Published in Windlesora 27 (2011)
© WLHG
When in 1770 Captain James Cook discovered a magnificent natural harbour in New South Wales he named it Botany Bay for the many new plant species found there. For the British government, however, his discovery had a different attraction. After the loss of the American colonies it was no longer possible to rid the country of social problems by transporting criminals to work in the southern plantations, and distant Australia offered an alternative. So ‘Botany Bay‘ acquired a more sinister connotation and in 1788 the first shiploads discharged their human cargoes in the new penal settlement. Many of the crimes for which the prisoners were condemned would today seem very trivial, as would that for which, eight years later, a Frenchman Louis Pepin and Martha Chapman, landlady of the Horse and Groom in Castle Street, were likewise sentenced to transportation. They had, it was considered, committed a ‘crime of gross magnitude‘: he had stolen, and she received, a quantity of King George III’s napkins and table linen (1). The case against them and the landlord Richard Chapman was heard at the Berkshire Assizes in April 1796 by the distinguished judge Sir Soulden Lawrence.
The first witness was David Evans. He was employed in the Royal Household as the arcanely-titled Yeoman of the Ewry, which meant that he was in charge of all royal linen down to the last duster. (The extraordinary royal job titles are well-illustrated by Evans’s career: his first post in 1765 was as Keeper of the Fire Buckets in Ordinary, from which he progressed to Porter at Somerset House in 1766, Groom of the Buttery in 1769, and finally Yeoman of the Ewry in 1776, a job he kept till his death in 1812 (2)) In August 1795 Evans had discovered the loss of more than five dozen of the royal napkins, ‘as fine as could be got‘, and four table-cloths. Suspicion fell at once on Louis Pepin, employed by the Board of Works for odd jobs, who had been given the key to the linen cupboard for fetching and carrying what was needed to and from Frogmore.
When reported to the town authorities the loss of the linen was investigated at once, thieving from the King being a serious offence, and the Mayor brought Pepin in for questioning. He was judged to be sober, though he ‘behaved like his countrymen using many gestures, in a light airy way‘, and he was warned not to compromise himself. But straightway he admitted that he had taken the linen and used it to pay for beer at the Horse and Groom, while claiming that he had only taken ‘what he had been given‘. Evans conceded that he had made gifts to Pepin, though not of table-linen.
Martha Chapman (or Wallis, as she and Richard Chapman may not have been legally married) was challenged, and tearfully admitted taking the linen from Pepin. He owed her ‘a score‘ and wanted to ‘rub [out] the debt’. Richard, however, flatly denied knowing anything about it, and when the inn was searched no trace of the stolen goods was found. But it was put to Chapman on the evidence of a seamstress at the inn, Ann Goodland, that he had sent the linen away
Ann testified that Martha Chapman had presented her with a quantity of napkins and asked her to mark them in the corners with the initials R:C:M. They were ‘very fine napkins, not such as are used in a public house‘, and several were marked already, in red silk, with GR and a crown. These markings Ann Goodland was told to pick out. Martha told her to take the work to her bedroom upstairs and she was not to sit sewing in the bar as she normally did. Richard was there when she was given these instructions, but she ‘could not tell if he heard the particulars‘. She also revealed that she had since left Chapman’s service ‘in consequence of seeing something indecent in the behaviour of his servant girl’. She denied that she had been dismissed.
Next in the witness box was the live-in servant girl, Susannah Walker (who had slapped Ann Goodland in the face when confronted by her over the ‘indecency‘). She said that Richard Chapman had woken her between three and four one morning and told her to take a box to Knightsbridge in London. She asked ‘a young man‘ (could he have had anything to do with the ‘indecency‘?) to come with her, and they carried the box to Slough, a walk which took them an hour. There they caught the Bath and Bristol coach to Knightsbridge, where they left the box at Treadaway the Baker’s, he being Chapman’s nephew. Meanwhile Chapman’s niece Elizabeth took another two boxes to London, delivering them to John Elmer, a leather seller of 27 Monmouth Street. She told him that her uncle was in trouble over debt and wanted to prevent an ‘execution‘ (bailiffs taking away property).
It was at Elmer’s that some at least of the linen was recovered and returned to Windsor, where it was identified by David Evans, one napkin having ‘God be Praised‘ woven in the middle, and many with an eagle worked into the pattern. In one napkin he recognised a tear. He testified that each napkin had cost half a guinea, a large sum then, and that they were kept until worn out, when they were passed to Saint George’s Hospital near Hyde Park Corner for use as bandages.
Various character witnesses appeared on behalf of the Chapmans, and then the jury considered their verdict. They declared Pepin and Martha Chapman guilty, but acquitted Richard Chapman. In his judgement Sir Soulden said that it was ‘not possible to entertain a doubt of the guilt of either of the prisoners‘, and they were sent to Reading gaol under sentence of transportation
He would not recommend mercy for either, saying that ‘judges have seldom thought themselves justified in the discharge of their duty to the Public in relaxing the rigour of the Law against offenders of this description‘. Of course the crime appeared the more heinous as it was the King’s property that was stolen.
Why did the jury acquit Richard Chapman? He appears from the report of the trial to be as guilty as his wife in knowing that they were handling stolen goods. Was the jury swayed by Windsor character witnesses? A Mr Baverstock declared that he’d known Chapman for eight years, and had ‘never heard but what he was a very honest man’. Thomas Moor said that ‘he had a very good character’ and Francis Burt, William Whitmore and William Till (a wine and spirit merchant and proprietor of the Red Lion Inn at Slough (3)) all testified similarly.
Did Martha Chapman and Louis Pepin survive the long and hazardous journey, in the terrible below-decks conditions? It seems unlikely that the feckless Pepin could have coped well, but perhaps Martha arrived safely and forged a new life for herself. For those prisoners who had good health and enterprise Australia offered opportunities for a better living than they might have imagined. And it is just possible that Martha was joined by Richard at a later date. Not surprisingly he did not remain as landlord at the Horse and Groom following the trouble (4); it may be coincidence but in 1800 a Richard Chapman, aged 48, was found guilty of stealing 26 yards of linen from his employers in Middlesex and sentenced to b transportation (5).
Hester Davenport
Note on the illustration on the front cover: It is tempting to say of the caricature of King George III eating a boiled egg that it shows how he dealt with the loss of his napkins. But it is part of a larger image by James Gillray titled Temperance Enjoying a Frugal Meal (with Queen Charlotte tucking into sauerkraut) which is ridiculing the royal couple’s supposedly penny-pinching ways.
- Quotations and references are taken from the report of the trial in the National Archives, PRO/HO 47/20/40.
- Information from the Royal Archives.
- Thanks to Elias Kupferman for this information.
- From notes made by Judith Hunter now in the Museum Store, taken from the Corporation leases, it appears that Chapman was landlord from 1793-95. In 1796 another name appears.
- PRO/HO26/8/18.
Windsor Local History Group 