Gloucester Journal, 11th April 1863:
ATTEMPTING TO DEFRAUD AN INSURANCE COMPANY.
Thomas Walker, aged 32, beer housekeeper, was charged with maliciously setting fire to his house, at Bristol, on the 20th March, with intent to defraud the Royal Insurance Company.
Mr. Henry James opened the case for the prosecution; and Mr. Sawyer defended the prisoner. An ingenious model of the premises was produced, for the purpose of elucidating the evidence.
Mr. Lane, clerk to the Royal Insurance Company Bristol, deposed that on the 17th of November the prisoner proposed that he (witness) should insure his stock and furniture, and on the 17th a policy was made out for 100l. namely, 75l on the furniture, &c. and 25/. on the stock-in trade and fixtures. On the 7lh of March he heard that there had been a fire at the prisoner’s house and visited the premises.
Cross-examined: It was usual to make out fire insurance policies on stock and furniture without first making a valuation.
Wm. Thorn, a sheriff’s officer, deposed that he went to levy a distress on the prisoner’s goods on the 9th of March, two days after the fire. The value of the goods then in the house was about 8l.
A ship carpenter, named Griffiths, residing with his mother, next door to the prisoner, deposed that early on the morning of the 7th of March he was aroused by his mother, and saw smoke issuing from the prisoner’s house. He immediately raised an alarm, and went to the door of the Diver’s Arms, and, procuring large stone, knocked and shouted as loudly as he could. He looked through the window and saw fire burning in the coalhole. Being unable to obtain any response to his knocking, he ran off the police station, to procure assistance.
A witness named James Horsman deposed that on the morning of the 7th of March, he was awoke by a cry of “Fire!” and saw smoke issuing from the prisoner’s house. He was at first unable to obtain access to it, but at length pushed up a window and got into a room on the ground floor. He then saw a fire burning in the coal hole. A heap of small coal, which was on fire, was standing in the centre, and a quantity of chips were strewn around. He assisted to extinguish the fire.
Elizabeth Griffiths corroborated generally her son’s evidence with reference to the discovery of the fire. She added that after her son had knocked and shouted at the prisoner’s door, and had gone off to the police station, she heard coughing in the prisoner’s bedroom, the partition between the two rooms being so thin that she could hear anything that was said in the prisoner’s bedroom.
Mr. Superintendent Alexander deposed that after the fire he made an examination of the prisoner’s premises and found that in the clubroom the boards of the floor had been removed in three different places. The boards had been cut with a saw, and the parts left of them merely laid down, without being nailed. The spaces between the joists had been filled up with chips, pieces of wood, matches, rag, and paper of the same kind as that with which the room was papered. An envelope, directed to the prisoner, was found amongst these materials, which had been partially ignited in several places. The door of the clubroom was burnt nearly to pieces. The door of an adjoining closet was also burnt, but not much. In the coalhole he found a quantity of small coal piled in the centre; he also found some chips, but they had not been burnt a great deal. The fire had burnt very strongly there, and the stairs for about three steps from the top were completely burnt away. There were fifteen steps leading up to the clubroom, and numbers 7, 8, and 9, had been burnt away. There were traces of fire in the closet; one board was missing, and there were a quantity of chips between the joists. There was also an old chair which had been broken up and placed on the top. The door leading into the prisoner’s bedroom was burnt, but there was no trace of fire in the room. The door was charred all over. In the first bedroom two boards were taken up, and between the joists he found some chips bound round with tar-twine. Between the floor of this room and the ceiling and the room below, there was a hole, which was partially burnt. Witness found only one pair of trousers in the house, and no female wearing apparel. The furniture in the house, with the exception of the clock, a few chairs, and the fixtures, was, probably, worth about 30s. On seeing the prisoner he told him that there was something very suspicious in the occurrence, and that someone must have set the house on fire. The prisoner replied “Yes, someone must have broke in and done it.”
Cross examined: The chips and other inflammable materials found in the club room and closet filled two sacks.
Police Sergeant Hamlin deposed that he went to the prisoner’s house on the morning of the fire with another constable. There was then no one in the house, and the fire was burning fiercely. When he went into the house there were three distinct fires burning —in the coalhole, on the stairs above it, and in the taproom; there was no communication between the three fires. No furniture was removed when he was there. He had heard the evidence of Supt. Alexander, and it was quite correct.
An old man named Longley deposed that he sold the prisoner quantity of yellow pine wood chips for 9d. and a pint of beer, on the 27th of February, and delivered them to the Diver’s Arms on the same day. He identified the chips produced as some of those he sold to the prisoner.
Mr. Sawyer, in addressing the jury on behalf of the prisoner, said he was charged with an offence which until recently was punished with death, but a very heavy term of imprisonment had been recently substituted for capital punishment. He contended that there was no direct evidence that the prisoner committed the offence imputed to him. He urged that there was no motive for the crime, the prisoner having a prosperous business, and valuable property on the premises; and that the statement he made to the insurance agent aa to the value of the goods in the house was not at all exaggerated. Great stress, he said, had been laid on the fact that the prisoner did not make his appearance when the alarm was raised, but this, he contended, did not in any way criminate him, seeing that he might have been asleep when the fire broke out.
A long technical discussion took place between the learned judge and the counsel for and against the prisoner, as to an allegation in the indictment that the prisoner set fire to the house with intent to defraud or injure “William Granger,” the owner of it. The question which arose was whether the allegation did not require to be amended, there being evidence with reference to the owner of the property and the prisoner’s relations with him. After conferring with Mr. Justice Crompton, his lordship decided to leave the question to the jury aa to the prisoner’s motives, and the allegation was allowed to stand. The jury found the prisoner guilty.
The learned Judge, in passing sentence, said the prisoner had been guilty of an offence of a very aggravated nature. Insurance offices were of the very greatest service to the public, and if the strong arm of the law were not called upon to protect them from such offences as this their public usefulness would be very much diminished. He then sentenced the prisoner to ten years’ penal servitude.