James Taylor charged with stealing George Pittingale's (Pickingill's) jacket, Chelmsford Chronicle, 26 August 1887

Chelmsford Chronicle, Friday 26 August 1887, page 8. Rochford Petty Session, 24 August 1887, C. A. Tabor in the chair: James Taylor, "no home", is charged with stealing a jacket and a pair of leather gloves, valued at 4s., "from a field at Canewdon Hall, the property of George Pittingale", on 17 August. He was committed for trial. 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: 'Rochford. Petty Session, August 24. Canewdon', Chelmsford Chronicle, 26 August 1887, p. 8 (British Newspaper Archive). Alexandrian Witchcraft Timeline & Archive.

ROCHFORD.
Petty Session, August 24. Magistrates present - C. A. Tabor, Esq., in the chair; E. E. Phillips and G. D. Deeping, Esqrs. CANEWDON. - James Taylor, no home, was charged with stealing a jacket and a pair of leather gloves, valued at 4s., from a field at Canewdon Hall, the property of George Pittingale, on the 17th inst. --- The prisoner was committed for trial.