Sarah Hewitt was a young woman who was the landlady of a public house in Masbrough called The Queens Arms. She also took in lodgers to make a living and a pair of lodgers who had stayed with her from April to December 1850 were a Mrs and Mrs James Whitehouse. He was a 28 year old puddler who worked at the Midland Iron Works, and the couple stayed at the public house while trying to find a place to rent in the town. At Christmas 1850 the pair, having found alternative accommodation left the Queens Arms, however Whitehouse continued to call in for a drink from time to time. On Wednesday 25 June 1851 he arrived at the Queens Arms around 6 pm and asked Sarah if he could stay overnight.

He said that his wife was away from home and he was joining some friends for a late night out in the town. Although she had rather a full house, the landlady agreed to squeeze him in somewhere. Sarah had employed a Scottish piper to play that evening, so the Queens Arms was quite full of dancing couples. Nevertheless she managed to find him a small room, but when he returned earlier than expected around 9 pm, it was obvious that he was already quite tipsy. Nevertheless the landlady cheerfully served him with a pint of ale, as he chatted to some of the other people who had gathered in the tap room.

Around 10 pm, Sarah could see that Whitehouse was getting more and more drunk and so suggested that it was time for bed. She carefully lit a candle and offered to escort him upstairs, being more concerned that in his drunken condition he would fall on the stairs which were quite dark. As he left the tap room, Whitehouse was carrying his coat, boots and waistcoat, and proceeded to follow her upstairs in his stocking feet. Entering the bedroom, Sarah went over to pull the curtains across one of the two windows in the room. She was about to pull the second curtain closed, when Whitehouse came up behind her and put his arm around her waist. Turning round she saw that he had already taken off his trousers.

Sarah pushed him away saying ‘go away Whitehouse; don’t be foolish’ but with that he struck her hard on the chest, knocking her to the floor. Kneeling on her, he struggled to pull at her blouse before she managed to push him off and get to her feet. Sarah made a dash for the door, but he roughly grabbed her and threw her onto the bed. There he sexually assaulted her, as she struggled to get free. Sarah cried out for help to the people collected in the room below, but unfortunately the piper was playing quite energetically so there was no immediate response. Eventually she was forced to scream out ‘murder’ as loud as she could.

Thankfully at that point, three of her lodgers finally rushed into the room. They were a woman called Mrs Caroline Appleton and two male lodgers called William Bottom and Francis Bretnall. Bottom pulled the man off the woman struggling on the bed, and Sarah ran to the door before briefly fainting in the arms of Bretnall. Meanwhile Whitehouse lashed out at the female lodger Caroline Appleton, striking her hard on the mouth. Bretnall thrust Sarah’s who was now slowly recovering towards Mrs Appleton, before he too smacked Whitehouse hard in the face. This last blow seemed to finally bring the attacker to his senses.

Then the two male lodgers took Whitehouse by his arms and dragged him downstairs, before locking him in a small room which led off from the bar. Sarah sent a boy to fetch a police officer and a few minutes later Constable Benjamin Caldwell arrived. He found Whitehouse bleeding from his eye where Bretnall had hit him. Whilst he was being taken into custody, Whitehouse told the officer that he had done nothing amiss, but the men in the house had half killed him. On Friday 27 June 1851, James Whitehouse was brought before the Rotherham Magistrates charged with a serious assault on Miss Sarah Hewitt. He was described as being ‘a strongly built young man, who still bore evidence on his face of the serious attack.’

When Whitehouse was asked by the bench if he had anything to say in answer to the charge, he simply shook his head. When asked to explain why he had attacked Sarah, the prisoner claimed that ‘what I have done was with her full consent’ which she denied absolutely. Evidence was heard from the other lodgers in the house, before the magistrates sentenced James Whitehouse to take his trial at the next Rotherham Sessions. Only then did he show any remorse. He looked across at Sarah and said to her ‘if I have done wrong, I am sorry for it, and I hope you will forgive me.’ Sarah simply looked at him with contempt as he was removed from the court.

James Whitehouse was brought before the Rotherham Midsummer Quarter Sessions at the Court House on Monday 7 July 1851. Naturally as Sarah was so well known, the curiosity of local people had resulted in the courtroom being packed. Some of the salacious details about the case seems to have already been spread by the gossips of the town, and there appeared to be a determination to turn the whole spectacle into a comical farce. A reporter from the Sheffield Independent stated that:

‘The court was most densely crowded throughout the trial, and during the cross examination of the prosecutrix, the conduct of the spectators was characterised by the most unbecoming levity.’

Mr Pickering, as the prosecution opened the case by stating from the outset that this was a very sordid crime to be placed before the bench. He then outlined the details of the case before Sarah was called to be the first witness.

The landlady gave her version of the sexual assault, before it was time for the prisoners defence, Mr Overend to state his case. His questions swiftly indicated little doubt as to the way in which he intended to defend his client. He began by making a reference to the sordid attack and bluntly asked the witness if she had kissed Whitehouse upon them entering the bedroom. Sarah swiftly denied this, saying that even if he had tried she would have spit in his face. He then asked her if it was true that on most night she would be found in a drunken condition in the public house, which again Sarah hotly denied. Mr Overend then got down to brass tacks.

He asked her if it was true that a servant, Ann Heppenstall who had since been dismissed, had ever caught her in a compromising situation with two different men. The defence claimed that the girl had not only witnessed the first one, but had been paid off with a sum of money to keep quiet about the incident. Sarah denied this allegation before Mr Overend quietly asked her if she knew a man named Joseph Warris. The witness stated that he was a customer who used to frequent the Queens Arms. Mr Overend then asked her if it was true that she had once told him that if he bought a gallon of ale to share amongst her customers, he should have as many kisses as he liked from her. Once again Sarah denied she had ever said such a thing to any customer. Mr Overend’s next question was to ask the witness why it had taken so long for someone to come to her rescue on the night in question, when the taproom downstairs had been filled with people?

Sarah said that she did not know and claimed that she had been screaming for four or five minutes before anyone came. The prisoners defence was to offer a different scenario. He suggested instead that she had been in the room for a considerable time before she started screaming, and that during that time ‘some liberties had been allowed by her’. Once again Sarah shook her head. Mr Overend then referred to the improbability of her needing a candle to see the prisoner to his bedroom. He pointed out that the prisoner had lived there previously for eight months with his wife, therefore he was well aware of the layout of the house. Sarah rebuffed this suggestion saying that she thought it best, given his drunken condition and that fact that the stairs were so dark.

William Bottom was the next witness and he reported how he had been in the tap room when he saw Sarah light the candle to take the prisoner upstairs. The witness said that about a minute or so later he thought he heard a cry of ‘murder’ and went over to where Francis Bretnall and Mrs Appleton were watching the dancing. Bottom told them what he thought he had heard, but was unsure over the sounds of the piper playing at the time. Nevertheless the trio ran upstairs and entered the bedroom. This witness too was questioned by Mr Overend as to whether or not it was a loud cry he heard, but Bottom replied that it was difficult to tell over the noise of the bagpipes. William Bottom was then asked if he had ever seen Miss Hewitt drunk, but he replied that he had never seen her drink anything stronger than a cup of tea.

The next witness was Mrs Caroline Appleton who told the court that on the night of the attack, after hearing what William Bottom had said, she too had run upstairs. As they approached the top of the staircase, they could clearly hear ‘shrieks of murder’ coming from inside a room. Barging into the nearest bedroom she could immediately see what was happening. The witness said that she asked the prisoner what he thought he was doing, and in reply she received a smack on the mouth with his fist. The next witness was the other lodger, Francis Bretnall who said that he too saw Miss Hewitt light the candle to see the prisoner to bed, and shortly afterwards he too heard a noise which he thought was a shriek of some kind.

The witness described how he, Caroline Appleton and William Bottom went to the bottom of the stairs, before hearing Sarah scream out ‘murder’ again. The three of them then raced upstairs and rescued the landlady from the attack. Constable Caldwell gave his evidence of being called to the house before apprehending the prisoner. The officer was asked to give his professional opinion on the way in which Miss Hewitt had run the Queens Arms during her tenancy. He told the jury without hesitation, that ‘her public house was always well conducted and orderly’. Mr Overend offered an alternative proposition. He stated that what the witness Bretnall had heard at the bottom of the steps was not a shriek of alarm, but a laugh of pure delight.

The defence claimed that when the three witnesses broke into the room, Miss Hewitt’s first thought was to defend herself and that was when she made the allegation of a sexual attack. Referring to the fact that Miss Hewitt had ‘briefly fainted’ but recovered herself just a few seconds later, he suggested that she had dropped ‘comfortably’ into Bretnall’s arms, before realising her position. Mr Overend then brought out the big guns. His next witness was the 17 year old girl previously referred to. She told the court that her name was Ann Heppenstall and that two years earlier she had been a servant for Miss Hewitt, working for her from April to November of 1849.

She claimed that one of the regulars at the Queens Arms was a man called Woolgar, and stated that she had once seen Miss Hewitt lying on the floor with him in a compromising position. Later Woolgar gave her 2s to say nothing about what she had witnessed. At this point in the courtroom there was such an outcry of people laughing and clapping their hands together, that the witness joined in. The chair instantly shouted out that this was disgraceful conduct in a court of law, and warned that the room would be instantly cleared if it happened again. The witness then continued with her evidence, but the farcical tone was set for the rest of the hearing. She swore that Miss Hewitt was there when Woolgar gave her the money and she too had asked her not to tell anyone.

When Mr Overend asked her what time this impropriety had taken place, the servant girl said it was sometime between one and two o’clock in the morning. Heppenstall said that she had gone to bed around 11.30 pm that night, and was already in bed when she heard Miss Hewitt opening her bedroom door. The witness said she heard her softly call out her name, but admitted to pretending to be asleep. When her employer went downstairs again, she heard her say ‘she’s asleep’ to someone. As only Woodger had been awake in the public house at the time, Heppenstall knew it must be him. That was when the girl admitted that she had crept downstairs and found the pair on the floor together.

Miss Heppenstall was asked if she had seen such depravity before, and she boldly answered that it was not the first time that such a thing had happened. Once again there were smirks and laughter in the court, as the girl claimed that she had seen similar misconduct between her mistress and a man named Harrison. She said that he was a traveller for Bentley’s Brewery and regularly called in at the Queens Arms. When Miss Heppenstall was asked by Mr Overend why she had left Miss Hewitts employment, the girl stated that her employer’s father had tried to take liberties with her. She explained that the man was employed at Sheffield during the week, but usually spent the weekends with his daughter at Masbrough.

The witness said that when she told her employer, she had shrugged the matter off telling the girl, she was as bad as her father was, before dismissing her. Heppenstall also told her mother who had made her come back to live at home, where she was now earning her living working as a dressmaker. Mr Overend asked her ‘was it not true that Miss Hewitt had in fact sacked her for staying out all night’, a suggestion which the witness quickly denied. The girl, then referred to having to stay up all night with Miss Hewitt when she was ‘entertaining old Woolgar.’ When asked to describe what she had witnessed between her ex-employer and the man, once again the witness burst out laughing.

When the people in the court joined in, Mr Overend had no option but to remonstrate with Heppenstall on the way in which she had given her evidence. The next witness was a neighbour who introduced herself as a widow named Mrs Rebecca Mortimer. She was asked if she was acquainted with a Mr Joseph Warris of Kimberworth and the witness agreed that she knew him. The woman was asked by Mr Pickering if she had ever seen Miss Hewitt kiss the man, and she stated that she had seen her do it ‘many times and in the full presence of a large number of persons’. Mrs Mortimer swore that Sarah had also told Warris that if he paid for a gallon of ale to share amongst her customers, she would kiss him in return. Mrs Mortimer pulled a face as she added ‘even though he was nearly as old as I am and I am 72’.

Once again there was much laughter in the court as the witness gave her evidence. Mr Overend roundly condemning the kind of defence which threw doubt on Miss Hewitt’s conduct and morality. He stated that as most of this condemnation had come from the prisoner himself, and that it only added to the offence with which he was already charged. He claimed that the prisoners had made one of the most cowardly accusations to bring against a woman and the most difficult to prove, as the offence had been committed when just the two of them were present. Mr Overend also condemned the levity he had experienced in the courtroom which he said, had made a painful enquiry into a topic of indecency when the subject of the chastity of the prosecutrix was openly questioned.

He appealed instead to the higher feelings of the jury, rather than to those people who, he said had disgraced the court and themselves with their unseemly conduct. Mr Overend reminded them that instead of levity, they should have shown greater sympathy to a woman placed in the position of having to give evidence on such a charge. The prosecution asked the jury ‘would any woman without motive subject herself to the torture and misery, as had been seen in the courtroom that day?’ He also blasted the evidence of the servant girl Ann Heppenstall, and claimed that she had shown shameless impudence in her answers, which could not be trusted.

Mr Overend reminded the jury not to forget that Miss Hewitt had been given a good character by an officer of the law, a person whose professional evidence was completely trustworthy. He asked them:

‘If Miss Hewitt was the disgraceful, drunken and abandoned prostitute which had been suggested, could her house be known for seven or eight years to the constable as an orderly and well conducted one?’

Finally, he asked the jury to compare the victims demeanour when giving evidence to that of the girl Heppenstall, who had laughed at the disgraceful scenes she had openly described. The chair summed up the evidence for the jury, and suggested that they might consider reducing the charge to one of common assault. The members of the jury consulted between themselves for a few minutes before agreeing that the prisoner was guilty of common assault. The chair then sentenced James Whitehouse to be imprisoned for six months with hard labour. As Sarah Hewitt left the courtroom, she must have seriously considered whether it had all been worth it.