Report of William Mainwaring on 1 individual petition (Thomas Daddecot, prisoner's...

Report of William Mainwaring on 1 individual petition (Thomas Daddecot, prisoner's father, a sawyer) and 1 collective petition (11 people, including the prisoner's father, prosecutor, churchwardens and overseers at St. Botolph without Aldgate in London; many giving occupations), on behalf of George Daddecot, sawyer, convicted at the Middlesex Quarter Sessions and Clerkenwell, on 25 February 1785[?], for stealing several wooden lasts, property of John Neal, shoe last maker. The prisoner stole the lasts hanging up near the shop door by placing himself before them and putting his hands behind himself, took the lasts off from where they hung. He was arrested on the evidence of a bystander who accidentally saw the transaction. The prosecutor, a very poor man owns a little shop and was frequently robbed for shoe lasts and unless these robberies were stopped he would be 'utterly ruined'. The prisoner was committed for felony in February 1784, but the then prosecutor did not prepare a bill of indictment against him and he was discharged from the accusation. Prisoner was well known to the 'Bench' as a 'common Thief'. Grounds for clemency: youth (21 years), prisoner's father (petitioner) is 52 years old, prisoner has 2 siblings (the youngest is 4 years) has pregnant wife and a child who depend on his support and labour, father is grieving for the family, first offence and it was committed without violence, son has promised his father not offend again if sentence is mitigated. Initial sentence: 7 years transportation. Recommendation: none made, but the judge states that the prisoner was imprisoned as a vagrant for 3 months for his notoriety and inability to account for his livelihood before being returned to his 'settlement' and if his previous character had been good he would have not received the sentence of transportation.

Folios 256-259.