The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
Two deliberate cases of forging Bank of England notes about this time
may be mentioned, although neither of the criminals passed through
Newgate. One was James Elliot, who suffered at Maidstone in 1777, the
other Joshua Crompton, who was executed at Gangley Green, near
Guildford, in 1778.
The circulation of counterfeit paper was not the only kind of monetary
fraud in vogue. The coinage of the realm still suffered. Clipping could
not be quite put down by act of Parliament. The punishment was still
capital, and generally inflicted without hope of reprieve. It was a
crime affected more particularly by workers in the precious metals. Thus
John Clarke, in 1767, was a London watch-case maker of good repute, who
was in the habit of working alone in a private closet. His apprentice,
jealously suspecting him to be engaged in some secret branch of his
trade, bored a hole through the wainscot, and caught his master filing
guineas. The apprentice immediately informed; Clarke was arrested,
convicted, and soon afterwards hanged.
Persons in a higher station, however, succumbed to special temptations.
William Guest was the son of a clergyman living at Worcester, who had
sufficient interest to get him a clerkship in the Bank of England. The
constant handling of piles of gold was too much for Guest's integrity,
and he presently resolved to turn his opportunities to account. Taking a
house in Broad Street Buildings, he devoted the upper part of it to his
nefarious trade. He abstracted guineas from his drawer in the Bank,
carried them home, filed them, then remilled them in a machine he had
designed for the purpose, and returned them--now light weight--to the
Bank. The filings he converted into ingots and disposed of to the
trade. No suspicion of his malpractices transpiring, he was in due
course advanced to the post of teller. But a fellow-teller having
observed him one day picking out new guineas from a bag, watched him,
and found that he did this constantly. On another occasion he was seen
to pay away guineas some of which, on examination, proved to have been
recently filed. They were weighed, and found short weight. To test Mr.
Guest still further, his money-bags were opened one night after hours,
and the contents counted and examined. The number was short, and several
guineas found which appeared to have been recently filed, and which on
weighing proved to be light.
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