Most Rotherham landlords had suffered assaults of some kind from their irate customers particularly when a lot of alcoholic liquor had been consumed, so it was undoubtedly seen as a risk that went with the job. However on Friday 27 September 1844 the Rotherham magistrates were revolted when they heard details of a particularly bad case of assault. Three prisoners, Robert Swan, John Twiby and Christopher Jennings were charged with the most aggravated assault on a pub landlord, James White of the Cross Keys on the Crofts. He told the court that about noon on the 10 September 1844, the three men went into his house and ordered some ale. He served them all and when he had finished, went about his work in the bar. Shortly afterwards his housekeeper, Hannah Willey came to him and told him that the men were being very loud and using  obscene and insulting language at her. They had taken some onions which she had been peeling, out of a bowl and thrown them on the floor. White went into the room where the men were and remonstrated with them, but they took no notice. When one of them called a female who was in the room a very rude name, the landlord ordered the three men to leave. One of them threw a pewter pint pot at him and Swan took the poker from the fireplace and struck him on the arm with it. At that point White became incensed and struggling hard with the men, he managed to put them out of the house, one by one. The men, angry at bring pushed out of the pub, continued to pound on the door and eventually managed to burst the door open. They then proceeded to take their revenge on White as they knocked him to the floor, and all three men violently kicked him about the head and body. They continued to beat him so badly that he was soon lying senseless on the floor.

The housekeeper, seeing what was happening to her master, ran out of the pub shouting ‘murder’. However the man called Jennings followed her as far as the Shambles, where he threatened to kill her if she told anyone who had committed the attack. Bravely she returned back to her masters house and a surgeon was called. The magistrate Mr Walker was also in Rotherham on the day the offence was committed, when he was informed of the attack at the Cross Keys. He was asked to take White’s deposition, as it was thought that the man was going to die. After hearing his statement, Mr Walker issued warrants for the arrest of all three prisoners. The attack had been so severe that it was quite a few hours later before James White recovered consciousness from the treatment he had received, and was taken to the hospital. The following day two constables named Lindley and Marshall were sent to arrest the men. They visited several pubs in Rotherham before receiving information that the men had been seen earlier drinking in the Butchers Arms, a public house also on the Crofts, and the two constables went to apprehend them. As soon as PC Lindley informed the men that he was about to arrest them for the attack on James White the previous day, they attacked him and Marshall. All three prisoners were very violent, and it was reported that Swan struck Lindley so hard that he knocked his hat off. The two constables were obliged to ask other people in the pub for help, in order to put the handcuffs on the three prisoners.

It was a full two weeks before White recovered enough to attend the court to give his evidence. As a result Swan, Twiby and Jennings were unable to be brought before the magistrates until Friday 27 September 1844. White described the violent attack and confirmed that they had all taken part in it. One of the magistrates asked him if the men were drunk, but he told them that, if they were, they showed no signs of it. A solicitor Mr Pashley defended the prisoners, and stated to the court that the men all deeply regretted their actions and if the bench would allow the case to be dismissed, his clients would pay Mr White ‘something handsome’ as compensation for his injuries. The magistrates informed him it was too serious a case to reach that sort of compromise. He fined all the men £5 each and ordered that they were to find securities for their good behaviour of £20 each, or stand committed to the House of Correction for two months with hard labour. John Twiby was then dismissed, before the magistrates heard the next case of assault. It was that committed on the two constables Lindley and Marshall in the execution of their duty by Robert Swan and Christopher Jennings. Mr Pashley, who appeared for the prisoners again stated that he felt that the ends of justice had already been served, by the previous conviction which had just taken place. He asked the bench not to proceed with two separate charges arising from the same assault.

One of the magistrates, Mr Bosville angrily pointed out that they were two distinct cases of assault and asked him:

‘did you mean to say that if one of the constables had died from the assault which had been made upon him, that they aught not to prosecute the two prisoners, because they had already been punished for the offence for which the constable went to apprehend them’.

Mr Pashley denied that this was what he meant. PC Lindley gave his account and told the court that on the 11 September he and PC Marshall went with a warrant to apprehend the three prisoners on the charge of assaulting Mr White. He described the way in which the men violently resisted arrest, saying that all three prisoners attacked them, however it was Swan and Jennings that had used the most violence before trying to make their escape. Thankfully he had already ordered the landlord of the Butchers Arms to lock the pub doors and the men were unable to get out. Marshall then took the stand and he confirmed his colleagues evidence. He stated that Jennings in particular had used great violence against him. The two prisoners, Robert Swann and Christopher Jennings were found guilty and ordered to pay £2 each or stand committed to the House of Correction for another two months, the two terms of imprisonment to run one after the other. Violent assaults continued in the public houses, until the Rotherham magistrates began to deal out custodial sentences for such attacks on landlords.