Crime and punishment are still with us today but this cautionary tale from the pages of the Eccles and Patricroft Journal in January 1916, shows just how harsh the sanctions against children were, no matter how trivial the crime.
Six boys aged 11-14 appeared before Colonel Andrew, the Chief Magistrate at Eccles Magistrate Court, charged with stealing fruit from James Andrew’s shop at 172 Church Street, Eccles.
The amount of fruit stolen was quite considerable to be honest: ten dozen bananas and a dozen oranges valued at eight shillings.
At around 8.30pm on a Thursday evening the shopkeeper Mr Andrew was in the kitchen when he heard a kerfuffle coming from the front of the store.
He charged out and spotted several young boys running away in the direction of Corporation Road.
In court, Detective Bentham took to the stand and told Colonel Andrew that he had arrested each of the boys – who all lived on Barlow Street in Eccles – on the Friday morning.
Two lads aged just eight and 10 were called to give evidence and they admitted that they had gone out to steal from shops, but were only “keeping nix”, that is, watching out for the older boys.
‘The Barlow Street Gang’ were well known to Detective Bentham as he had occasion to call at these boys houses at least a dozen times “in respect of complaints about their conduct”.
However a Mr Neave, Secretary to the Education Committee, told the court that there were no serious complaints against the boys regarding their school attendance.
Two had been expelled from their previous schools and two lads had fathers serving away in the Army but had ‘got in with a bad crowd’. Neave added that there was little chance of parental discipline in a house without a father.
Colonel Andrews was not amused and launched into a rather nasty tirade about the youth and parents of Eccles Borough, saying that he and his colleagues were sick of the thefts going on in the Borough and were determined to stamp it out,
He turned his anger onto the mother of one of the boys, saying she did not even know if her son was working, was unemployed or had left his job.
“There is great neglect on the part of these parents, too much gossiping among the women, and each instead of minding their own business are too busy minding other people’s,” he said.
He then sentenced the boys: the eldest was fined £1 or 14 days in prison, two younger boys who were wage earners were fined ten shillings and sixpence, or 14 days in prison.
The harshest sentence was given out to the three youngest boys, they were ordered to receive four strokes of the birch to be administered by a police sergeant from Eccles station with their parents summoned to watch. They would also be placed under Police Probation in regards to future conduct.
It does seem harsh flogging young boys of that age with a birch, I should imagine it was also equally heartbreaking for a parent to see their son strapped own over a bench and thrashed by a burly copper.
I hope that these young miscreants learned their lesson and if they had any sense would keep their hands in their pockets whilst out in Eccles.
