'Canewdon: pleaded guilty': six months for the theft of George Pettingale's (Pickingill's) jacket, Chelmsford Chronicle, 21 October 1887

Chelmsford Chronicle, Friday 21 October 1887, page 7. The end of the case: James Taylor, 63, labourer, indicted for stealing a jacket and a pair of gloves "of George Pettingale, at Canewdon, on the 17th August", pleaded guilty to the jacket only and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour. The name is spelt differently again here. In August 1887 George Pickingill, then about seventy and still working in the fields at Canewdon Hall, had his jacket and a pair of leather gloves stolen while he worked. Three cuttings follow the case from the petty sessions to the sentence. George Pickingill (1816-1909), farm labourer of Canewdon, Essex, was remembered in the village as a cunning man, and Eric Maple's writing in the 1960s made him the best-known figure of the Canewdon witch traditions. The newspapers of his lifetime spell the name Pittingale, Pettingale and Pickingale. One of a set of documents on him found by William Wallworth. The small crop is the paragraph itself; the full page follows. How to cite: 'Canewdon: Pleaded Guilty', Chelmsford Chronicle, 21 October 1887, p. 7 (British Newspaper Archive). Alexandrian Witchcraft Timeline & Archive.

CANEWDON: PLEADED GUILTY. James Taylor, 63, labourer, was indicted for stealing a jacket and a pair of gloves, of George Pettingale, at Canewdon, on the 17th August. He pleaded guilty to stealing the jacket only. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour.