THE WRONG COW, EXETER, 1833.

From The Western Times of 20th July 1833:

"ELIZABETH WILLEY and MARY SOPES, two girls apparently about 12, were charged with having milked the cow of a Mr. Searle, in a field near Hill's Court, on the preceding Sunday.  The case was fully proved against them, by witnesses who saw them in the act.

The defence set up, when caught, was that they had not intended to milk Mr. Searle's cow, but Mr. Alderman's Sanders's.

The case being proved, Mr Searle stated that he did not wish to press the charge, but merely to caution delinquents of this character, that they were committting a robbery.  The court said that it was a felony, liable to the punishment of transportation; and Mr. Warren, who was in court, stated that a man had been tried and conviceted of this offence at the County Sessions. 

-   Mr. Alderman Sanders cautioned them against milking his cows, as he had been a frequent sufferer from this kind of petty theft, and declared, upon his honour,  if ever any of them were caught with his cow, to go the full extent of the Law with them.

The girls were fined a shilling each and discharged.

Caught white-handed, Elizabeth and Mary pleaded that it was all a mistake .  It was the alderman's cow they meant to milk, not Mr. Searle's.  

If the magistrates and the grown-ups seem not to have been amused, this was because this was clearly becoming a prevalent offence in the fields of St. Sidwell's.  The magistrates were hoping to make their point to all the light-fingered, little milkmaids and milklads of greater Exeter. 

 It seems an odd sort of 'felony' to pop into a field on a quiet Sunday morning and to milk a cow.  I don't think these days that you could find a twelve-year-old in Exeter capable of it!  Nevertheless I'm sure the magistrates were right when they said this was an offence that could send you to Botany Bay, or wherever, and the poor in St Sidwell's were very hungry.

Hill's Court was an ancient mansion in the parish of St. Sidwell's of which nothing remained by 1822.  By 1833 there were already new town-houses on the site.