DESTITUTION, EXETER, 1856.

 Thomas Huxtable ,'a miserable, dirty-looking man', was a tin-plate worker who lived, 'immediately over the mill-leat' in Ewings' Lane.  In December, 1856, he appeared before the magistrates at the Guildhall in Exeter charged with neglecting his children.  His eldest child, his thirteen year old daughter, Jessy, had  gone to the Office of the Corporation because their father had neither provided sufficient food for her, nor for her three little brothers, for a week.  

Jessy Huxtable gave evidence that she had received from her father since Monday for herself and her brothers 'a half-quartern loaf, (a quartern loaf weighed four pounds) a conger, three cods' heads, a pennyworth of fat, and threepence in money.'

Mr Shutte, rector of Saint Mary Steps, said he knew the Huxtable's home.  "The winter before last there was a hole through the room which led to the mill-leat, and a great number of rats used to come up from the stream and carry off what food there was in the house."

Daniel Fildew, beadle to the Corporation, gave evidence that he had visited the Huxtables and "he found  nothing in the house for the children to make use of.  There was no bed for the children to sleep in, and no fire  (this was in December) - in fact there was no furniture in the house.....There were rags in the house in a very filthy state, for the children to lie on"  Huxtable had said to Daniel Fildew: ; I cannot help it - I have unfortunately broke out the whole of the week.'  ('breaking out' meant giving in to the demon drink.)

Thomas Huxtable said to the Bench: 'I cannot keep the children as clean as a woman;  but they are never without  bread and meat from Monday morning to Saturday night.'

"The MAYOR said the bench considered it a most shocking case. He thought the defendant should be ashamed of himself for squandering almost all his earnings in drink, he having four children dependent on him for maintenance.  The bench had come to the determination to commit him to prison for two months, and he hoped when he came out he would have some knowledge of what is due from a parent towards his children."

Source: The Western Times, 6th December 1856.