The Spanking Writers

Young Ann Burke felt the wrath of the judicial system on this day 218 years ago. Age 18, she was charged at the Old Bailey with:

“feloniously stealing, on the 2d of November, in the parish of Saint Giles’s, in the Fields, a silk handkerchief, value 6 d. a muslin apron, value 4 s. a linen shift, value 12 d. a pair of cotton stockings, value 6 d. a piece of linen cloth, value 2 d. the goods of Lawrence Kelly.”

The victim of the crime provided sworn evidence:

I live in Bulkely-street, Saint Giles’s; I am an housekeeper; the prisoner was my servant when I lost the things, and continued till I took her up on suspicion of the robbery: I went on the 2d of November, and brought a constable, as I had before missed several things out of my bed chamber: and no one could have recourse to it but herself and mistress, that is my wife; and I could suspect no one but herself; and she acknowledged there were some of my things in her bed room, which she took out of my bed room; and on examining her box, which was in her room and which I desired the constable to open, there we found the silk handkerchief, which was mine; and the other things were found in the prisoner’s room.

John Taylor then gave evidence:

I am a constable; these things, which the prosecutor claims as his property (the things produced and sworn to by the prosecutor) were found in the prisoner’s room and box; and the aprons had been cut off, and the piece cut off had the prosecutor’s mark.

The prisoner called one witness who “gave her a good character”, but the Jury were in no doubt, and Mr Baron Perryn’s sentence inevitable:

GUILTY , aged 18.

Privately Whipped .

One assumes that the young woman would have spent much of the lengthy five week wait between her arrest and her court case contemplating the likely consequences.

More to come in the New Year in this ongoing series!