both said, 'We shall be hanged.' I have no ill-will towards any man, and
I now leave this world for a crime which I shudder at."
The unfortunate man, as we have already said, had been married about
three years. He was a native of Enfield, and was brought up by his
father to the business which he followed, that of a jobbing gardener. He
attributed his misfortunes to his marriage, and to his inability to
procure work sufficient to support him and his family.
His late fellow-prisoner Fare, was on a subsequent day put upon his
trial, for stealing from the deceased the money of which he was known to
have been possessed, and a portion of which had been found in the
prisoner's pockets on his apprehension. A verdict of "Guilty" was
returned, and the prisoner was sentenced to be transported for fourteen
years.
Fare, it appears, was like Johnson a native of Enfield, and at the time
of his apprehension lived with his mother, a widow in that village. He
had been occasionally employed among his neighbours at jobbing-work of
all descriptions, and was at the time of the murder in extreme poverty.
Cooper, the companion in guilt of the two convicts, having been detained
in custody until the end of the sessions, was then discharged.
JAMES BERRYMAN AND THOMAS BERRYMAN.
CONVICTED OF BURGLARY.
This atrocious outrage was committed on the night of the 2d of November
1832, at a place called Tunley, within two miles of Disley and six miles
of Gloucester, at a farm-house, the residence of Mr. Hancox. Mr. Hancox,
it appears, had a family consisting of two sons and several daughters,
who resided with their father and mother at the farm of Tunley. The
young Hancoxes assisted their father, who was becoming aged, in the
management of the farm, while their sisters were equally engaged in such
occupations as befitted their sex and age.
On the night of the 2d of November, the elder of Mr. Hancox's sons was
in the homestead or farm-yard attached to his father's house, when he
observed three men approaching whose appearance was strange to him, and
whose intentions he was disposed to believe were not honest, as the farm
was considerably out of the main road, and nearly two miles from any
other house. He determined, therefore, to retire to the cover of the
dwelling to procure the assistance of his father and brother, in case of
any intention to commit violence being shown, in order by their united
efforts to repel any attack which might be made. To reach the house in a
direct line he sprang over the garden fence, but in taking the leap his
foot caught something, and he fell to the ground. The approaching
strangers by this accident were enabled to come up with him at the
moment he entered the kitchen-door; and the young man, now convinced of
their evil designs, called to them to know what they wanted, at the same
time advancing to the fire-place to reach down a gun which was suspended
over the mantel-piece, in accordance with the custom of most farm-houses
of the district. An observation was made by one of the party, the
precise nature of which was not heard; and young Hancox turning round to
ascertain what was said, suddenly received in his face and eyes the
greater portion of the contents of a pistol discharged by one of his
assailants, consisting of small shot and sand. The unfortunate young man
blinded, and for a moment deprived of his senses, fell to the ground;
but his father entering the kitchen at the moment of the discharge of
the pistol, was also wounded by some of the shot. The disturbance
created by this sudden attack instantly attracted to the spot the other
inmates of the house; and Mrs. Hancox and her younger son directly
afterwards entered the kitchen. They were, however, felled to the ground
by the same ruffian who had fired the pistol; and then a second fellow
armed with a sword advanced to them, and swore he would murder them if
they made any outcry, or attempted any resistance.
Thus overpowered, Mr. Hancox at once perceived the uselessness of making
any effort to prevent the object which he conceived his assailants to
have in view--that of robbery; and the foremost villain, with the man
who had hitherto taken no active part in the affair, instantly proceeded
to ransack the house for valuables. Demanding that Mr. Hancox should
first give him what money he had in his possession, they received from
him a sum of 65_l._ in bank-notes and gold, and then they proceeded to
the upper rooms to secure whatever portable articles they could find
which might be worth being carried away. The daughters of Mr. Hancox had
been dreadfully alarmed at the proceedings of the robbers in the
kitchen, of which they had been partial witnesses, and terrified lest
violence should be offered to them also, they had run in different
directions from the house to the garden and out-houses, in order to
conceal themselves. The two thieves on whom the task of searching the
premises had devolved, had made their examination of several rooms, when
they reached the apartment occupied as the sleeping-room of the eldest
Miss Hancox. They had a light with them which reflected through the
window, and the youngest Miss Hancox supposing that it was her sister
going to bed, yet afraid to re-enter the house, which she knew the
thieves had not yet quitted, threw a handful of gravel at the window.
The boldest burglars, it is well known, may be easily alarmed, and so it
proved in this case; the villains, whose consciences doubtless pictured
to their minds the approach of powerful assistance to repel their
attack, made a precipitate retreat from the house, carrying with them
some articles of silver plate; and running in a direction contrary to
that by which they had approached it, were soon lost to view in the
darkness of the night.
Instant medical aid was now procured for Mr. Hancox and his son, who
were suffering severely from the wounds which they had received; and the
youngest son was despatched to Disley with intelligence of the outrage,
and a request that assistance might be immediately afforded in searching
for its perpetrators. The village soon sent forth all its male
inhabitants to assist in the inquiry, but in vain; and after many hours'
watching they were compelled to return home without having learned
anything tending to convey any suspicion in their minds as to who were
the guilty parties. Young Hancox, it was found, had been severely
wounded both in the face and eyes, and to the grief of all it was
ascertained that his eyesight had been destroyed entirely, and for ever.
On the following day information of the event was conveyed to London,
together with such a description of the persons of the robbers as Mr.
Hancox and his family were able to give. Their features had been
partially concealed by red comforters which covered the lower part of
their faces, and by black crape: but Mr. Hancox and his family had a
strong impression upon their minds of the general appearance of the men,
whom they declared they should be able to recognise if they were again
to see them.
Upon the facts of the case being stated to the magistrates at
Bow-street, Ellis, an active and shrewd officer of that establishment,
was instructed to exert himself in securing the offenders. A few
inquiries on the spot were sufficient to put him upon a scent, which in
the sequel proved the correctness of his judgment. Three brothers of the
name of Berryman, natives of Gloucestershire, but now resident in
London, were the persons to whom his suspicions attached the guilt of
the transaction; but he found that he had wily game to follow. The
apprehension of one without the others would have been to destroy his
chance of complete success; for to let it be known that they were
suspected, would be only to cause their instant flight. To secure his
object, therefore, he had to act with extreme caution. He found that
James Berryman, one of the brothers, was engaged as a journeyman hatter
in the service of Mr. Straight, in Charlotte-street, Blackfriars-road,
while his brother William, the youngest of the three, was occupied in
the uncertain calling of selling pies and sweetmeats in the streets, his
usual haunt being the neighbourhood of Goswell-street. The third
brother, Thomas, was to be seen occasionally with each of his relations,
but appeared to have no fixed occupation or employment. Ellis, with an
assistant, a lad named Goodison, was for several weeks intent upon
watching his prey without being able to find the favourable moment to
pounce upon them, and disguised in almost every variety of costume he
continued his observations of them. At length, on Wednesday morning, the
5th of December, he succeeded in finding them all together in
Goswell-street, and closing upon them he secured them and carried them
to Bow-street. James and Thomas Berryman were then instantly recognised
by the younger son of Mr. Hancox, who had been awaiting their
apprehension in London, as having been parties to the robbery, and Ellis
declaring his impression that he should be able also to procure evidence
against the third brother in Gloucestershire, they were all three
ordered to be conveyed to Disley.
Upon their arrival there they were examined by a local magistrate, by
whom they were remanded until a subsequent day. On that day James
Berryman was distinctly sworn to as the man who had discharged the
pistol, and his brother Thomas was recognised as having been one of his
associates; but the third brother, William, against whom there was no
proof whatever, was discharged out of custody. The testimony of the
family of Mr. Hancox as to the identity of the prisoners was not left
wholly unsupported, but by the indefatigable exertions of the officer
other corroborative evidence was procured. This consisted of proof of
the absence of the prisoners from London on the day before and the day
after the robbery; of their arrival at Cirencester from London on the
afternoon of the 2d of November in a van, and of their almost instant
departure from that place in the direction of Disley; and finally, of
their presence at the Bird-in-Hand public-house, about twenty-five miles
on the London road, apparently foot-sore and fatigued, at mid-day on the
3d of November; and of their departure from that place in the evening in
the waggon for London, and their subsequent arrival in the metropolis.
Upon this evidence the prisoners were committed for trial at the ensuing
assizes; but Ellis was still convinced of the practicability of securing
the third man, who had been engaged in this atrocious outrage. He had
reason to believe that he was a relation of the Berrymans, named
Desmond, _alias_ Hunt; and after considerable difficulty he at length
succeeded in securing him by a stratagem, while he was working at his
trade of a shoemaker in the Goswell-street-road.
This new prisoner, however, expressed his anxiety to disclose all he
knew upon the subject; and although it was known that he was implicated
in the transaction, the uncertainty of procuring his conviction operated
in his favour, and he was admitted to give evidence for the prosecution.
On Saturday, the 6th of April 1833, the trial of James and Thomas
Berryman took place. The testimony of all the witnesses tended at once
to attach the guilt of firing the pistol to the former prisoner; and the
latter was also positively identified as having been a party to the
robbery. The statement of the approver confirmed the declarations of the
other witnesses, and both prisoners were found guilty.
The superior atrocity of the conduct of the prisoner James Berryman,
marked him as a fit object for the infliction of a punishment of a
serious nature, and he was sentenced to death, while his brother
received sentence of transportation for life.
The sentence of death was executed upon James Berryman at Gloucester, on
Saturday the 20th of April.
RICHARD COSTER.
TRANSPORTED FOR FORGERY.
The name of Richard Coster will long be remembered in the city of
London. A most accomplished and successful swindler, he for years
succeeded in evading that punishment which was the just reward of his
offences against society; but at length, like all other of his class, he
over-reached his owning enuity, and met the fit return for his numerous
frauds in a sentence of transportation.
We are not able to supply our readers either with the date or the name
of the place of the birth of our hero, neither are we in possession of
the mean of informing them who were his parents, or what was the sphere
of life in which they moved. From the extent of the education of their
son, however, it is pretty evident that their rank was considerably
below that which may be denominated as the "genteel;" and the same
conclusion may also be drawn from the very early period of life at which
this most daring public depredator was placed "upon his own bottom," and
sent forth to gain a living for himself. At an early age we find him at
Oxford, and his first employment of any note was that of driving an
errand-cart, between that city and London. In this humble occupation he
continued for some years, and such were his industrious and penurious
habits, that he at length realised sufficient money to start on his own
account, in the "costermongering line," with a horse and cart of his
own. In this business he soon found the importance of a connexion with
the metropolitan trade, and ere long he located himself in London, a
scene admirably adapted for the display of those peculiar talents which
he possessed. He was not long there in forming acquaintances, and
connexions with persons, whose advice and instruction were highly
important to him, in the scenes in which he was destined to move. Horse
chaunters, or copers, swindlers of all sorts, utterers of base coin,
thieves, "et hoc omne genus," were his constant companions, and Coster
now became the competent associate of all. He felt, however, that he had
a genius above the situation in which he was placed, and that his
present calling was beneath the position which he ought to fill, and he
soon quitted dealing in apples, and, by the various gradations of a
small horse-dealer, an occasional purchaser of the proceeds of the
produce of his associates' plunder, and the other occupations commonly
followed by such "men upon town," he at length started in the year 1810,
in Queen-street, Bristol, as a general agent and bill discounter.
Here, however, he was unfortunate; for in the course of the year he
became an inmate of Newgate, in that city, on a charge of obtaining
goods by false pretences; but on this occasion he seems to have slipped
pretty quickly through the hands of justice, for in the following year
we find him at the head of the firm of Coster and Co., in Bread-street,
St. Philip's, Bristol.
His retirement to Bristol appears to have taken place in consequence of
the notoriety which he had gained in London; but in 1814 we find him
again shifting his quarters back to the seclusion of the crowded
metropolis, for a reason, apparently, no other than that which had
before induced his migration from it; conjoined, however, with a desire
to avail himself of the wider sphere of action which was presented to
him in that city. At this period he located himself at No. 8,
Eltham-place, Kent-road; but a short residence there satisfied him, and
he removed to No. 204, High Holborn, from whence, in 1815, he again
changed his quarters to No. 7, Bazing-lane. In the following year, as if
to be as close to the good things of this life as possible, he carried
on the business of an eating-house keeper, at No. 19, Noble-street,
Falcon-square; but in the year 1818, he again appeared in the world of
money, as a job-broker, at No. 5, Oat-lane, Wood-street, and at No. 22,
Lower Smith-street, Northampton-square, while at the same time he acted
as clerk to a Mr. Thomas Gray, provision merchant, No. 4, Berry-court,
Love-lane, Wood-street.
In 1819, Coster removed to No. 3, Bridge-water square, Barbican, at
which time he is still represented as acting clerk to the above Thomas
Gray, at No. 1, King-street-terrace, Lower Islington, and No. 4,
Cross-street, Finsbury. The following year (1820), he established
himself (still retaining his locality in Bridgewater-square) at No. 4,
Staining-lane, under the firm of Coates and Smith, and afterwards under
that of Smith and Martin, of both of which he was the ostensible
partner. In Staining-lane, he carried on business for a number of years;
and only gave up this concern in 1829, to conduct, on a larger scale,
his operations, under the firm of Young and Co., Little
Winchester-street; and Casey and Coster, Great Elbow-lane, Dowgate-hill,
Upper Thames-street.
In the course of these repeated changes of residence, and of avocation,
however, Coster did not pass unnoticed, or unknown. In September 1825,
he was indicted at the Old Bailey, together with a man named Frederick
Wilson, described as of No. 35, Union-street, Moorfields, for a
conspiracy to defraud; and at the same sessions, Wilson was convicted
upon a charge of obtaining bills of exchange under false pretences, and
sentenced to seven years' transportation. At the following sessions,
too, Coster was also indicted for an offence precisely similar to that
upon which his companion, Wilson, had been convicted. The prosecutor, in
this case, it appears was a person named Marquet; and Coster, having
first tried every means, and spent a large sum of money in endeavouring
to escape from justice, at length succeeded in compromising the
indictment with him, and in destroying all the evidence of his guilt
which was in existence, namely, the bills which he was charged to have
illegally obtained.
In February 1826, Coster was announced, by the report of the Society for
the Suppression of Swindling, to have a warehouse in Little Britain; and
in the May following his name was gazetted in the list of bankrupts. He
had at the same time a counting-house at No. 5, New Union-street, Little
Moorfields, under the firm of William Stoppe and Co., and was drawing
bills on Messrs. John Heslop and Co., corn merchants and flour factors,
South Town, Yarmouth, Norfolk; which were accepted, payable at Messrs.
Esdaile and Co.'s, in connexion with Lacon and Co., Yarmouth Bank,
indorsed "Major J. H. Montgomery."
In June 1827, Coster is proclaimed as circulating bills to a large
amount in Bristol, and elsewhere; and in the report of the Society of
the following September, we find it stated, that "Richard Coster, so
often mentioned, has procured his admission, under the feigned name of
De Coste, into the Honourable Society of Freemasons, at the Burlington
Lodge, No. 152."
The Swindling Report for the 23rd of January 1828, localises our worthy
at No. 111, Hatton Garden; and in the March following we trace him to
the Queen's Arms-yard, Newgate-street, where he kept an office, while at
the same time he had another place of business at No. 9,
Parliament-street, Westminster, under the name of Davis and Co.,
together with a feather-bed manufactory, at No. 19, Macclesfield-street,
City-road, under the name of Smith and Bruce; and a Wharf, at No. 11,
City-road Basin, in the name of Smith. In the course of the same year,
this most determined swindler is announced as having a house at No. 14,
Dorset Crescent, New North-road; as having procured gloves and silk
manufactured goods in the name of Wright and Co., Little
Winchester-street; and as having premises at No. 2, York Wharf, Jew's
Harp Basin, in the name of J. Smith; "And I am also directed to inform
you (says the secretary to the Society for the Protection of Trade),
that Young, Richards, and Co., No. 5, Upper Thames-street; Young and
Co., No. 6, Little Winchester-street, Broad-street; Brown and Co., No.
3, Cushion-court, Broad-street; and Yates, Smith, and Co., No. 3,
Cushion-court, Broad-street, are firms belonging to Richard Coster, so
often noticed."
In the following July, Coster is again alluded to in this report, as
having a residence at No. 1, James-street, Kent-road, and another at
Myrtle Cottage, Goswell-terrace, Goswell-street-road; and in the
following October there appeared in the Gazette a formal notice of the
dissolution of partnership between Richard Coster and William
Cunningham, of No. 4 Staining-lane, merchants, warehousemen, and general
dealers.
It would be useless to go through the vast variety of places of
residence and of business which Coster occupied, as well as of the
denominations of trades which he carried on up to the year 1833, when he
was taken into custody. A bullion dealer, in Little Winchester-street;
he was driven thence to Great St. Helens, and to Primrose-street,
Bishopsgate. A coral dealer at the latter place he was again discovered
and proclaimed; and at length he pitched his stall in New-street,
Bishopsgate, the most fortunate of all his speculations, so far as the
extent of business which he transacted went, but the most unfortunate
considering the result of his proceedings here, namely, his conviction
and transportation.
While, however, we have thus described the wanderings of Mr. Coster from
house to house, and from business to business, we have not as yet
acquainted our readers with the measures by which he was so successful
in his cheating schemes. The following copy of a circular issued by him,
headed "Accommodation," in large black letters, supported by the emblems
of masonry, gives a fair sample of his mode of raising the supplies.
He commenced his leading documents thus--with all the pomp and parade of
a recruiting-sergeant at a country fair to catch his flats:--
"Merchants, manufacturers, farmers, graziers, tradesmen, and persons of
respectability in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, or in any
foreign part, may have good London accepted bills of exchange procured
for them, regularly drawn, accepted, and indorsed, and, if necessary,
specially indorsed to them, at any dates and for any amount their
circumstances may require; or they may be allowed to draw themselves on
respectable and responsible houses in the city of London, and which will
be regularly accepted when presented for that purpose, provided, the
drawers advise of such bills being drawn, and enclose the commission of
eight-pence in the pound (otherwise they will be disowned). These bills
they get easily discounted at their country bankers, or amongst their
private monied friends; and in some cases pay them for merchandise, even
on their own respectability, and, when they become due, they remit to
us, or any friend in London, the money to pay the same; and in case they
are incapable of taking them up, they again apply to us in sufficient
time to procure them fresh bills, say upon B, which they instantly get
discounted, and with the proceeds thereof pay the first they negotiated
upon A; and so they go on until such time as their own produce or
property turns into advantage, so as to enable them to do without this
accommodation or temporary aid. By this mode money to any amount may be
raised, according to the circumstances and situation of the borrower, at
about seven per cent., the object of which is trifling, when compared to
the advantage a man of business may receive from being furnished with
plenty of money to speculate and trade with."
The eightpence in the pound spoken of as being required to be
transmitted, and not unfrequently bills to which the poor dupes were
induced to put their signatures, were invariably disposed of by the
London negotiator, who failed not to reap the profit himself, which he
professed generously to give to his country agents.
The conclusion of this document is equally well worth perusal with its
commencement, and serves at once to stamp our hero as the very prince
and leader of all swindlers.