By the 1880’s photographic technology was being used in some prisons and then added to criminal admission records.
Here, two brothers from Bridport in Dorset are imprisoned for stealing a rabbit in 1887. They are reported in the local press, jailed and photographed for posterity. Both John and Ben Down later married local girls and by the 1890’s John was recorded in the census as being blind (the Down family research is here).
Charged with stealing a tame rabbit (Western Gazette – Friday 08 April 1887).
“John Henry and Ben George Down, labourers and brothers, were indicted for stealing obtain a rabbit, the value of two shillings, the property of William Cheeseman, at Wootton Fitzpaine, on the 27th of February. A second count charged them with receiving the rabbit knowing it to have been stolen.
Mr. Gondry was for the prosecution.
It appeared for the rabbit, the larger black and white one, was stolen from a hutch, which was fastened and intact; and the animal was next seen in the possession of the prisoners, who were offering it for sale at Bridport.
Their defence was that the rabbit was knocked down with a stone on the highway. The younger prisoner (Ben) had worked with the prosecutor, and knew where the rabbit was kept.
William Best, game dealer, of Bridport, said that on the 1st of March, Ben Down sold to him a wild and a tame rabbit. The latter was afterwards skinned by request of the police, and no marks were found on the body, but the neck of it had been dislocated.
Both prisoners were found guilty, and the younger (Ben) was sentenced to three months, and the elder (John) to two months imprisonment; and both to two years’ police supervision”.
Ian Waugh
Old British News
