Thrashed for Profane Language in Hitchin Market Place in 1884 ???

ASSAULT AND PROVOCATION,

James Francis Tooley, miller, of Whitwell, was charged with assaulting Samuel Izzard, o[ Luton, and the latter was summoned by Mr. Tooley, for using obscene and profane language.

This case, arose in Hitchin market. The version of the complainant and his witnesses was that he (complainant). was calling out "muffins and crumpets" in Hitchiu market, and on passing Mr. Tooley, complainant called out "I sell crumpets four a penny, and if Mr.Tooley will pay use the sixpence he owes me I will sell five a penny," upon which Mr. 'l'ooley, with an ash stick, gave him (Izzard) a most unmerciful thrashing, causing the market people to cry shame of him, and the complainant was obliged to go to Dr. Foster, at Hitchin, and to a doctor when he got to Luton.

The defendant's (Mr. Tooley's) version was, that he had found it necessary to put Izzard in the County Court for a sack of flour sometime ago, and to commit him to prison in default of paying the installments ordered by the Court, and ever since then Izzard had taken every opportunity of insulting him in public places, and on this afternoon he was haranguing the crowd and swearing about him in front of the Hitchin Corn Exchange. He put up with this until he repeated it before two hundred people when he could stand it no longer and did thrash Izzard.

Witnesses were called as to Izzard's profane language.

The Bench inflicted a fine of .£2 and costs upon the defendant for the assault uponIzzard, and ordered Izzard to pay 20s . including costs for profane language.

Herts & Cambs Reporter & Royston Crow, 28 March, 1884

Moore on J F Tooley, Miller of Whitwell

Whitwell and Harpenden Breweries

Harpenden

Brewing

In connection with the page on the Harpenden Brewery, Jim has told me that Frederick William Archer (born 1855), of Whitwell Brewery, apparently left England after his wife died in 1885 and died in  Sacramento in 1934.

New light on the management of Whitwell's Brewery's Pubs.

Breweries, etc

Alan Whitiker's book Brewers in Hertfordshire says that when the Archer family gave up their brewery in Whitwell (a hamlet in St Pauls Walden) the licensed houses passed to the Hope Brewery in Wheathampsted. 

I have just found a short letter suggesting that for a time the Whitwell licensed houses were managed by Harpenden Brewery  - and may only have been passed to the Hope Brewery when Harpenden Brewery, which had been leased to Bennett's Brewery of Dunstable,  was sold to Mrs Martha Mardall (nee Long - see Who was related to Who?).

The Harpenden Brewery Letter, 1891,  shows how an apparently simple letter, which could easily have ended up in the waste paper basket, can provide important in reconstructing the past.