In 1905 William White appeared in court at Chapel-en-le-Frith, facing a charge of arson.  He had set fire to a haystack at Long Hill Farm.  He told Sergeant White that he had thought of going to Buxton to do a spot of housebreaking but had decided to set a haystack on fire instead.  He gave himself up to police at Buxton because he wanted to go to prison for 5 years !  The prisoner was remanded in custody; perhaps his wish came true.

September 1928 and Frank Johnson was fined 10 shillings for cycling furiously. He cut in and caused a car at Horwich End to brake sharply.  He told the court that he was trying to break a record time for a return journey from Manchester to Sheffield.

In 1939 Charles ------ of Whaley Bridge was fined 5 shillings at Chapel-en-le-Frith for cruelty to a goldfish !   .  He admitted going on holiday for a week and forgetting about his pet. For the  R S P C A, Inspector Hindle said that he saw the fish lying at the bottom of a bowl of stagnant water.  He forced a window and entered the house to feed the fish and give it fresh water.  The court confiscated the fish. 

Well Mrs C,  how about setting fire to the traffic lights.   That's  what three young Whaley men did in 1966, "just for a laugh".    The judge didn't see the funny side of it and sentenced one to 18 months in prison, the other two being fined £100 each.  They had poured paraffin into the control box of the lights and set it on fire.

Between four and five in the morning of 16th June 1847, Mr Frost searching some outbuildings found five youths hiding in the hay and sent them away

George Goodwin was the Whaley Bridge toll keeper  and on leaving his house to fetch water, latched the door.  On returning he saw four boys near his house and another, Wayville coming out of the door.  He asked him what he was doing and searching him found nothing.  Entering the house, he found that his desk had been broken open and 8s 6d was missing. 

George Warren was quite deaf and resting at the roadside perhaps did not hear the approach of his robbers.  It was breakfast time and he had oat cakes and cheese wrapped in a handkerchief.  The rascals stole his breakfast.  The young men were quickly apprehended by  Constable Jackson of Whaley Bridge and still had the food in their possession as well as thirteen shillings and six pence. .   The jury found three of the five prisoners, not guilty but the judge passed sentence on Leech and Wayville of six and nine months respectively and ordered that they be privately whipped.

Thanks for your postings David, interesting stuff keep up the your good work.

george

R.S-S is quite correct in insisting that names should not be revealed when commenting on crime or other stories where embarassment might be caused.  I have only given names in the older crime stories or where people from outside of this locality were involved.  I shall of course continue to follow this rule.

"A True Heroine","Extraordinary Courage",  so reported all of the national and regional press in 1862.

  On the night of 12th November Mrs Norman was roused from her sleep by noises coming from the ground floor of her home in Horwich End.

  It was 3 o'clock in the morning and Mrs Norman was awake, feeding her baby; her husband slept soundly. There was the sound of breaking glass from the room below. She did not wake Mr Norman as he was ill.   She hurriedly put on a few clothes and taking up a revolver from the table, went downstairs. Entering the sitting room, she saw a man standing near the window and looking towards the door.  In one hand he held a candle and in the other, a jemmy. She tried to fire the gun but at the first attempt the cap failed so she immediately fired the second barrel. The gun was loaded with ball.  The man clapped his hand to his shoulder and in pain called out "Oh God - Bill - Dick !".  The window was still open and as he started to climb out  an accomplice grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out.

  By bright moonlight Mrs Norman could see that the second man was taller, with a dark blue, flowered handerchief over his face.  The wounded man had worn a red, checked handkerchief over his face with eye holes cut into it. He wore a dark velveteen coat, the pockets of which contained something bulky. He wore long blue stockings with white tops and these covered his knees. He was rather stout. A third
accomplice was  a lad of about 17 or 18.   By the amount of blood, it was at first thought by the police that the wound to the burglar might be fatal.

  The shutters outside the window had been forced and the window itself prised open with the iron bar.  Some fabric and newspapers had been left on the windowsill by Mrs Norman before retiring and these were later found in the lane outside. A locked cupboard in the sitting room had been forced open and bore the marks of the iron bar.

As we shall see in the next posting, the three villains were soon apprehended and brought to court.

I know less that you Norm about guns.  Although the news reports refer to barrels, maybe they meant chambers, or perhaps journalists were as inaccurate then as now.

Could have been a "Pepperbox" pistol. This was a type of multi-barrelled revolver popular in the early to mid C19th ( http://www.spiral.org.uk/acatalog/info_1071L.html for example )