Henry Hill was a watchmaker and, according to the Flying Post, was a walking public nuisance. He had been up before the magistrates at Exeter Guildhall many times for indecent behaviour, causing annoyance to householders and for assault. "The idiosyncracies which he was proved to have exhibited at intervals at times were," according to the newspaper, "of the most ludicrous, and at times unseemly, description and such as hardly any mortal in his sober senses could possibly be guilty of. One of his more harmless escapades was that of dressing himself in a woman's shawl, straw hat, and freemmason's apron, and in such grotesque attire making public appearance in the streets, going from public-house to public-house, at once the butt and clown of a multitude of boys and idlers who were not loath to follow in his wake. Another development of his eccentricities exhausted itself in the smashing of his bedroom windows; and a third in conduct of an indescribably filthy character."
In July 1855 the magistrates sentenced Henry Hill to prison with hard labour for a month, a tough sentence perhaps, although we are not told what was the nature of his indescribably filthy conduct. They also required of him "sufficient sureties that he would keep the peace for the space of six months. They feared he was irresponsible for much of his conduct, and hoped that something would be done towards the effectual prevention of further annoyance to the public."
I have a fond image of poor Henry Hill passing along the city streets with his shawl, his straw hat and his freemason's apron (nothing else?) like a kind of cross-dressed, Exonian Pied Piper followed by that multitude of boys and idlers. It all sounds rather jolly but it didn't pay to defy the conventions in early Victorian Exeter.
Source:The Exeter Flying Post, 19th July, 1855.
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