U is for unknown fate of Gerald Mainwaring

In 1879, Gerald Mainwaring, my first cousin four times removed, just 24 years old, was tried and found guilty of murder. The case, widely reported, caused a sensation.

From the mid-1870s Mainwaring had lived in Canada, farming in Manitoba. In April 1879 he returned to England to attend the wedding of his sister Julia.  A few months later, due to return to Canada, he went on a spree in Derby.  He got drunk, and driving a trap with a ‘female companion’ too fast through the town, was pulled over by the police. When they began a search of his lady friend, Mainwaring fired several shots from a revolver, wounding two policemen, one fatally.

Found guilty of murder, he was sentenced to hang. It transpired, however, that the jury, unable to agree, had drawn a ballot to decide Mainwaring’s fate. There was an appeal to the Home Secretary and his sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life.

Report in The Times 19 July 1879 page 11: Gerald Mainwaring being committed to trial for murder

New York Times 19 Aug 1879

House of Commons Aug 11 The Times 12 August 1879 page 6

Report in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph 14 August 1879 page 7 that Gerald Mainwaring’s death sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment

A Calendar Of Prisoners Tried At The Derby Assizes: Gerald Mainwaring. Series HO140 Piece number 45. Retrieved through FindMyPast.

On 11 September 1879 Mainwaring was transferred from Derby to Pentonville Prison. In December 1880, after a brief stay in Millbank Prison, he was moved again, and on the 1881 and 1891 censuses he was recorded as a prisoner at Her Majesty’s Prison at Chatham, Kent. In 1891 he was moved to Portland Prison on the Isle of Portland, Dorset.

Pentonville Prison Register record for Gerald Mainwaring Occupation None Court Derby Assizes Series PCOM2 Source Pentonville Prison, Middlesex: Register Of Prisoners Piece number 77 Page number 660. Retrieved through FindMyPast.

Chatham Prison, Kent: Register Of Prisoners record for Gerald Mainwaring Occupation None Age 23 Court Derby Assizes Series PCOM2 Source Chatham Prison, Kent: Register Of Prisoners Piece number 4 Page number 312. Retrieved from FindMyPast.

On 16 May 1894 Gerald was discharged from Portland Prison. The Habitual Criminal Register of 1894 describes him as of fair complexion, with brown hair, grey eyes, 5 foot 7¼ inches tall. He had a large cut to the back of his head, a cut on his second right finger, a tattoo mark outside wrist and stab ribs, dot inside left forearm, anchor outside wrist and two moles near armpit. His destination on discharge was London.

Habitual Criminals Register 1894 description of Gerald Mainwaring Series MEPO6 Piece number 6 Retrieved from FindMyPast

I can find no record of Gerald Mainwaring on the 1901 census nor in death records of the period, and there no newspaper mention of him. I have been unable to find a shipping record with his name. A family history compiled in the 1930s asserts that he died in America, but it does not specify the place and date of death.

Since I last wrote about Gerald, in 2013, my father’s cousin, Christine Cavenagh-Mainwaring, has published a history of Whitmore Hall and the Cavenagh-Mainwaring family. She writes that Gerald was released after 15 years in prison on licence after innumerable pleas for clemency from his family. A family story has it that Gerald made his way to his old home at the Whitmore Rectory. His brother Percy, then Rector of Whitmore, would not let him in the house and sent him away with 5 pounds and an overcoat for the cold weather.

Christine Cavenagh-Mainwaring also wrote that some Mainwaring family relations were entertaining the former governor of the Portland prison for tea. One of the women “was holding forth about the Mainwaring family with its rather illustrious pedigree and its royal connections, when the governor suddenly said, ‘Mainwaring … why I had a Gerald Mainwaring as one of my prisoners.’ ” There was some consternation and embarrassment. “The governor, realising the effect that his remark had made on the party, patted Mrs Colhoun on the arm and said, ‘Don’t worry my dear, he was one of the most charming men that I have ever had the privilege to meet.’ ”

The prisons

Pentonville Prison was built between 1840 and 1842 to house convicts sentenced to imprisonment or awaiting transportation. When Gerald Mainwaring was incarcerated there Pentonville was a place for all male convicts to serve their probationary term of nine months, after which they would be sent to a public works prison. In the late 1870s Pentonville held about 1,000 prisoners.

Millbank, in Pimlico, was opened in 1816. It was the first modern prison in London. In the late 1870s Millbank, like Pentonville also had a daily confined rate of just over 1,000 convicts. Millbank was demolished in the late nineteenth century. Among new buildings erected on the site was the National Gallery of British Art, now Tate Britain, which opened in 1897.

Chatham Prison, which opened in 1856, stood on St Mary’s Island near the Chatham Dockyards.  In 1880, it was selected for the receipt of “star class” convicts: men with no previous convictions and kept separate from other classes of prisoners were sent there for public works. It closed in 1892.

Interior of Chatham Prison 1861 from the Illustrated London News 9 March 1861 page 218 retrieved from FindMyPast

Prisoners at Chatham prison were used to build the extension to the Royal Navy Dockyard at Chatham. From the Illustrated London News 9 March 1861 page 219 retrieved from FindMyPast

Portland Prison in Dorset, 140 miles south-west of London, was a male convict public works prison, receiving prisoners who had already undergone periods of separate confinement at Millbank, Pentonville and specially contracted local prisons. It opened in 1848 and is still in operation today. In the early 1890s the daily confined rate was just over 1,000 convicts.

The prisons Gerald Mainwaring was incarcerated in near London are shown with black xs. Pentonville is to the north of the city, Millbank to the south and Chatham is far to the east of London.

Sources

• Prison and criminal records from FindMyPast
• Cavenagh-Mainwaring, Christine Whitmore Hall : from 1066 to Waltzing Matilda. Adelaide Peacock Publications, 2013. Pages 208-9.
• prisonhistory.org
  • Pentonville
  • Millbank
  • Chatham
  • Portland

Related post

• Gerald Mainwaring (1854 – ? )

Z is for zealot

My ninth great grandfather Charles Chauncy (1592-1672) was a non-conformist Divine, at one time imprisoned for his views by Archbishop Laud, who emigrated to America and later became a long-serving President of Harvard College.

Harvard president Charles Chauncy

In “Highways and Byways in Hertfordshire” (1902), H. W. Tompkins mentions Charles Chauncy in connection with Ardeley Bury:

To mention Ardeley, or to think of Ardeley Bury, is to call to mind the Chauncys, a good Hertfordshire family, whose talents were exercised in several spheres of usefulness. First, though not foremost from the standpoint of literary or historic importance, was old Charles, somewhat renowned in his day as a Nonconformist divine. Where he was born I am unable to say ; he was baptised in the church here on 5th November, 1592. He was an indefatigable reader and student, and was eminent as an oriental and classical scholar. For some time he gave the benefit of his learning to the townsmen of Ware ; but managed to fall foul of Archbishop Laud, as so many pastors did, and was summoned to appear before the High Commission Court on two occasions. I believe the precise nature of his misdemeanours, theological or political, is known to the learned, with whom I leave them. However trivial we might deem them now, they were heinous offences in the eyes of Laud, and Charles Chauncy was deprived of his living and placed in prison. I am sorry to remember that he was but a weak-kneed brother, and presently, finding that to him, at least, stone walls did make a prison, he submitted in the most abject manner before the mitred bigot. For this humiliation he never forgave himself. In 1637 he landed at Plymouth in New England, where he became for a short time an assistant pastor, going from thence to a town called Scituate. There he preached for several years, and then, the Puritans having triumphed over their enemies, the men of Ware besought their pastor to return. But his work now lay elsewhere. He was almost on the point of embarking for England when he was invited to become President of Harvard College — a position for which he was eminently qualified — and in November, 1654, he was installed as the second President of that now famous institution. At Harvard he laboured for the rest of his life, and dying there in 1672, was buried at New Cambridge. He was a rare and racy preacher of the old sort, whose mouth uttered quaint sayings in abundance, and who kept tongue and pen alike busy. The Plain Doctrine of the Justification of a Sinner in the Sight of God, was one of his productions — doubtless a pithy, profitable, and long discourse, which probably no man or woman now in Hertfordshire has ever read, and which rests in a few libraries in a repose almost as deep as the bones of its author.

Charles Chauncy graduated from Cambridge in 1613, and became a fellow of his college, Trinity College, and professor of Hebrew and Greek. In 1627 he was appointed Vicar of Ware, Hertfordshire, and from 1633 to 1637 vicar at Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire.

Chauncy had Puritanical opinions that placed him in opposition to the church hierarchy, including its most senior member, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. He asserted in a sermon that “idolatry was admitted into the church” and he opposed, as a “snare to men’s consciences” placing a barrier – the altar rail – around the communion table. He was suspended by Archbishop Laud for refusing to perform his duty to read from the pulpit the “Book of Sports”, which set out permissible Sunday recreations. He was brought before the Court of High Commission in 1629 and again in 1634. In 1634 he was imprisoned. He made a formal recantation in 1637 which – it is said – he later regretted.

In 1638 Charles Chauncy emigrated to America. From 1638 to 1641 he was an associate pastor at Plymouth, Massachusetts. However, the Plymouth church community was dissatisfied with Chauncy’s advocacy of baptism of infants by immersion. From 1641 to 1654 he served as pastor at Scituate, Massachusetts. From 1654 until his death in 1672 he was President of Harvard College.

Charles Chauncy and his wife Catherine Chauncy nee Eyre (1604 – 1667) had six sons and at least two daughters. All six sons were said to have been “bred to the ministry and graduates of Harvard”. I have previously written about Ichabod, their third child and second son.

I think Charles Chauncy is close to the definition of a zealot: a person who has very strong opinions about something, and tries to make other people have them too. Chauncy only seemed to compromise reluctantly.

Related post

I is for Ichabod

Source

• Tompkins, Herbert W (1902). Highways and byways in Hertfordshire. Macmillan, London ; New York viewed through archive.org https://archive.org/details/highwaysandbywa03griggoog/page/n10

Jacobites in skirts

Illustration by Arthur Rackham of Mr Toad escaping prison dressed as a washerwoman from Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

In The Wind in the Willows the irrepressible Mr Toad escapes from gaol by dressing as a washerwoman. My 7th great aunt Margaret Lady Ogilvy is said to have escaped from Edinburgh Castle, where she had been confined after the failure of the ’45, in much the same way, disguised as a washerwoman.

It happened like this.

Margaret (1724-1757) was one of 14 children of my seventh great grandparents Sir James Johnstone (1697-1772) and his wife Barbara née Murray (1703-1773). In 1745 Margaret married David, Lord Ogilvy (1725-1803), who had raised a regiment in support of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. Margaret accompanied her husband during the rebellion.

Ogilvy’s clansmen were cut to shreds at Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746, and in the aftermath Margaret Lady Ogilvy was captured and kept at Edinburgh Castle. In November 1746 she escaped, “disguised as a washerwoman”.

Margaret Ogilvy made her way to France where she was reunited with her husband, who had survived Culloden and fled to Paris. He later became a general in the forces of the French king.

Margaret, Lady Ogilvy from “Illustrations of people and events relating to the Jacobite Rebellions in Scottish history (1715 and 1745-46)” in the collection of the National Library of Scotland

So the story goes, but it is suspiciously similar to a tale told about David Ogilvy. He too had been captured after the failure of Culloden and is said to have escaped St Andrews Castle dressed as a woman, in his sister’s clothes.

My sixth great grandfather, Charles Kinnaird (1723-1767), brother-in-law of Margaret Ogilvy née Johnstone was also imprisoned during the rebellion. In November 1745 Kinnaird was committed to prison by the solicitor of His Majesty George II for holding treasonable correspondence with the Highlanders at Carlisle, but was released a few weeks later on 19 December 1745. He is described in family stories as having “eaten his commission in prison”, destroying in this way the documents and correspondence he was carrying. Kinnaird was imprisoned with Walter Scott, a  servant of his future father-in-law, Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, Dumfries.

In 1748 Charles Kinnaird married Barbara Johnstone (1723-1765), Margaret’s sister. I am descended from Charles and Barbara Kinnaird through Charlotte Dana (1820-1904), my third great grandmother.

References

• Rothschild, Emma The inner life of empires : an eighteenth-century history. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. ; Woodstock, 2011. Page 318. Note 28 refers to the imprisonment of Charles Kinnaird and Lady Ogilvie and states The family stories “of Lord Kinnaird eating his commission in prison—Of Westerhall being a refuge for the fugitives & of Lady Ogilvie’s escape”—were recounted by Betty Johnstone, many years later, to her great-niece Elizabeth Caroline Johnstone.
• Bernard Burke (1854). Family romance: or, Episodes in the domestic annals of the aristocracy. Hurst and Blackett. pp. 264–274
• Stamford Mercury 26 June 1746 page 3 retrieved from FindMyPast.com.au quoting a letter from Edinburgh dated June 16: “Yesterday Lady Ogilvy, who attended her husband, and was remarkably active in the present Rebellion, was brought to this Place by a Party of Soldiers, and confined in the Castle.”
• Newcastle Courant 22 November 1746 page 3 retrieved from FindMyPast quoting a letter from Edinburgh dated November 24 : “The Lady Ogilvie made her Escape last Friday [18 November] from the Castle.”
• Walton, Geri. “Daring Escape of Jacobite Woman Lady Margaret Ogilvy.” Geri Walton unique histories from the 18th and 19th centuries. November 10, 2017.  https://www.geriwalton.com/daring-escape-jacobite-woman-lady-margaret-ogilvy/.
• The Scots Magazine 7 March 1757 page 53 retrieved from FindMyPast : “Lately in France, in the 32nd year of her age, Mrs Margaret Johnston, wife of Lord Ogilvie, leaving issue one son and two daughters. This lady’s husband is the lineal heir  of the family of Airly, became attainted in 1746 [viii, 269.] and is colonel of a regiment in the French service.”
• Ogilvy David, entry in the Dictionary of National Biography 1885-1900 vol 42 by  Thomas Finlayson Henderson, transcribed at Wikisource
• Charles Jobson Lyon (1843). History of St. Andrews: Episcopal, Monastic, Academic, and Civil, Comprising the Principal Part of the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, from the Earliest Age Till the Present Time. W. Tait. pp. 32–33 states David Ogilvy dressed himself in the clothes of one of his tiers and escaped disguised as a woman.
• Stamford Mercury 12 December 1745 page 2 retrieved from FindMyPast.com.au quoting a letter from Edinburgh dated November 28 about the imprisonment of Charles Kinnaird

Related posts

• I have previously written of the role Edward Mainwaring, my 6th great grandfather, played in repelling the Jacobite rising of 1745

J is for jail: Bankruptcy of William Pulteney Dana

 

Shrewsbury Prison main entrance. Image from Wikipedia

William Pulteney Dana (1776-1861), my fourth great grandfather, was gaoled for bankruptcy in 1840. The London Gazette of the period reported insolvency notices. There are several about William Dana:

 

(On their own Petitions.)

Recorded in The Gazette (London Gazette), Publication date: 18 August 1840 Issue: 19885 Pages: 1921-2 retrieved from https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/19885/page/1922

Shrewsbury Prison is also known as the Dana. The name comes from the name of the road to one side of the prison and the pedestrian route that runs from near the front of the prison into the town centre. It was named after the Reverend Edmund Dana (1739-1823), William’s father.  A website on ShrewsburyLocal History explains:

The Dana is one of the more intriguing Shrewsbury place names, especially for visitors! It starts as a walkway from Castle Street, continues round the Castle and across the railway, and then becomes a street skirting the Prison until it merges with Victoria Street. The Dana (pronounced ‘Danner’, not ‘Darner’) is named after Rev Edmund Dana (1739-1823), who was Vicar of Wroxeter, Eaton Constantine, Harley and Aston Botterell, all apparently at the same time! He did not live in any of these places, however, but in Castle Gates House, the black and white house near the Castle entrance. He had a reputation for being a very eccentric character, but he was a magistrate and also a Trustee of the body responsible for the upkeep of the town’s streets. Hence his interest in improving the rough path that wound around the Castle. How he himself got to be there is also a convoluted path!

In December 1840, a few months after his incarceration, William Dana was out of prison and living in lodgings, still on half-pay from the army, and now running a printing business.

 

Recorded in The Gazette (London Gazette), Publication date: 13 November 1840 Issue: 19913 Pages: 2558-9 retrieved from https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/19913/page/2558

Some months later his case was adjourned.

 

Recorded in The Gazette (London Gazette), Publication date: 5 March 1841 Issue: 19958 Pages: 627-8retrieved from https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/19958/page/628

I have found no further mention of Dana’s bankruptcy in the newspapers. I assume William Dana discharged his debts or made some accommodation with his creditors. However, it seems that Dana’s finances never recovered, for at the time of the 1851 and 1861 censuses, he was living with his married daughter and her husband in a terrace house on Holywell Terrace in Shrewsbury. This was quite different from his previous address of Roughton Hall, a 3 story brick mansion near Worfield, Shropshire.

Bankruptcy featured a lot in Victorian literature, and of course Charles Dickens‘s character of Mr Micawber in David Copperfield immediately springs to mind. (We Australians are pleased to note that Dickens has Micawber emigrate to Victoria, where he becomes a bank manager and magistrate.) Micawber was probably modeled at least in part on Dickens’s father, John Dickens, who in 1824 was imprisoned for debt under the Insolvent Debtors Act of 1813. It wasn’t until 1869 that debtors no longer went to prison.

Daniel Poole’s ‘What Jane Austen ate and Charles Dickens knew‘ is fascinating on the subject of Victorian bankruptcy, debt and money lending.

Pool, Daniel What Jane Austen ate and Charles Dickens knew : fascinating facts of daily life in the nineteenth century. Robinson, London, 1998.

J for ‘jail’ or G for ‘gaol’? Both are acceptable English. ‘Gaol’ is the older term but ‘jail’ dominates modern English usage. Current Australian English favours ‘jail’.
I first wrote on William Dana and his bankruptcy for the Worldwide Genealogy Blog in 2014: http://worldwidegenealogy.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/bankruptcy-in-england-in-early.html

Further reading

For a brief history of insolvency law in England the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_insolvency_law#History is useful.

Jail or gaol:

• http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandarts/jail-or-gaol-how-should-australia-spell-it/7532694
• https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/04/why-did-we-ever-spell-jail-gaol/#
• http://writingexplained.org/jail-or-gaol-difference
• https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2014/06/no-australians-dont-spell-jail-with-a-g-any-more/