Police Constable Mitchell was on night duty in Rotherham on Wednesday 21 February 1872, and it was around midnight when he saw a man lying face down in the gutter on Westgate. This was an area which, at that time was known to be one of the lowest areas of the town, with its many beer shops and overcrowded lodging houses. Sadly it was not unusual for officers to find drunken people insensible on the ground, so PC Mitchell simply sighed before trying to rouse the man in order to send him on his way. He finally managed to wake him, but it was only with the greatest difficulty.
As the man finally gained consciousness and leaned against a wall, the officer asked him his name. He replied that his name was Thomas Higgins and he had come to Rotherham looking for work. As he was slurring his words, PC Mitchell assumed that he was drunk and therefore thought the best place for him was in one of the cells at the police station. There he could safely ‘sleep it off’ until the morning. He tried pulling him to his feet, but Higgins was most unresponsive. In the end the officer had the greatest difficulty in getting him to move at all. Higgins appeared to be so drunk that he kept falling down.
Finally PC Mitchell succeeded in getting the man back to the station and Higgins was given a drink of water by Sergeant Lee. After the drink, Higgins seemed to recover somewhat, and that was where he told a completely different story. He claimed that he had been walking peacefully along Westgate, when he had been assaulted by two men. One of them had brutally knocked him to the ground for no reason at all. The second had roughly gone through his pockets, robbing him of a shilling and a bundle he had been carrying at the time.
When asked what was in the bundle, Higgins told the two officers that it was three loaves of bread and some bacon. He admitted that it might not sound a lot to them, but it was his food for the next three days. As proof he indicated a wound on his temple from which blood was still seeping and stated that one of the men had kicked him as he lay on the floor. Constable Mitchell was still convinced that the man had been drinking and so he escorted Higgins to one of the cells where he was locked up for the night.
Mitchell then continued with his rounds back in the town centre. Also on duty that night was another Rotherham officer called Police Constable Hepburn. About an hour or so later, Hepburn was patrolling along Howard Street, when he saw a man loitering about. He looked most suspicious and after observing him for a while, the officer approached him. The constable asked what he was doing abroad at that time of night, and the man replied that he was on his way to Sheffield to look for work. The officer noted that he was carrying a bundle under his arm and he asked him to open it.
Inside he saw inside three loaves of bread and a small packet of bacon. When he asked the man his name and where he had come from, he replied that he was Thomas Clark and was twenty four years of age. He claimed that he had walked from Doncaster that very day, and admitted that he was ‘on the tramp’. However because he had been acting suspiciously, Hepburn decided to lock him up for the night. Consequently Clark was taken to the police station where he was booked in by Sergeant Lee.
As the man surrendered the bundle, the sergeant opened it to reveal the bread and bacon inside. The sergeant knew that the prisoner Higgins had reported that his own stolen bundle had contained bread and bacon. So he aroused Higgins from his sleep in order to identify the bundle. He immediately recognised, not only the bundle, but Clark as being one of the men who had attacked him earlier that evening in Westgate. Higgins described how Clark had been the one who held him down, while the other man had taken the bundle away from him.
Higgins said that when he attempted to get up, Clark had been the one who had kicked him viciously in the face. The prisoner, who was present denied this and after offering some rambling story about finding the bundle in the street, he too was arrested. The two men were placed in their respective cells for the night and the following morning were brought before the Rotherham magistrates. Both men were reported to be looking bedraggled and shabbily dressed, as the Superintendent of Rotherham Police, Mr Gillott prosecuted the case.
He gave the bench the details of them being brought into the station the night before. The magistrates decided to deal with the case against Thomas Clark first. He was charged with the highway robbery of Thomas Higgins, who was the first witness. Thankfully he appeared to have fully recovered from the recent attack on him. Higgins told the bench that he had bought the bread and bacon earlier in the evening, before he then had looked for lodgings. Knowing that there were several cheap lodging houses on Westgate, Higgins had gone into some of them trying to find a bed for the night.
At one point he said that two men approached him who he didn’t know. As they passed, he heard Clark say his companion ‘this looks like a navvy who has got plenty of money.’ At the time there were many such men earning good wages in Rotherham working on the canals and railways. When the magistrate Mr Chambers asked the witness what he thought the man meant, Higgins said that he could only presume it was because of the bundle he was carrying close to his chest. He said that though it had only contained food for the next three days, the men might have assumed that it held something more valuable.
Higgins then described how the two men knocked him onto the floor and took the parcel away from him. Then, without any provocation, Clark had viciously kicked at him until he became insensible, still lying on the ground. The prisoner Clark was then questioned by the Mayor and asked to give an account of himself. In reply he gave rambling replies as to how the bundle had come into his possession the previous night. Once again he claimed that he had simply found it lying in Westgate. Clark was asked about the second man who had been with him that night, but he stated that he didn’t know his name as they had only just met.
Constable Mitchell then gave details of arresting the prisoner, which was corroborated by Sergeant Lee. Superintendent Mr Gillott told the court that he had another witness who he would like to bring into court. She gave her name as Ann Smith, and said that she ran a provision’s shop on the High Street, Rotherham. She confirmed that the prisoner called Higgins had bought three loaves of bread and some bacon from her earlier on the previous evening. When the witness had finished with her testimony, the Mayor asked Thomas Clark if he had anything to say.
The prisoner denied taken part in any assault, but simply replied that he had been simply walking along Westgate with another man, when they found Higgins face down in the gutter. Clark stated that he thought that the man was unconscious, but nevertheless he admitted stealing the bundle which lay by his side. However he denied taking part in any attack or kicking the man while he was on the ground.
The Mayor, who clearly disbelieved his story, told Clark that he would be remanded in custody before being sent to take his trial at the next Sheffield Sessions.
The prisoner was then removed from the courtroom. Thomas Clark was brought before the Sheffield Christmas Intermediate Sessions at the Town Hall on Thursday 28 February 1872. He was charged with the robbery of the three loaves, the bacon and a shilling from Thomas Higgins on 21 February of that year. After listening to all the evidence, the prisoner was found guilty of the charge. Despite that fact that he had stolen just trifling items, Thomas Clark was sentenced to six months imprisonment.