Catherine Logan, a 27-year-old woman described as a 'common prostitute', was sentenced to four years' penal servitude by the Preston Sessions for stealing £12 from solicitor John Fletcher in 1857.

In the second week of January 1857, a 27-year-old woman named Catherine Logan appeared before the Mayor of Preston, Lawrence Spencer, and a bench of magistrates, having been held on remand for a week. Contemporary reports described her as a good-looking woman and a “common prostitute”, Keith Johnson reports.

She was charged with stealing a purse containing a £10 note and two sovereigns, the property of Mr Fletcher, a solicitor from Longridge, on the first Monday in January.

The prosecution said John Fletcher had arrived in Preston early that afternoon to meet a business colleague for drinks. The pair called at the Red Lion on Church Street, where they had two or three glasses of rum, before walking to the Market Place and entering the Castle and Commercial Inn.

An illustration of the Castle and Commercial Inn in Preston, where solicitor John Fletcher and his companion dined and drank wine before his money disappeared in January 1857 | Contributed

placeholder image — An illustration of the Castle and Commercial Inn in Preston, where solicitor John Fletcher and his companion dined and drank wine before his money disappeared in January 1857 | Contributed

There they dined and drank two or three bottles of wine between them. Fletcher recalled that, after paying for one bottle of wine, he had £12 remaining in his purse.

After that, his memory failed him. The next thing he knew, he was waking up the following morning in a bedroom at a notorious lodging house in Turk’s Head Yard, with his money gone.

The old Turk's Head in Preston. Nearby Turk's Head Yard was home to the lodging house where John Fletcher awoke to discover his purse and £12 missing | Contributed

He reported his loss at the police station in Avenham Street, where Police Sergeant Topping undertook an investigation. It came to his attention that Catherine Logan had been seen in Fletcher’s company late on the Monday night.

Keeping a lookout for Logan the following evening, Topping came across her shortly after 10pm in the Moulders Arms beerhouse in Turk’s Head Yard, near the site of the old police lock-up.

She had just ordered a quart of warm ale, which was being served in a jug, and had tendered a sovereign in payment.

Before the landlady could give her change, however, Topping approached the bar and arrested her. When informed of the police officer’s suspicions, Logan flatly denied any involvement with Fletcher.

On being searched at Avenham Street police station, a £10 note was found loose in her dress pocket and another sovereign was discovered hidden in her stays.

Together with the sovereign she had used to pay for the ale, the money matched the amount Fletcher said was missing. To further convince Topping that she was the culprit, Fletcher’s purse was also found in her possession.

Mr Monk, defending Logan, told the court that she had found the money and purse in Friargate. He suggested she was quite innocent and that there was nothing to prove Fletcher had not simply dropped the purse while in a drunken stupor.

Despite the pleas on her behalf, the magistrates saw fit to send her for trial at the Preston Intermediate Sessions in mid-February 1857, at the court house next to the House of Correction. Bail was refused.

At the Preston Sessions, the grand jury found a true bill against her, and she faced trial before a common jury. Although she pleaded not guilty, the jury thought otherwise and returned a guilty verdict.

The chairman, Mr Thomas Batty Addison, sentenced her to four years’ penal servitude, concluding the case by praising Police Sergeant Topping for his speedy detection of the culprit.