An 1883 libel case reveals a clue


Trying to source a picture of a Victorian printers, I found nothing suitable available which had not been copyrighted by one of the big picture agencies. I therefore found a picture I took on a trip to Blitz Hill in 2017.
   I thought I had come to a complete halt in my investigations, until I started looking at the DNA through my Norfolk ancestors on Ancestry. A descendant of one of Jane Betsy's sisters was a closer cousin than others. This puzzled me, so I investigated the newspaper archives.

   I searched Charlotte Allard's widower, Francis Allard. Shortly after his wife died in summer 1880, a report in the Norfolk Press describes a magistrates' court case. It was heard at Norwich Guildhall. Francis, of Park Lane, was fined for being "very much the worse for drink" and striking a police constable on the back with a stick. He claimed he was just brandishing the stick, but admitted being drunk. He was fined 10 shillings with 4/6d costs.

   Francis Allard married again. His second wife, Maria, appears a couple of times in the Norwich press too, although not as much as her husband, who had a bit of an alcohol problem. One appearance in court was after she was attacked by a neighbour. The other time she appeared as a witness for the defence in a Crown Court case.
   The story comes from the Norwich Mercury of 11th August 1883. The was case taken out by brothers, who ran the Norwich Loan and Discount Company in Castle Meadows. They sued  the publishers of the Daylight for "maliciously publishing false and defamatory libel." Mr E Clarke QC MP and Mr Poyser appeared for the defence of the magazine publishers. Horace Browne and John de Grey prosecuted on behalf of the brothers.  It took a while to swear in the jury, as many were rejected.

   The alleged libellous and defamatory article was in issue number 237 of the Daylight and under the heading "Obadiah's Norwich Gossip." It mentioned the brothers had a money lending business in Ipswich which was closed in a hurry. The judge said the onus was on the defendants to prove the truth of the allegations. They put in a plea of "not guilty."

   As the case took its course, the packed court discovered the Loan and Discount Company had branches in Yarmouth, Ipswich, Gloucester and Norwich. It used collectors and other methods to seize goods for unpaid debts. A loan of £25 had £12.10s interest, paid in instalments amounting to £2.10s, starting a month after the loan. The company also had offices in Cardiff and Lowestoft and the Gloucester was run by Mr Barnet.

   A witness for the defence had worked for the loan company as a Bailiff. Mr A Mainwaring admitted to making 'seizures'. At this point, the report says, the prosecutor's council, "skulked out of court."

   Maria Allard, wife of Francis Allard formerly Youngs, witness for the defence said: "In October 1881 there was some furniture in my house in St Giles over which the Norwich Loan Office had a bill of sale. The two Mr Samuels valued the furniture and I received £37 from the office and paid back altogether £51.10s and then my goods were seized for the sum of £66.6s. This was in January 1883." She said she had answered an advertisement for the loan, which was read out in court.

   After other testimonies, the presiding judge said: "I think the prosecutors' business has been thoroughly exposed to the public.

  A verdict of "not guilty" was returned in favour of the publishers of the Daylight magazine.

   Spurred on, after reading this case, which impinged on the periphery of my family history, I found an interesting, but irrelevant case in the Eastern Daily Press for January 1888, when I found the headline "Betting without money to pay". The story was about Baron de Chassiron, of Fox Hall, Enfield, great grandson of Marat, described as the "despot of France." He was bankrupt, but engaged to a lady with expectations. He was a member of Boodles club of St James's, where he hoped to win back his losses. 

   Trying to work out why the descendants of Jane Betsy's sister Charlotte, shared more DNA with me than her sister Harriet Virtue, has led me to discover what happened to most of the money James Pollard Skinner left to his wife and family through another bankrupt report. It doesn't quite solve all the mysteries, but it gives quite a few clues. 

   

Comments

Barbara Critchley said…
Jane Betsy's brother in law Francis Allard's family owned land in East Norfolk near Mundsley. The evidence is, although he married again, he never recovered from the death of his wife. The publishers of the Daylight were hoping to expose the sharp practices of money lenders in Norwich, Yarmouth, Cardiff, Gloucester and (formerly) in Ipswich. They won this case, which attracted a lot of public interest.
December 9, 2020 at 11:15 AM
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