Rules and Resolutions
of the
Higham Ferrers Association
for the
Apprehension and Prosecution of Felons, &c.

  Higham Ferrers had its own lock-up in the Town Hall, and the prisoner was lodged there until he appeared before a magistrate, all this at the expense of the complainant.  The magistrate took statements and sent the prisoner for trial.  Both the magistrate and the constable were entitled to a fee.  It was unlikely that costs could be obtained from the prisoner and the County contributed only a nominal amount.  A complainant would often conclude that the prosecution was too expensive to make economic sense.  In addition to the constable, an old night-watchman was employed, who went round the streets chanting “One o’clock of a fine night, and all’s well.”

  Associations were formed all over the County at this time, not primarily as vigilantes, but to share the expense of this cumbersome procedure which had led to a universal reluctance to prosecute, and almost a free-for-all for criminals.

  Not long after the association was formed there was a famous local Mail Robbery.  The Leeds Mail Coach called at the Green Dragon just after noon each day on its way to London.  On Monday 28^th October 1812, when the coach pulled up at Higham Ferrers it was found that the lock had been broken off the box and the mail bags removed.  It was afterwards proved that somewhere near Finedon Obelisk, while the guard was sitting up in front with the coachman, Huffey White, a notorious character from Wellingborough, had come up unseen behind the coach, knocked off the lock, and taken the bags.  He had escaped with Richard Kendall, another man from Wellingborough, in a trap which they had driven from Bythorn Tollbar and left conveniently nearby.  Bowstreet runner Lavender and his assistant were sent down, and they soon arrested the culprits who were convicted after a long trial and hanged on Northampton Racecourse before a huge crowd of people.

  At first, horse stealing was one of the main preoccupations of the Association especially as they offered partial insurance of one third of the value of the animal stolen.  In 1812 William Eccles, a Higham farmer, was paid £13.6.8, one third of the value of a horse valued at £40 and the following year George Gascoyne of Stanwick had £10 towards a £30 mare, but it soon became clear that the subscriptions would not be enough to support such a scheme.  There was no other income, although in 1813 the Association received half a guinea in respect of a fine paid by two persons at Rushden for damage done in killing Mr. Pressland’s ducks.  This was exceptional and it was decided to stop paying for horses.

  The prosecutions undertaken were themselves expensive although certain fees were payable by the County.  In 1818 when Thomas Dickerson was prosecuted for sheep stealing, the cost to the Association was £7.18.6 and the County had paid an additional £4.3.6.  In 1821 the prosecution of Thomas Maddison for stealing flour cost £10.10.2, the County paying £4.9.6.  John Chettle of Chelveston prosecuted Robert Briggs for stealing fifteen turkeys and the cost of this was £11.4.10, Mr. Chettle also receiving £2.12.6 for his expenses.

  In 1823, 200 notices were printed to be distributed in the surrounding villages threatening to put the law in force against any gypsies who might be found there, and offering to pay the expenses of apprehending and conveying them to prison.  The thirty shillings paid for these might have been thought wasted as gypsies were unlikely to be able to read but the news would soon get round and it was noticed that doubtful characters tended to steer clear of Association members, knowing that their chance of avoiding prosecution were better if they stuck to non-members.

  Towards the end of 1830 there was rioting among the agricultural labourers affected by the threshing machines coming into use, which were depriving them of winter work.  There were rick fires and threatening letters signed by a “Captain Swing,” supposedly the leader of the rioters.  On November 26^th in that year, machines were smashed at Buckden, Old Weston and farms round about.  At Kimbolton the next day the parson received a “Swing” threat and at Elton another machine was destroyed by a mob which moved into Warmington where some were taken prisoner.  On the night of the 28^th there was a mass attempt to release some of those who were being held at Oundle.  Some of the prisoners were moved to Wellingborough on the way to Northampton Gaol but the crowd broke open the lock-up and released two of them.  On 30^th November at Finedon the town crier was compelled to go round with his bell, telling the labourers not to work for less than two shillings and three pence a day.  William Page’s threshing machine was dragged to Mulso Square opposite the smithy and smashed in the presence of 200 persons.  These events were too close to Higham for comfort and there were similar reports of trouble in Bedfordshire.  At Finedon the military arrived and surrounded the village.  They arrested the culprits and sent them to trial where they received sentences of three or six months in prison.  Strangely enough, the farm labourers seem to have received considerable sympathy in court, the sentences being light in comparison with those received for felony offences.  Farm wages were so bad that workers could not live on them and in many cases they received assistance from the parish.

  Higham Ferrers itself has no record of these events except that Mrs. Mee, landlady of the Green Dragon received six shillings from the Association for the apprehension of three men charged with setting fire to hay ricks; evidently a formidable lady.  She also provided the Annual Dinner for the Association at a cost of one shilling and six pence, the members buying their own wine.  Those who failed to attend paid a fine of half a crown each towards the cost of the meal eaten by the others.

  Each year there were two or three prosecutions and it is an interesting study to trace these through the Quarter Sessions or the Assizes to see what punishments were received.  In the 1830’s there was Jones who stole Mr. Spong’s horse, James Felts stole Mr. Achurch’s hay, Bell and Litchfield stole Mr. Gascoyn’s beans, James brown stole a sheep, Joseph Clayton some hams, Mason and Harris committed a burglary, John Young stole some wheat and Samuel Perrins a quantity of leather.  We must hope that the record would not show that they were hanged or transported to Australia.

  In the accounts presented at the Annual Meeting in February 1836 there was a payment of £10.12.2 for a bloodhound and the expenses of keeping it.  Two years later, Mr. Rogers of Wymington was paid twenty six shillings for its keep.  A special meeting was held in February 1839 “for the purpose of taking into consideration the best plan to be adopted with regard to the bloodhound.”  Mr. J. B. Howes of Irthlingborough Grange undertook to keep it for six weeks and to make arrangements for its training.  At the end of that period, Mr. Thomas Turnell of Irchester offered to keep the dog until the next Annual Meeting.  The Wellingborough Society had a couple of bloodhound whelps as early as 1808; these having presumably died, they obtained another in 1836.  There was a suggestion that the Higham Society was prepared to share the cost but this seems to have come to nothing.  There was no more heard of the Higham dog and Wellingborough got rid of their in 1841 on the grounds that “the keeping and training of a dog was a useless expense.”  Non-members of the Association could hire the hound for seven shillings a time, paying another half a crown to the dog’s trainer.  In those days, when escape from the scene of a crime was probably on foot, the tracking of offenders was a practical possibility.  The culprit could not travel by coach without being observed and hiring one of the horse-drawn gigs or traps would attract attention.  Few of the malefactors would have their own horse, like Dick Turpin, but the dogs do not seem to have been a practical proposition.

  About the same time a Royal Commission on the Police had reported the alarming growth of Associations like the one at Higham and in January 1840 the Northampton Quarter Sessions decided to form a County Police Force consisting of a Chief Constable, seven mounted superintendents and twenty-one constables.  Henry Goddard, who had been one of the Bow Street Runners, was appointed Chief constable at £250 a year.  Henry Goddard was well known in the county.  In 1837 there was a robbery at Farming Woods, the house of the ladies Fitzpatrick, when their steward lost a quantity of gold coins.  Henry Goddard was sent down from Bow Street and he was informed that it was high time that something was done about lawlessness in the district.  Sheep stealers, poachers and deer killers were increasing so fast that people dared not go out at night.  Goddard soon captured the gold thieves and also took another man who supplied him with the names of a number of deer and sheep stealers, all of whom were committed to Quarter Sessions.  These were no longer Capital offences but the sentences they attracted were between seven and fourteen years transportation, and they brought Goddard to the attention of the magistrates.  The area was by no means cleared of villains as the gamekeeper at Farming Woods was badly beaten up by a dozen men in the following year.

  Higham received its share of the new force in the shape of Constable Daniel Chub and the Society soon made use of him to distribute handbills offering a reward of twenty guineas for the return of a pony stolen from Mr. Spong on 29 July 1841.  For this, Officer Chub was paid one shilling but he apparently earned his money because enquiries led to the neighbourhood of Stilton and with the aid of a gentleman named Charles Wood a man was prosecuted for felony and convicted.  The reward was divided equally between the policeman and Mr. Wood.  The prospect of reward doubtless sharpened Constable Chub’s appetite but the Association became reluctant to continue the practice and in later years amended the rules to prevent rewards going to policemen or to its own members.

  The Annual Meeting of the Society was always followed by a dinner held at the Green Dragon Hotel.  The cost was met out of the general funds.  It was a rule that members who failed to attend should forfeit half a crown and on one or two occasions as many as forty or fifty failed to appear.  The money forfeited went towards the cost of the dinner, which in the early days was only one shilling and sixpence.  The members bought their own wine.  By 1850 the meal was four shillings and sixpence.  The meeting was then held at 4.00 pm and the dinner at 5.00 pm.  It was fixed for the full moon after February 1^st so that the light might be shed on the journey home of those from surrounding villages and for those from nearer home who might lose their way.

  The offices of Treasurer and Secretary were appointments for life.  The founder was William Allen who continued until his death in 1834.  He was succeeded by Henry Green and William Hurst Simpson took over in 1872.  He was a solicitor who founded the firm of Simpson & Mason with offices on The Square.  His son Joseph Simpson succeeded him and when the firm was taken over, Mr. Peter Wilson senior and later his son Mr. Peter Wilson junior continued the tradition with only a short break for the second world war.  The offices are now held by members of his firm’s successors.

  Often entertainment was provided after dinner and a soprano or comedian would be engaged.  Within living memory a Miss Spencer used to sing and perhaps ruffle the hair of some susceptible member, with of course the utmost propriety.

  It has been alleged that the Association has now degenerated to a mere Annual Dining Club, but in the words of a past President, “This fine body of men eat their dinner and then go forth to worry from one February to the next, about matters of ‘Crime and Punishment.’  Long may they do so.”