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Newspaper reports of the pre-trial hearings
From the Lancaster Gazette of Sat 3 Jul 1858
William Wilmshurst, 39 [30*], was brought up on remand, charged with having uttered two forged cheques, one for £1,500. and the other £457 10s., with intent to defraud the London and County Bank, Lombard-street, through its branches, at Cranbrook and Tenterden, Kent. It appeared from the evidence, which was of a very voluminous character, that prisoner, on the morning of the 10th instant, presented at the Tenterden branch the cheque for £457 10s., purporting to be drawn by Henry Smith, and payable to A. Williams, but the nervous manner of prisoner excited suspicion, and as there was no account kept at the bank in the name of Henry Smith, the clerk declined to pay the cheque, and told the prisoner to come again. As soon as he was gone, the clerk opened his letters, which he had not previously had time to do, and found among them one purporting to be from Mr. E. Beeman, of Cranbrook, enclosing a cheque for £1,500, to be carried to an account to be opened in the name of Henry Smith; therefore he immediately sent the superintendent of police to Cranbrook, who discovered that this cheque was a forgery, and upon his return to Tenterden, at once made search for the prisoner, who had, however, disappeared without again calling at the bank, leaving his carpet-bag behind him at the inn where he had passed the previous night. The prisoner was the son of Mr. Wilmshurst, whose business as a banker had been taken by the London and County Bank in 1843, and subsequently kept an account there, in 1845, by which means he had obtained possession of a cheque book, a cheque from which had been used for the purpose of the forgery. The prisoner had been convicted of a forgery upon a branch of the same bank in 1847, and sentenced to transportation for life, but had received a ticket-of-leave some three years since. He asserted that the cheque for £457 10s. had been given to him to get cashed by Mr. White, a surveyor in Lincoln’s Inn Fields; but this statement was positively denied on oath by Mr. White, and the evidence went to show conclusively that the prisoner alone was concerned in the forgery. The whole thing was most adroitly plan . and to give a colour to the representations, Mr. Beeman, whose signature had been forged to the cheque for £1,500 two days after received a letter dated from the Bull and Mouth, to this effect :— Sir,— Unless you immediately repay me the money advanced by me on the faith of your cheque for £1,500, 1 shall commence legal proceedings against you. My cheque for £457 10s. has been returned unpaid, and I am threatened with arrest in consequence. You know where to find me, and what to do. Henry Smith. Mr Beeman swore that this letter was in the handwriting of the prisoner (who is his nephew**), and evidence was also given to show that no person named Henry Smith was staying at the Bull and Mouth at the time. The prisoner was fully committed for trial.
(* The age of 30 is probably not correct, other transcriptions show 38 or 39 )
(** In the trial transcription Mr Beeman describes himself as ‘Half Brother-in-law’ married to his half-sister which I think is the correct relationship).
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