Preston thief transported for 14 years after stealing £2

Mary Ann Fagan, aged 27, appeared at the Preston police court in mid-December 1856 on a charge of stealing £2 from an elderly man named John Richardson, a market gardener, who lived at Longton.

Richardson, who was called by the prosecution, told the court that after disposing of his vegetables in the market, he was heading home down Fishergate to the railway station at 7 o’clock in the evening when he was approached by a three young women. Amongst them was the accused who asked him to treat her, which he declined to do.

Nonetheless, the women moved closer and hustled him and he felt a hand in his pocket. As he became aware he was being robbed the women made a hasty retreat taking his purse with them.

Along with a man called Thomas Pearson who had seen the commotion he went in pursuit of the women, and when they got close to the railway station one of them was seen to enter the Commercial Hotel in Butler Street, with the others disappearing amongst a crowd of railway passengers.

Thomas Pearson told the court that along with Richardson and P.C. Walmsley, who was coming up Butler Street at the time, they entered the Commercial Hotel where the prisoner was apprehended. She being positively identified by Richardson as the woman who actually robbed him. Fagan, who refused to identify her companions in theft, was then taken to the police station in Earl Street. On the walk back up Fishergate Pearson noticed a canvas purse on the footpath which Richardson identified as his.

At the police station the female searcher found in the possession of the accused coins to the value of £2, including a number of three-penny pieces that Richardson had been saving. The magistrates ignored the not guilty plea of the accused and the Mayor Richard Threlfall committed her for trial at the next Preston Sessions in early January 1857.

Appearing before the chairman Mr. T. B. Addison the prisoner pleaded not guilty and was tried before the common jury.

They took little time in delivering a guilty verdict and before passing sentence the chairman informed the court that the prisoner had a criminal past and was in fact a recently returned convict having been previously sentenced to seven years transportation.

On that occasion she had been convicted at the Lancaster Sessions for a similar offence of stealing a purse from an unsuspecting gentleman. The chairman then informed her that he had no alternative than to sentence her to 14 years transportation for her latest crime.

Fagan would not be alone in her wait at Lancaster Castle to be transported from Glasson Dock on the transportation ship ‘Success’. Also sentenced that day to transportation were three others convicted of stealing from the home of John Eccles in Avenham Street, Preston, in mid-December 1856.

Alice Warburton received a sentence of 16 years and both John Warburton and John Morris were given 10 year sentences. Their crime had been to steal ledger books, memorandum books, pencils, sweets, candlesticks and a tea pot. Like Fagan they were all returned convicts and Mr. T. B. Addison deemed such a sentence was appropriate in light of their criminal past.