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Friday, 10th of September. The following day Wilmshurst went to a gun-maker at Thame saying that he was the brother of Mr Field who lived in the area and that he was planning to move to the area. He was shown various guns and bought one for £4 17s. In payment he produced a cheque on Parsons and Co. Bank of Oxford (the Old Bank) made out by a John Ellison in favour of Mr Field, Esq. The Mr Field who lived locally was a customer of the gun-maker and so he accepted the cheque in payment giving £5 3s in cash as change. The gun-maker was a little surprised that he didn’t want the gun sent to him but that the customer would return later to collect it. He didn’t return.
One report indicated that he had tried something similar with other traders at ‘Wallingford and other places’ but, if this is correct, they were never brought to trial.
It seems that Wilmshurst may have then sold the rest of the blank cheque book as it was later obtained by the police from someone else some distance away.
Sunday 12 September about 1 a.m.
James Doggett, police constable at Berkhampstead, based on information he was given, found William in bed at 1 am on the 12th September and arrested him. (The policeman was from Berkhamstead which is about 50 miles NW of London and 60 miles East of Oxford, I think that means that he was arrested there but there is no information on how they found out who or where he was so quickly).
Wilmshurst told the policeman it was a mistake as he was a perfect gentleman and that he had been into Oxfordshire to get some money, as his wife was near her confinement, and that there was a conspiracy against him. He was taken to Aylesbury and he asked for his hand-cuffs to be taken off before they got into the town, as he could get someone there to prove that he was innocent. Perhaps this was because he wanted a chance of escape or because he didn't want to be seen with hand-cuffs on.
None of this took place in areas we could previously link to the William Wilmshurst we were looking for but the comment about his wife being ‘near her confinement’ seems to link him as his son was born sometime within the next 3 months and so, sadly, his attempts to get money meant that he wasn’t around for the birth.
There were pre-trial hearings at Oxford prison on Monday 20th September and two weeks later on 4th October where all the above evidence was presented. Two hearings were needed as witnesses needed to be brought from the various places that Wilmshurst had been to give evidence that each document was a forgery.
Wilmshurst, who didn’t have a solicitor at court, wanted to know why he was not allowed to have witnesses to speak on his behalf. He said he had been informed by his solicitor that witnesses would be of no avail if they came. The JP said he was not aware that such information had been conveyed to the prisoner’s solicitor, only that the witnesses might be brought forward at the full trial.
Wilmshurst also asked for bail but the JP refused it.
The reports mentioned that Wilmshurst was once a clerk in the Aylesbury Branch of the London and County Bank and this accounted for his familiarity with the names of its officers, and the method of conducting its business which helped him with these frauds.
(London and County Bank started in 1836 and soon had branches in London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It rapidly took over many other banks (including the bank of Wilmshurst’s father) until in 1875 it had 150 branches and was the largest British bank. In 1909 it merged with London and Westminster Bank becoming, in 1923, the Westminster Bank. In 1970 this merged with another large bank, the National Provincial Bank, creating the National Westminster Bank, later Nat-West, the fifth largest bank in the world).
The full trial took place on 1-3 March 1848 where it seems he was found guilty of forging two cheques for the amounts of £300 and £3,724 10s and was sentenced to be transported to Australia for life which was later changed to prison in England for life, probably with hard labour.
This must have been a hard time for his wife and baby son and I don't know whether she was able to visit him in Oxford before the trial but certainly wouldn’t have been able to when he started serving the sentence in prison in London.
In the 1851 census she is described as a visitor at her cousin’s house and as a house keeper. Visitor may mean that she lived there but wasn’t part of the immediate family and perhaps she was acting as house keeper to her bachelor cousins or perhaps this was a temporary situation as her letters petitioning for William’s release seem to have come from various addresses.
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