Joseph Turner, a collier of Hesley Lane, Thorpe Hesley, near Rotherham was very pleased with life in the first few months of 1882. He was just twenty three years of age and was satisfied with his job and the friends he had made, both at work and in the local public house which he regularly visited. The landlord William Stockdale not only sold excellent beer, but Turner had also been attracted by the landlady, Maria there. The couple had recently started a secret, romantic alliance and Turner became quite besotted with her. After some time, they talked about eloping together and going to live in Sheffield and he was quite keen to pursue this.
However her husband Stockdale was a man who was very careful with his money, so when he realised that he could get more interest by investing the £60 he already had with the Sheffield Co-operative Society elsewhere, he decided to act. Subsequently Stockdale withdrew the money and gave it to his wife, Maria to invest for him. She thought that the money would be better spent giving herself and Turner a good start on their own illicit lifestyle in Sheffield. So on January 1882 she gave it to him to put it into the Post Office Savings Bank at Chapeltown. However instead of investing the money as instructed, Turner hid the money in a wall at Scholes.
Needless to say, when the crime came to light Turner denied any knowledge of the stolen money. On Friday 3 February 1882 he was brought before the Rotherham magistrates charged with the theft of £60. Mr Parker Rhodes prosecuted the case and outlined the facts for the bench. Turner’s defence was Mr H Hickmott who claimed that his client had been given the £60 by Maria Stockdale in order to allow them both to elope to Sheffield together. The prisoner denied this and stated instead that he had been given the money by Stockdale’s wife as a gift. The solicitor closely cross examined Maria Stockdale, who denied any truth in the accusation that she had been intimate with the prisoner, or that she had given him the money to invest in the Post Office.
Police Constable Powell described arresting Turner and told the court that at the time he had asked the prisoner if he had anything to say in response. He had simply said:
‘I have not got it. I will go with you because I know that I am innocent. The prosecutor’s [Stockdale] wife came to me and told me that she and her husband had a row, and she wanted me to go away with her, but I said I should not do so.’
After hearing the evidence, Turner was remanded for a week, but when Mr Hickmott applied for bail, it was refused. On 8 February a visitor to the police station where Turner was held in custody appeared. He gave the name of Robert Durant and stated that he was a friend of the prisoner and he also worked with him at the same colliery at Thorpe Hesley. He told one officer that he wanted to see Turner and make a clean breast of the whole affair. The miner stated that he knew where the money was hidden and asked for a constable to accompany him to the place to recover it.
Accordingly, Police Constable’s Pilmore and Durant went to a place called Scholes Coppice and found the money concealed in a mustard tin in a cavity of the wall adjoining the coppice. On the way there Durant had told the officer that Turner had told him that Mrs Stockdale had wanted to elope with him. When they got back to the police station, the prisoner was informed that PC Pilmore had recovered the cash and he charged Joseph Turner with stealing the money. In reply the prisoner again accused Mrs Stockdale of giving him the money. He said that:
‘We were walking on the road together and we were both fresh [tipsy] She told me to put the £60 in the bank in my own name, and then she would get some more, and then we would go away together.’
The following week the case was re-opened on Friday 10 February and the prosecution Mr Parker Rhodes stated that Turner had been a regular visitor to the public house at Thorpe Hesley which the Stockdale’s ran. He had been considered a close friend by the landlord, who had no idea of the intimacy which had developed between the prisoner and his own wife. Mr Rhodes stated that Turner had never either produced the cash or produced a bank book to prove he had invested the money as instructed. The prisoners defence counsel at this point asked the bench if they were going to send his client to the Assizes because if they were, he would reserve his defence.
One of the magistrates thought that the case had been proven, but another member of the bench disagreed. He felt that the prisoner had merely acted foolishly and that the blame should be laid at the feet of the prosecutors wife. She had incited him to commit this act and had acted very foolishly by doing so. As a result Joseph Turner was sent to take his trial at the next Assizes, and he was therefore conducted back to the cells below. Then there was seen some humour in the courtroom. Mr Rhodes applied for the £60 to be returned back to the prosecutor [Stockdale] which was agreed. The Mayor told the landlord that he hoped he would take better care of his money in the future. Mr Stockdale told him ‘she wont have it again!’ to which there was laughter in the courtroom.
On Saturday 8 April 1882 Turner was brought before the West Riding Assizes at Wakefield where his defence claimed that his client no felonious intent on his behalf. He stated that Turner felt that he had personally been given the money by his lover, Maria Stockdale. His employer, the manager of Messrs Newton Chambers and Co., gave the prisoner an excellent character and told the court that he had been employed by them for the past thirteen years and his record had been exemplary up to that point. Colonel Brooke told Turner that:
‘In consequence of the good character from your employers, the Court has determined to treat this case more leniently than we otherwise would have done. Nevertheless you have been found guilty of the most disreputable and atrocious crime.’
He then sentenced Joseph Turner to four months imprisonment with hard labour.