Old Bailey records reveal Docklands crime of old

By Rob Virtue on May 8, 2008 9:00 AM |

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WE’RE all aware that Docklands has a colourful past but one new website gives an insight into what it was really like in ye olde Isle of Dogs.

Murder, riots and one poor soul who was sentenced to death for interfering with a cow, are all included in the Old Bailey records of 1674 to 1913, which were released last week.

But one crime, which helped form the docks of today and saw the perpetrators facing long periods in prison or being shipped off to a harsh life in Australia, was the heinous activity of… sugar theft.

Tom Wareham, curator at Museum in Docklands, said: “In those days these sort of crimes were considered much more serious.

"At this stage we did not have the marine police guarding ships on the river which we do now. But because of issues like these, it brought about the police force and saw fortified walls built at the West India Docks.”

In 1796 John Donahoe was sentenced to two years’ prison for hiding sugar under his hat. In 1798, George Bird and John Chambers were sent to the Antipodes for seven years for their sugar misdemeanours.

In both the cases the victim was Robert Milligan, a rich ship owner whose statue stands in West India Quay today.

There were many other crimes in Docklands, which were born out of harsh living conditions. In 1768 Edward Castle appeared at the Old Bailey on the charge of leading a riot of up to 500 men at a sawmill in Limehouse.

Speaking in court, sawmill worker Christopher Richardson said he asked the men their demands. “They told me the sawmill was at work when thousands of them were starving for want of bread,” he said.

The gang then broke into the mill and destroyed the contents. Although Castle was identified by many as the ringleader, he was acquitted by the jury.

One man who was caught with his trousers down was Christopher Saunders. The charge was that he had “a certain venereal affair with a certain beast called a cow, and feloniously and wickedly and against the order of nature did carnally know the said beast called a cow... and perpetrate a detestable and abominable crime”.

Saunders was discovered by two workers at the cowhouse in Limehouse. Witness Abraham Denning said: “I saw him make motions as if he had a mind to do; I did not see a part of his body, but he made motions towards the cow.”

Despite Saunders pleading his innocence, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
www.oldbaileyonline.org