Gloucester Journal, 16th April 1842:
Yesterday, a man, named James Hooper, of notoriously bad character, was brought before the Gloucester magistrates, under the following circumstances: —On Thursday evening he went to the shop of Mr. Lowe, silversmith, in Westgate-street, and offered for sale a bar of silver weighing about 2 ¾ ounces. He gave a fictitious name and said he resided at Minsterworth, Mr. Lowe declined to buy the silver and the man went away. The same night a boy called upon Mr. Lowe with the same or a similar bar of silver and offered it for sale, upon which Mr. Lowe’s suspicions were excited, and he sent for policeman Gill and gave the boy into custody. The boy stated that he had been sent by a man to get the silver weighed at a shop, and afterwards to try and sell it for him. He described the man and said he left him in the Southgate-street, near the city prison: Gill immediately went in search of the person so described, and found him at the Talbot public-house, and on searching him, three or four other silver bars, a handsome gold eye glass, and a plated sugar tongs were discovered in his possession, Hooper is the keeper of a beer-house called the Royal Oak, at Longford, near this city. Police-sergeant Estcourt proceeded to the above house, and there found in an old sack, a brown cloth cloak and a lady’s sable boa. It further appeared that information had been received by the county constabulary of a robbery committed at Cheltenham on Tuesday last, on which occasion the following articles were stolen :—three silver table spoons, one silver dessert spoon, twelve silver tea spoons, twelve large and twelve small plated forks, silver rimmed, plated sugar tongs, gold eye glass, sable boa, and brown cloth cloak. The articles found in the prisoner’s possession and at his house corresponded exactly with some of those which had been stolen, and the bars of silver, there is little doubt, were the produce of the spoons, &c. melted up for the purpose of avoiding detection. The magistrates ordered the prisoner be removed for examination to Cheltenham. Hooper was fined for poaching a short time since, and about two years ago he was transported for horse stealing. He was successful in obtaining, through the influence of friends, a commutation of his sentence, a leniency of which, it would now seem he was very little deserving.
Thank you to Dr Martyn Beaufort for the above research and information.