – Henshaw being a supposedly ‘respectable’ merchant and the Motts mere ‘slopsellers’ from the rough part of town – the magistrate found for the complainants. Henshaw, a sex pest who clearly thought himself above the law, was convicted and fined 20s, a small victory for ‘the little man’ (and woman).

[from The Morning Post, Thursday, August 25, 1853]