Robin Longbottom explores how a 19th-century weaver ended-up in prison for perjury – but was spared transportation

ON March 8, 1853, Samuel Sharp – a 37-year-old weaver from Keighley – appeared before the Crown Court at York charged with perjury.

He was born in a cottage at Hole, or Hoyle, at Exley Head in 1816 and lived there until he married.

By the time of the trial, he was widowed and living in an area of Keighley known as the Pinfold.

In 1852 he had offered to give evidence on behalf of Mary Hird in a paternity case she brought against Thomas Smith of Keighley for the maintenance of her child. The case was heard before the Keighley magistrates on October 29, 1852. When Sam was called to the witness box, instead of giving evidence in support of Mary Hird he embarked upon an elaborate tale that he had seen Mary, some nine months before the birth of her child, with a man called Jonas Binns in fields close to the Brigg Sepulchre off West Lane. He then went on to say that following his sighting he had consulted an almanac and accurately predicted the date for the birth of her child. Following his evidence, the case against Smith was dismissed.

Both Jonas Binns and Mary Hird denied any association and following later investigation it appears that Smith conceded that he was the father. The Keighley magistrates were incensed at having been hoodwinked by Sam Sharp and in January 1853 he was summoned to appear before the Bingley Magistrates Court and committed to York prison to await trial.

At the trial in York, Thomas Smith admitted that he paid money to witnesses who had appeared on his behalf at the original paternity hearing. The prosecution concluded "that the defendant had been guilty of treacherous conduct in saying he would appear as a witness for Mary Hird and afterwards giving evidence directly against her…his conduct could only be accounted for by his having been got hold of by Smith."

In his summing up the judge said that "he believed the defendant had intended to give honest testimony for Mary Hird in the first instance, but that he had been induced to substitute Binns' name for Smith's. No conduct could be more disgraceful and it was necessary for the safety of the interests of the community to make an example of him." Sharp was therefore sentenced to be "transported beyond the seas for the term of seven years".

Sam Sharp was taken from York to Millbank Prison, on the banks of the Thames in London, to await transportation, no doubt to Australia. However, at this time the Government was rethinking its transportation policy and had decided that prisoners could be put to better use quarrying stone for Government projects. Two prisons had been allocated, one at Portland in Dorset and the other at Dartmoor in Devon. Fit and able-bodied men were sent to Portland and those less able or with disabilities went to Dartmoor.

After languishing in a single cell at Millbank for just over eight months, Sam Sharp received the good news that his sentence had been commuted from transportation to serving out his time in an English prison. As he had an old injury to his left leg, leaving it shorter than his right, he was sent to Dartmoor, a remote prison originally built to confine French prisoners during the Napoleonic Wars and now being rebuilt.

Fortune favoured him further as the Government had also begun a programme of releasing prisoners early for good behaviour. His record shows that his conduct was recorded as 'good' at York, Millbank and Dartmoor and so on March 26, 1856, after serving only three years of his sentence, he returned to Keighley on licence.