Published in Windlesora 26 (2010)
© WLHG
At the time James Bedborough was making a name for himself in Windsor during the 1820s as master mason and member of the corporation, another Bedborough gained notoriety in Windsor in quite a different way. Was she a relation? There is no evidence for this, but it is a strange coincidence to find two families with the same unusual surname, living at the same time and in the same town.
On 26 September 1829 Elizabeth Bedborough was first mentioned in the Windsor newspaper under the heading of Magistrates’ Reports. She was charged with molesting Windsor resident Tom George and his son in Peascod Street, She was described as a decently dressed woman who has been seen being pushed in and out of the barrack windows and was known to be a nuisance around the town.
In November of that year the newspaper described her as notorious when she was charged with insulting and assaulting a Mr Barrett and was fined five shillings for being drunk and disorderly. When she claimed she could not pay the fine she was told she would be sent to gaol. At this she produced the money, five shillings plus costs, proclaiming that going to gaol would impede on her trade.
On 19 December 1829 she was in court again charged with retaining a gentleman’s coat, but on this occasion was acquitted.
In January the following year the newspaper called her ‘the incorrigible Mrs Bedborough’. This time she was seeking the help of the magistrate in a dispute with another prostitute who had encouraged some street urchins to annoy her and call her names. The magistrate dismissed the case as too frivolous.
There were no more reports in the newspaper until 1844 when she was charged with vagrancy and begging. By this time she had two children aged nine and eleven. She pleaded with the Windsor magistrate to give her some money to tide her over as she was destitute. The magistrate decided to send her to the workhouse where she would more than likely have been separated from her children.
Brigitte Mitchell
Source
The Windsor and Eton Express newspaper files
Windsor Local History Group 