Victorian Court Cases: Did John Walker Know His Onions?

Pentonville Prison

John Walker was born to William and Mary Walker of Girlford, near Sandy in Bedfordshire in or around 1841.  By the age of ten he was employed as an agricultural labourer.  By the time he was 20 he already had criminal tendencies it seems and in 1861 he was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for assault.  On his release he then went on a crime fest and over the next 13 years he had notched up 13 convictions for various petty crimes.

However, it seems that society hadn’t quite given up on John and shoveled him onto the social compost heap as he’d been employed as an agricultural labourer by Robert Cooper.  Cooper was a married man in his mid to late 20s, living in Beeston, Bedfordshire, with his wife, Elizabeth, and three young children.  Cooper had done quite well for himself, he had a successful market gardening enterprise and owned 43 acres of land.  Indeed, he was successful enough to employ a female servant who ‘lived in’.

For whatever reason, Cooper had sacked Walker the day prior to the crime in question here so it was with some surprise that, on 13 September 1873 when Cooper was surveying his ‘onion patch’, he saw Walker half inching some onions, tying them into a sack and then coolly walking off towards his home.  Cooper followed hard on his heels, tackled him, took the onions and then went straight to the police station at Northill and reported the crime to PC Newton, who in turn obtained a warrant for Walker’s arrest.  Walker was arrested for the theft of the onions and pleaded guilty to the crime but I suspect he got a little more than he bargained for – not just a slap round the face with a boiled onion!

Walker went before the local magistrate for a preliminary examination and, as the value of the onions was around 4 or 5 shillings it was classed as grand larceny.  The magistrate therefore opted to remand Walker to appear at Bedford Magistrates Court rather than keep it local. 

The trial of John Walker took place on 7 April, 1874 and opened with the evidence of Robert Cooper.  He confirmed to the Court that he’d been sitting by a hedge which was on the edge of one of his onion fields.  Much of the crop had been gathered up and placed in a heap but there were still a few onions scattered around the remainder of the land.  He then spied with his little eye something beginning with JW – John Walker was picking up some of the loose onions, he then headed for the heap of onions, picked up another load, put them into a sack, tied the sack up, kicked the heap to scatter the onions, thereby making the theft a little less obvious and had headed for his home.  As previously told to the local magistrate, Robert Cooper followed Walker, tackled him and took the onions which he estimated to be around two bushels (about 80 lbs in total) which was worth 4 or 5 shillings.  Cooper had then gone to PC Newton at Northill and reported the crime.