Prisoner name: Violet Linley. Court and Date of Trial: Court of Queen's Bench, June...

Prisoner name: Violet Linley.

Court and Date of Trial: Court of Queen's Bench, June 1849.

Crime: Negotiating sale of a cadetship in East India Company's service.

Initial sentence: Six month's imprisonment.

Outcome: Nil.

Petitions and letters: First petition by prisoner from the Queen's Bench prison, who seeks mercy as a mother of six, abandoned by her husband, one child having died of consumption and another gravely ill. She says she acted out of financial desperation.

She also cites her late father Dr John Gilchrist's public service for many years in Lucknow, India providing a Hindustani dictionary and grammar.

for use by East India Company servants. To do so, under a 'despotic Mahometan power' he had 'to all outward purposes embraced the Mahometan religion' and married a Muslim woman (her mother). Covering letter and character reference from Earl Fitzhardinge.

In her second petition she protests that the sentence of a Mrs Binches, the co-defendant she alleges was the main perpetrator, is being commuted to six months. She threatens to reveal information compromising Lord Palmerston if she is refused a similar reduction.

In her third petition in November 1849 in a 24 page letter she makes further allegations against Mrs Binches saying bribes were paid in the belief that Binches and Lord Palmerston were involved in the sale of government appointments. She argues that, if Binches is released after six months, her own sentence should be reduced to three. She also attaches two typed leaflets about cholera she has written. It is noted that Mrs Binches has not been discharged.