On 15 November 1863, a young woman called Fanny Richardson attended the magistrates court in Rotherham to bring an affiliation order against a 20 year old miner, called David Walsh. She stated that she had given birth to a child on 7 October of that year and that he was the father. If she could prove her statement, he would be ordered by the magistrates to pay maintenance towards the child. Fanny told the bench that she lived at the village of Scoles which is situated just south of the town, and that David Walsh lived in the same village. She stated that he knew that she was pregnant as she had told him on two occasions. Once when they had been watching the Ecclesfield brass band playing and another time at the Scholes Feast.

An order of bastardy was made, and the following week Walsh was brought before the court where Fanny’s statement was read out to him. He then made his own statement under oath which was taken down by the clerk to the magistrates. Walsh completely denied the allegation that he had ever a liaison with Fanny Richardson. He swore that he knew her as she lived in the same village, but had never even met her and therefore he could not possibly be the father of her child. Walsh told the bench that later he had been told on 7 October that she had given birth to a baby, but as far as he was concerned it was just a bit of gossip.

After hearing this statement, the magistrates adjourned the enquiry in order that witnesses could be found who might confirm or refute Fanny Richardson’s accusation. She was once again brought before the magistrates where Fanny was forced to make a fuller account of her liaison with the accused miner. She told the court that she had worked previously as a domestic servant, but had managed to obtain leave from her employers for two days to attend her brother’s wedding on 25 January 1863. Fanny said that after the wedding, the guests all assembled at Moses Law’s public house in Scholes, who was the brother of her new sister-in-law.

Then Fanny Richardson revealed an account, that would raise no eyebrows in today’s modern society, but seems particularly lax for the tight laced, Victorian morality we think of today. It was at that public house that Fanny struck up an acquaintanceship with Walsh and spent the next three hours with him. Consequently, it was round 11 pm when Walsh asked if he could accompany her home to her parent’s house. Once there he was invited inside and introduced to her parents and the landlord who lived at the same house, a man called James Riley. The family and Riley were still drinking and celebrating the wedding, but it was not long before Fanny’s parents went to bed, leaving the couple alone downstairs.

Before they went to bed however, her mother, Elizabeth Richardson urged her daughter to see the man off the premises and warned her not stay up too late. Fanny blushed as she told the bench that it was there that they couple ‘had relations with each other’. This remarkable laxity was also noted in the Sheffield Independent dated Saturday 19 December 1863 when the reporter stated that:

‘The young woman seems to have been of a very yielding disposition, for she made no resistance to the advances of her new acquaintance and they slept together on the sofa’.

Mrs Richardson was the next witness, and she told the bench that she was horrified the next morning when she came downstairs to find the young couple still sleeping together on the sofa. She said that it had also been witnessed by the landlord James Riley, as well as her husband. Needless to say, the witness and her husband were extremely upset at finding the pair still together. However when challenged, Walsh re-assured them both saying ‘it will be alright; I’ll make her as good as myself’. Mrs Richardson told the magistrates that she took this to mean that if her daughter found herself pregnant after the encounter, he would marry her and ‘make everything respectable.’

Mrs Richardson, continuing with her tale, said that Walsh left the Richardson’s house some time later that morning, but returned again around dinnertime. At this point Fanny Richardson was invited back into court to continue with her own statement. She said that when Walsh came back to the house, he invited her to the same public house in Scholes where they had met the night before. Once there, Walsh bought her several drinks and they stayed drinking there until around 7 pm. The witness told the bench that she was a bit tipsy and as a consequence, had stood talking outside her parent’s house for some time, until her brother ordered her to go inside. He told Fanny that that she was making ‘a public spectacle of herself.’

Shortly afterwards, Walsh left the house after arranging to meet Fanny at the same public house house the next night. On 27 January she said that the pair met again and once more at closing time they returned back to her parent’s house and on that occasion they were seen going home by a neighbour called Mrs Mirfin. Incredibly it seems that once again, Fanny’s parents went to bed leaving the couple downstairs on the sofa. However she told the court that this time, she made sure that Walsh had gone by the time her parents got up the following morning. Fanny said that since that time, the couple had met regularly until she found herself to be in a pregnant condition.

The next witness was the neighbour Mrs Mirfin who confirmed that on the 27 January she had seen the couple return back to the lodging house where Fanny’s parents lived. Another neighbour, a woman called Mrs Oxley also stated that in February she had been watching the Ecclesfield band with Fanny Richardson, when Walsh came up to speak to the girl. He asked her to come for a walk to some nearby woods, but Fanny refused, however she told him that she suspected that she might in the family way. After hearing the account of Fanny Richardson and the neighbours, David Walsh was arrested and brought back to court on Monday 7 December 1863 charged with wilful and corrupt perjury. Local solicitor Mr Edwards was the prosecution and he outlined the facts of the case for the bench, and once again the first witness to be heard was Fanny herself.

She gave a complete account again of her former statement made in front of the magistrates. However when Walsh was asked if he had anything to say, he continued to deny that the child was his. He stated that he had never been at Moses Law’s public house at Scholes on the 25, 26 or even the 27 of January. In fact he told the court that on that latter date he was in a shop at Masbrough selling fish. He stated that he had never seen Fanny Richardson or spoken to her at Scholes Feast, nor had any of her neighbours seen them together. As a result of his declarations, Elizabeth Richardson, James Riley and several other witnesses including the neighbours were brought back into the court room. There they re-affirmed their evidence that they had seen the young couple together on the three days in question.

However what finally convinced the magistrates was confirmation from a most impeccable source. He was Police Constable Strange of Scholes, who gave evidence that he had seen the couple together at the Scholes Feast, deep in conversation with each other. That officer then related how he had been sent to arrest David Walsh after his perjury had been uncovered. He told the court that in answer to the charge, the prisoner had said that it was ‘a bad job.’ Despite hearing all the witnesses evidence, the prisoners defence Mr Hirst expressed a hope that the magistrates would take a lenient view of the case. He said that the young man had not intended to commit perjury, and that he had been simply mistaken over the dates. The defence also criticised the evidence of the witnesses, who were mainly composed of the woman’s family and neighbours and therefore, he said their evidence was suspect.

He complained that as far as he was concerned the evidence against the prisoner was biased and weak and suspicious in character. Mr Hirst concluded by asking the bench if they could they really consider such testimony from the witnesses to be sufficient for them to warrant sending the prisoner for trial on such a serious a charge as that of wilful perjury? However the bench were having none of it and said that on the contrary, the evidence proved to them a very clear case against the prisoner. Then the magistrates informed David Walsh that he had been found guilty of gross perjury and he was ordered to pay a weekly sum of maintenance towards the child of Fanny Richardson. They then ordered the prisoner to take his trial at the ensuing York Assizes.

David Walsh appeared before judge Mr Justice Mellor on Friday 18 December 1863 at the Yorkshire Winter Assizes, charged with having committed the perjury on 16 November. The prosecution, Mr Waddy outlined the case and stated that the perjury had been committed after an affiliation order had been applied for by Fanny Richardson. He said that the prisoner had denied having any intercourse with the girl, and that his words were given under oath as well as being taken down in writing. He said it was that statement which had constituted the perjury, now being heard by the grand jury

The clerk to the Rotherham magistrates, Mr John Oxley said that under oath the prisoner had sworn that he had not had any kind of relationship with the young woman, Fanny Richardson. He had taken the statement down himself, which the prisoner had then signed. The judge after hearing all the evidence from the same witnesses, summed up for the jury. He commented that incidents of perjury were all too common in affiliation cases. The jury then retired for a mere 30 minutes before finding the prisoner guilty of the crime of wilful and corrupt perjury. Mr Justice Mellor then sentenced David Walsh to be imprisoned for six months in the Wakefield House of Correction and the prisoner was removed from the court.