On the Beat - With the Hertfordshire Police

Hertfordshire Family History Society Meeting

22nd October

On the Beat

(Herts Policing in the Web)

by Julie Gregson

Talk starts 3 pm at the Woolmer Green Village Hall

Why Alice did not accompany Walter to Canada.

Just over a year ago Dennis asked about Walter Ginn and his wife Alice Barns, the parents of Olive Victoria Alice Ginn, born in 1891, and who ended up in the workhouse at Ware. He specifically asked "Would you have the date when Olive's mother and father immigrated to Canada." I pointed out that Walter seems to have gone on his own, and someone called Alice Ginn had died a few years previously.

Mike, who is researching the Ginn family in Hertfordshire (see his blog the blog www.Ginn-hertfordshire.blogspot.co.uk) has drawn my attention to a case history on the excellent Herts Past Policing web site.

A saying at the time was "A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree - the more you beat them the better they be." and clearly Walter hit Alice too hard ...The Policing web site quotes the contemporary newspaper accounts in detail and it would seem that both the all male coroner's jury, and the one trying Walter, took it for granted that a husband could normally hit his wife - and Walter was only convicted of unlawful wounding - despite the fact that the wound was fatal! As a result he had a comparatively minor sentence and went to Canada after being released from prison.

See my answer to Dennis's original question.

Herts at War Lecture Programme Jan-July 2015

Herts at War

Herts at War are running a series of talks on the First Wold War

Clive Harris  The Greater Game (January)

Peter Hart Gallipoli 1915 (February)

Richard Grayson - Neuve Chapelle 1915 (March)

Terry Cox Herts Police in The Great War (April)

Chris Baker 'Blood Money' 1914 - 1918 (May)

Taff Gillingham Remembrance and The Great War (June)

Dan Hill 'The Herts Guards' (July)

The talks are being held on the second Thursday of the month at The Theatre, St Christopher School, Barrington Road, Letchworth Garden City, Herts, SG6 3JZ, arrival at 7pm with the talk commencing at 7.30.

Pickpockets at the Tring Agricultural Show in 1897

I have added a news item about the arrest of an elderly pick pocket who gave his name as John Edwards to add to the collection of old Tring News already online.