Be Excellent To Each Other

Would anyone care to guess what (if any) sentence two men would get in the queen's court for pulling down a man's house (with his teenaged daughter and young son still inside) in 1847?

It may be a few weeks before I find out, as we appear to have the entire case on record, I know almost nothing about the case, and I can only really look into it in my spare time at work. Fabulous prizes to be won*!

*fabulous prizes are not to be won.

Dunno. Tell us?

tl;dr

MAN BREAK POOR MAN HOUSE. POOR MAN BOO HOO. WHAT NOW.

What was the name of the plaintiff?

Place your initial bets!

Someone came along with some pliers and a blowtorch and got medieval on they ass?

I don't think they had blow torches in medieval times, JC.

What will the outcome be?

Ah OK thanks man.

What I seem to be missing here is what this dude was doing living in the house. Was he paying rent? was there an agreement?

There's no info on that, just about this dude getting his(?) house smashed down and suing the people that smashed it (The apparent owners) for damages.

I think that's what's confusing, I mean if they did own it what the feck was this dude doing there?

As the season of goodwill and bad jumpers approaches, our archive has revealed a timely reminder of the importance of a sense of perspective.

On the morning of December 6th 1845, an Ettington carpenter, William Gale, paid a fateful visit to a cottage he had recently acquired in Loxley, along with an associate, Thomas Jordon, a local farmer. Aiming to knock down the cottage, the two men quickly took a pick axe to its chimney, bringing it down onto the lean-to built on the side of the cottage as an extension.

Two men demolishing their cottage most likely made for a fairly unremarkable sight, at least until the young lady inside the lean-to they were destroying cried out for their attention. Even more shockingly, the response of these men was far from concerned – Jordon demanded that the frightened lady, one Rachael Bolter, leave immediately, and empty the house in the process. She refused, whereupon the two men forcibly entered and carried away everything they could find, piling it up in the street. A whole stock of crockery, kettles and utensils were broken or damaged, along with the family’s beds, furniture, food, and even their clothes. They then resumed their destruction of the building, ignoring both Ms. Bolter and the “little lad” who had just run outside.

In Ms. Bolter’s own words: “Jordon said I should soon be glad to run. I saw the building shake over my head and I went out or I should have been killed.”

Jordon and Gale were quite succesful in destroying the cottage that day, as well as the lean-to, and even had plans to build a new one in its place. But their plans didn’t quite come to fruition when it became clear that the original building and land were never theirs to begin with.

Jordon and Gale claimed that the original owner, Richard Bolter the elder, signed the property over to their possession about a month before he died aged 90 – a mere fortnight before their antics. Bolter was a labourer who had owned the building for 50 years, but found himself unable to work and so dependent on the Parish for support. Jordon’s place as Overseer of the Poor of Loxley connected him to the man’s case.

However, Rachael’s father Richard the younger, rejected this, claiming that Richard the Elder left the property to him. With no papers to prove it, Richard the younger had little hope of proving his case. Nonetheless, in 1847 he took Gale and Jordon to the Queen’s Court for the charges of trespassing, and destruction of his house and goods, for the astonishing sum of £500 – likely enough to pay his wages for a decade.

Bolter presented witness after witness who confirmed the general understanding in the village that the property would pass to him as heir, but Gale and Jordon quickly presented a conveyance with Bolter the elder’s mark, granting a massive advantage. It took the reluctant testimony of his daughter and one-time carer, Sarah Hortin, to turn the case.

According to Mrs. Hortin, the mark was not binding, and was made by “Jordon’s taking the old man’s hand out of the bed, putting the pen into it and guiding his hand to make a mark on the deed, which was previously produced, and when that was done Jordon observed that it was capital.” Furthermore, “The old man was at that time a complete child and not capable of understanding any thing”. Mr. Gale was not blameless either – it was he who gave Sarah Hortin a sovereign in exchange for her silence.

Hortin’s account apparently convinced the jury, who found in favour of Bolter – Gale and Jordon knowingly trespassed on and damaged his property, and were ordered to pay damages of £40, and costs of £40. A comfortable sum, but hardly a fair exchange for the loss of a family home.

So if the shopping, the planning, and the endless wailing of Slade ever start to feel like too much to handle, try to pause and tell yourself “at least nobody’s trying to drop a chimney on my head”

Apart from losing his dad, his house and everything in it in December, and not getting anything for it for nearly two years. And not getting enough to rebuild, either.

Well, yes. Bit of a shit outcome, really, from his perspective and the perspective of a really interesting story.

What's she going to look like with a chimney on her?

A better line would have been

"What do you call a woman with a chimney on her head?"

"Ruth."

A better line would have been

"What do you call a woman with a chimney on her head?"

"Ruth."

Obviously!