Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Legends -- England -- Yorkshire; Yorkshire (England) -- Miscellanea
"After her release from York the reader will readily imagine from this
anecdote of her, that she would speedily fall into another scrape. This
soon happened. She was committed to Wakefield House of Correction, again
tried and found guilty, and I have never since heard of her. She had
cohabited with two different men, both of whom passed as her husband.
Their names were M'Dowel and Connor, and they both have been
transported.
"My daughter, Sarah Dunhill, after having been confined in York Castle,
was tried at the East Riding Sessions at Beverley, and imprisoned one
year. She was subsequently tried at the Borough Sessions at Beverley for
picking the pocket of a gentleman named Scholfield, and stealing from
him a considerable sum of money.
"During her trial she made a moving appeal to the barristers present,
stating that she had always found them her best friends; that their
ingenuity had often assisted her in the hour of need, and she yet
reposed faith in their kindness, and proudly left her honesty and honour
in their keeping. The Recorder, startled into momentary confusion at the
nature of this appeal, speedily recovered his dignity, and inflicted on
her the doom of the law. She was at this time residing at Hull, and had
come over to Beverley fair that morning for the purpose of depredation.
For this offence she was transported for seven years. She had three
husbands, named James Stanhope, William Rhodes, and James Crossland, all
of whom were severally transported, one after the other.
"My son, William Dunhill, was transported at the York Assizes for the
term of fourteen years. He, poor fellow, died immediately on his arrival
in New South Wales. He was the most promising of my family, and with
different examples before him, and good advice, would probably have
proved an ornament to society.
"Robert Taylor, son of my wife by a former husband, and who lived under
the same roof with us for several years, was also transported.
"I think I omitted to state that my wife at the time I married her was a
widow, and her name was Taylor. Her husband was shot in attempting to
commit a robbery shortly before I married her, a circumstance which was
not known to me, and which she never mentioned.
"As to my wife, she was also transported, after having contrived
innumerable depredations, and been the cause of those fatal events which
befel herself, myself, and the rest of the family.
"A robbery committed at Howden was readily traced home to the inmates of
our house; suspicion fell at once upon them, and the furniture, watches,
coins, and many other stolen articles were found on my premises. But as
this and many other things happened during my absence, and as I never
again saw several members of my family, I am the less particular in
narrating them, from my great anxiety that nothing should appear in this
history of myself for which I cannot vouch the truth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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