Kingshott Miscellany
This section will contain various Kingshott related items of interest that do not really fit in anywhere else, especially if I cannot identify the particular Kingshott personality involved.
The spelling, punctuation and grammar are exactly as written in the newspapers of the time.
The first case is a "man named Kingshot" and relates to his discovery of a still-born child.
Morning Post - Friday 10th April 1840
Yesterday an inquest was held before Mr Carter, in the boardroom of Lambeth Workhouse on the body of a fine new-born male child which was found by a coal porter named Kingshot, in the dock at the terminus of the London and Southampton railway, at Nine Elms, on Saturday afternoon last. The body subsequently underwent a post mortem examination by Mr Duke, Surgeon of Kennington Common, who, on trying the usual tests, found that the child had never breathed. Verdict - "That the deceased child was still-born; but by whom the body was placed there was no evidence."
The next case relates to an attempted rape on a Sarah Kingshot of whom there isn't sufficient evidence to identify.
The Morning Chronicle - Wednesday 27th March 1816
Sussex Assizes
Horsham
Monday March 25th
Attempt at Rape
Mr Pooley, as counsel for the prosecution, stated the case, which was proved in evidence by the prosecution, as follows:-
[Sarah Kingshot] stated that she lived at the Turnpike Gate at Bursham, in this county, where she looked after her brother's children. On Sunday evening, the 8th May last, she had been but a short distance from home; when returning she met the prisoner and another man; she knew them both very well. The other man stopped her by catching hold of her arm and around her waist and after some struggle he threw her on a sloping bank and ravished her. For this offence that man was convicted the last assizes. He, having perpetrated his purpose, went away and the prisoner, George Bury, then came up and said he knew what the other had done to her and that he would do the same. He was not, however, so strong as the other man, and she dragged him a considerable length on the road when he also succeeded in throwing her down against the bank. Just at that moment two persons came along the road and the prisoner went away. They came up and she immediately told them how she had been served. They saw her home and the next day went before a magistrate and the prisoner was apprehended. She added, she thought the prisoner was in liquor. There being no contradiction of this evidence, and no reason to impeach her testimony, the prisoner was found guilty. [The prisoner] was to be imprisoned for 18 months and once during that period must be placed in the pillory.
As and when I find more reports in old newspapers, I will add them here.