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John
Duffield 1773-1819
From the description above it will be seen that John
Duffield and his family lived in Darlaston during a
period of great prosperity for those who wished to work
for it. The slump came with the end of the Napoleonic
War in 1815. By this time, of John and Maria's eight
children, seven were still living, as shown in Appendix
1.
John Duffield worked in the metals trade, that was the
predominant occupation of this area. In 1813, on the
baptism of his son Henry, he was described in the Parish
Register as a setmaker of Cramphill Bank, Darlaston but
by 1819 he was working as a stamper with his own press.
The following information on the last six months of his
life is based on local and national newspaper reports,
documents found in The National Archives (TNA) and
information from local Record Offices.
In
March 1819 John Bolton, an unemployed die-sinker, met
John Duffield at the Wagon and Horses on King Street in
Darlaston, and proposed that they walk in the fields. When they were there, he asked him whether he knew Mrs. Bissaker. When he answered in the affirmative, Bolton
then asked him if he would do the same for him as he had
done for her. Duffield said, “What’s that?” Bolton
replied, “Stamp some shillings”. Duffield said he would,
and asked when he could send any over? Bolton said, in a
few days he should come to Birmingham, and they agreed
to meet at a public-house in Livery Street. Duffield
said he wanted 6d per score for stamping the shillings,
but Bolton agreed to give him 3s per gross (equivalent
to a farthing for each counterfeit shilling that he
stamped, and about 7d per gross less than Duffield's asking
price): Bolton was to find the blanks and dies.
The conversation about Mrs. Bissaker is highly
significant as it shows that John Duffield had
previously been stamping shillings for her. It is
believed that Mrs. Bissaker was Mary Leek, who
married John Bissaker at St. John, Coventry on 25th
November, 1783. John Bissaker, together with John Henshal,
was hanged for forgery at Whitley Common, Coventry on
23rd April, 1800.
Criminal Registers show that Mary Harris, alias Bissaker,
together with Frances Bird, was tried at the
Warwickshire Lent Assizes in March 1807 for High Treason,
in colouring counterfeit silver coins, and sentenced to be
Drawn and Hanged. Coining covered a variety of offences
in which coin or paper money (the King's currency) was
counterfeited or interfered with, or individuals either
used, or possessed such false or diminished currency.
Counterfeiting gold or silver coins was a form of
treason for which anyone convicted would be drawn to a
place of execution on a hurdle and hanged.
The Criminal Entry Books show that on 18th April, 1807,
Mary Bissaker received a Conditional Pardon and her
sentence was commuted to a term of 2 years Hard Labour
in the House of Correction. Gaol records show that she
was transferred from prison to the House of Correction
in May 1807. After her release Mary Bissaker must have
continued in the same line of business, and by the time
that Bolton approached Duffield, she had already been
arrested again on various charges of Coining, and had
been committed for trial at Warwick Assizes.
Mary Bissaker was tried on Friday 2nd April, 1819 on
charges of:
Felonly and
traitorously having in her custody & possession 1 Edger,
Edging Tool, Instrument or Engine for making graining
around the edges & or marks resembling the edges of
money coined in the Royal Mint.
Felonly and
traitorously colouring with materials producing the
colour of silver 1 piece of base coin resembling a
shilling.
Possessing one round
blank of bare metal of fit size and figure to be coined
into count. money resembling a shilling.
Assize Records in T.N.A. show that Mary Bissaker was found
not guilty on the first of the offences that she was
charged with, but guilty of the others, and sentenced to
death. The index to Petitions in T.N.A. shows that Mary
Bissaker petitioned for a Pardon but this was refused.
Unfortunately the originals of Petitions for this period
have not survived. It is unlikely that with a previous
conviction for the same offence, her petition would have
been received with much sympathy. On the 23rd April,
1819 Mary Bissaker was hanged at Warwick. She was buried
on 27th April, 1819 in Birmingham at St Mary Whittall
Street Cemetery, and the records show her to have been 56
years of age. The Hue & Cry and Police Gazette of
15th May, 1819 reported "At the late Warwick Assizes, 37
persons were capitally convicted, of whom three were
left for execution, viz - Mary Bissaker, for
counterfeiting silver coin; ......". No other person was
charged with her, so on this occasion the person
actually stamping the shillings escaped justice. This
person was almost certainly John Duffield as indicated
by his conversation with Bolton reported above.
Following the meeting in March 1819 between Bolton and
Duffield, they next met two or three days later at the
Three Tuns, Livery Street, Birmingham. They met again at
the same place in a few days. Shortly afterwards they
met a third time at the same house, when Duffield
brought Josiah Wilkes with him. Josiah Wilkes was a
first cousin of John Duffield. John's mother was Hannah
Wilkes and her brother Thomas was the father of Josiah
Wilkes. William Bissaker, the son of John and Mary
Bissaker born in 1792, was also at this meeting. Bolton,
Wilkes, and Duffield met next at the Leopard, in Great
Hampton Street, and afterwards at the same place two or
three times. They drank together at those places and
paid jointly; there was no work yet ready.
About two days later they met near St. Paul’s Chapel.
Bolton did not then deliver anything to Wilkes; but
between that place and the Leopard he gave him a pair of
shilling dies, and about 30lb of blanks, silvered, and
ready for striking with the impression. Duffield was
present, and Bolton said he had brought the dies and
blanks. Duffield told him to give them to Wilkes. A day
or two after, Bolton met Wilkes at the Leopard and
received back the 30lb blanks, stamped with the
impression on both sides, and paid £3 for them, being at
the rate of 3s per gross as agreed. Two or three days
later, Bolton met Wilkes at the Queen’s Head, Handsworth
and this time took another man, Thomas Earp, with him.
They delivered to Wilkes about 30lb more blanks, in the
same state, and to be stamped as before. Nothing was
said as to what was to be done with them, but Wilkes
took them: the blanks were wrapped in separate papers.
They had some drink, which Bolton and Earp paid for. In
a few days Earp and Bolton received the blanks stamped
on both sides from Wilkes, who brought them on an ass to
the same place, when another parcel of blanks was
delivered to him. This traffic was carried out on two or
three days a week for some time, and at different
places.
From the rate of traffic from March to July 1819 it
seems probable that Duffield would have received
approaching £100 for his stamping work. This was an
enormous sum for the period when the average weekly wage
was only a pound or two. It is not clear who was paying
Wilkes and Earp for their part in the scheme. As
Duffield seemed to be using Wilkes to do his fetching
and carrying for him and also to ensure that he never
had the coins or tools on his person, it is possible that
he was paying his cousin Wilkes, from his portion. Their
gang would have been responsible for putting into
circulation over £2,000 worth of counterfeit shillings.
It seems remarkably foolhardy that they continued the
trade over the period when Mary Bissaker was tried and
hanged.
On
Wednesday, the 14th of July, Bolton and Earp met Wilkes
in a lane at the back of the New Inn, Handsworth, and
delivered to him 50lb of blanks, to be stamped and
brought to the same place on Saturday following. When
Bolton and Earp got there on the Saturday, they found
that Wilkes had arrived, and that he had his son and an
ass with him. They left the lad sitting on a bank, and
went further down the lane, when they received back a
part of the 50lb stamped, and delivered to Wilkes 50lb
more blanks, which he was to bring back stamped on the
following Wednesday. They appointed to meet in a lane,
opposite the New Inn, leading to Smethwick. They then
went into the New Inn, where they saw a person, whose
name was Green, sitting on a table.
Thomas Green, a maltster of Darlaston, was to prove the
undoing of the gang. He knew Wilkes, who also lived in
Darlaston. On Saturday the 17th of July, about 3 o’clock
in the afternoon, Green was in the garden at the New
Inn, Handsworth, which adjoins a lane, and heard Wilkes,
whose voice he well knew, say to someone, “Sit down.” He
looked over the hedge, and saw Wilkes’s son with him,
and an ass. Green observed and listened, and shortly
after saw two men come along the lane. On their arrival,
Wilkes got up and spoke to them. The three men then went
further down the lane with the ass, leaving the boy
sitting on the bank. Green then went to the end of the
lane, which he crossed, and went down the hedge side
till he came within a short distance, where he could
observe them without being seen. Bolton and Earp then
exchanged parcels with Wilkes. They arranged to meet the
next Wednesday. Thomas Green gave information of what he
had heard and seen to Mr. Partridge, the constable.
Thomas Partridge, in consequence of the information he
had received, went with Mr. Butler, another constable,
to the New Inn, Handsworth, on Wednesday, the 21st of
July, where they apprehended Earp and Bolton. Partridge
soon afterwards apprehended Wilkes, who, after some
conversation, said, upon being asked by Partridge what
he had got “Thee knowest”; Partridge said “I do”; Wilkes
answered “I wish I did not.” The parcel hidden in
Bolton’s umbrella contained 1,740 blanks; that found upon Earp 1,140; and those in Wilkes’s saddle-bags contained
2,589 counterfeit shillings. Partridge searched Wilkes’s
house, and, under a bench in the shop, found a parcel in
an iron pot, covered with a bag, containing 1,377 blanks.
He also searched Duffield’s house, and found a
counterfeit shilling, and in the shop, presses and other
apparatus which he used in his trade. |
