The case of Fanny and the salt pork

I’ve recently read a file of court appearances of Liddicoats in the 18th and 19th centuries. All the goodies are there – public whippings, hard labour, bastardy orders. Minor stuff, mostly – one arson earned a life sentence. There was a fight over a tin mine at one stage.

Several of the thefts were of meat or clothes. The case of Fanny was typical:

9 March 1841 Bodmin

Fanny, wife of Samuel Liddicoat of Truro, labourer; stealing pork and salt pork, value 2s., from James Mogg: one month’s hard labour.

FANNY LIDDICOAT, 44, was charged with having stolen a pound of salt pork from the shop of Mr. James MOGG, grocer of Truro.

It appeared that the prisoner, who is the wife of a labouring man, and the mother of eight children, had gone into the prosecutor’s shop to purchase some bacon, and while Mrs. Osborne, the shopman’s wife, was weighing the bacon, the prisoner was observed by Mr. Osborne to take up a piece of pork and put it into a basket under her cloak.

The shopman immediately sent for a constable, and had the prisoner taken into custody. She received a good character, and the jury, on finding her Guilty, recommended her to mercy.