Newspaper Article about the Trial of Mary Walton (Kilmurray)
Guildhall, Newcastle Aug 27
Mary Walton was indicted for stealing above the value of 40s in a dwelling house. The circumstances were as follows.-
On Saturday evening 23rd June, the prisoner went to the house of the prosecutrixes, Ann and Alice Scott, Sisters, and who keep a small shop in the Manor Chare, in this town, and stated that she had traveled a long way, was much fatigued, had to wait here till Monday for the Carlisle waggon, with which she was going to that city, and asked for lodgings in the mean time. Prisoner was kindly received by the sisters, who thought very well of their guest till they discovered the robbery on Tuesday morning. About 6 O’clock on that morning they had left the prisoner in bed in a room where, on the preceding day, prisoner was sitting, when Ann Scott counted five 1 pound notes, and put them into a pocket book and locked the book in a chest in the room. The prisoner afterwards left the house as they supposed to go to Carlisle, but left an old bonnet which she said she would call for as she came past the door with the waggon. About half an hour after the prisoner had left the lodgings, Alice Scott had occasion to go to the chest for a pound note, and on applying the key found the chest was open. The book remained but the notes were gone. The key of the chest in which the money had been deposited was in a bunch of keys, one of which had been left in the door of another trunk in the room where the prisoner slept, and the rest of course with it.
Robert Robertson, a gig driver, deposed that on the morning of the 26th June, prisoner came to him at the end of Spicer Lane on the Quay, here, and engaged him to take her in his gig to Durham, whither he took her; his charge was 15s , which she paid him.
Mary Welford, wife of a publican at Durham, to whose house Robertson drove the prisoner, produced the note (Northumberland Bank) which prisoner had changed to pay the driver, and said the change she gave her were two half-crowns. The driver and his passenger had a pint of ale together.
Wm Sanderson, a Police Officer, apprehended the prisoner in Silver Street, Durham, on the 26th June, and found upon her four one pound notes, answering the description stolen, and 2 half-crowns, and he enquired where she had come from? She said from Sunderland, but her learned from the driver that she had come from Newcastle. He afterwards gave her in custody to Rutherford, one of the Newcastle Police Officers.
The Jury found her guilty.
The Judge, before he passed sentence, most feelingly addressed the prisoner. She had been convicted of the offence of stealing in a dwelling house property exceeding the value of 40s. which made it a capital offence. He extremely regretted that a person so young, and of so decent appearance who, with such qualifications and an honest endeavour, might have rendered herself happy and respectable, should have been guilty of the crime of which she had then been convicted. She had sought the protection of persons who had kindly received her, and gave her that protection, but for which she had made the most ungrateful return, not only in holding out to them fake pretences ; but also in robbing them of their property. These things had been proved against her in the clearest manner, and although her case had not been attended with such circumstances of aggravation as to exclude her from the hope that her life would be spared, yet the offence which she had committed did make it necessary that she should bid adieu to this country, and to all that was dear to her in it. His lordship then passed upon the prisoner the awful sentence of death. This young woman possessed rather an interesting appearance and was respectably dressed. On turning round to descend the steps from the bar, she fainted away, and was received in the arms of one of the officers.
