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An Irresistible Temptation

The True Story of Jane New and A Colonial Scandal

Allen & Unwin

THE SIREN AWAKES

Criminality descends, as surely as physical properties and individual temperament.

Chief Justice Alfred Stephen

A fresh ruddy complexion, dark brown hair, black eyes: this bald description jotted down by the colonial authorities is the only surviving portrait of Jane New. Yet it fails to communicate any sense of her charms: her beauty, the seductive nature intimated by her contemporaries, the allure that led men to suspend their intelligence and to act against their better judgement. Nor does it reveal that she carried a scar like the 'King's Evil' branded upon her neck.

'My proper name is Maria Wilkinson,' Jane informed the colonial authorities, although she answered to 'Jane' even during her youth. Claiming Leeds in Yorkshire as her native place, she was one of at least three children born to Isaac and Elizabeth Wilkinson. Was she the baby named Maria Wilkinson baptised on 13 October 1805 at Headingly? At that time, Headingly was a village lying a couple of miles north-west of Leeds although it has long since been swallowed by the expanding metropolis.

Little is known about Jane's father. He was most likely the widowed mason who married Elizabeth Cormack in 1804 at Leeds. Jane probably inherited his height (she was a relatively tall five feet three inches) but her mother's allure. Elizabeth — a tiny four feet nine and a half inches with a pale complexion, hazel-grey eyes and dark brown hair — would later marry a man young enough to be her son.

Families like the Wilkinsons tend to slip through the cracks of history; the wealthy, propertied or politically inclined and the destitute or criminally inclined are more often captured in the archival net. In all probability Jane's family was little different from the thousands of others in the Regency period who struggled to survive and were unable to resist the lure of the city that was mushrooming in their backyard. Leeds was among the many British towns transformed by the recent and ongoing Industrial Revolution. Once known for its sedate cottage woollen industry, Leeds by the early 1800s housed a conglomeration of squat manufactories producing engineering and agricultural equipment and, as a by-product, fetid air, stinking piles of refuse, and sluggish rivers and streams.

Jane's childhood in Leeds was one of work, work, work from a young age. She had minimal schooling — one week was all her parents could manage. The teachers had to be paid: a penny here, a halfpenny there. The cost added up, proving too much for most families. Instead, Jane went into service, possibly in Leeds, almost certainly in Manchester.

A revolution in cotton manufacture had transformed Manchester from the thriving but unremarkable textile centre of the 1770s into the textile trade's commercial centre. Jobs abounded for carters, porters, packers and labourers in addition to the essential factory hands. The Wilkinsons were among the hordes drawn towards this burgeoning metropolis.

Forty miles separated Leeds and Manchester. As the Wilkinsons jolted along in an old cart or plodded wearily down the rutted roads, their journey probably provided Jane with her first view of the little-changed rural landscape: sepulchral woods, eerie moors, and, of course, the palette of crops in the miles of tamed fields. Weed-infested fields often bore testimony to a farmer's absence. Through fair means or foul, some had found themselves drafted into Britain's military and naval forces to fight in the two-decade-long Napoleonic Wars. Britain's battle against France was not just the usual story of preventing French domination; it masked a fear that the masses would catch the radicalism that had spawned the French Revolution in 1789. Yet for families like the Wilkinsons, the War probably existed only as a background hum. To a child like Jane, the present was all that mattered.

Dotted along the Wilkinsons' route were stately homes and gentlemen's residences similar to those depicted in Jane Austen's literary tales of manners and morals. Despite the social upheaval of the Industrial Revolution and the political and emotional dramas of the interminable war, these families had the same demands: food, clothing and domestic services. Maids of different ages and abilities were required, even untrained young girls like Jane.

Jane's mother later described herself as a house and laundry maid, and she possibly found work for Jane with her own employers. The young girls slaved at the most menial of household tasks: scrubbing floors, peeling potatoes, mending the unimportant fabrics. Jane showed needlework skills and dressmaking soon became her occupation.

Unmitigated drudgery summarises the life of a dressmaker in Regency England. While textile manufacture had early succumbed to industrialisation, clothing manufacture remained in the hands of single women or small workshop enterprises until the mid-1800s. Although dressmakers and milliners were the elite of this needlework industry, the proliferation of women with needlework skills kept wages low. Seamstresses laboured from dawn till dusk and beyond, 8 am to 11 pm in winter, 6 am to 12 am in summer, all night long if necessary during the fashionable season. Backbreaking, eyestraining, exhausting work. Stitch, stitch, hour after hour, day after day. Those who craved excitement, stimulation or change generally turned to alcohol or sex. Some, like Jane, turned to crime.

Jane's first venture into the criminal world was most likely driven by her family's desperation. In 1815 England's future looked rosy. The Duke of Wellington had triumphed in the Battle of Waterloo, the final victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The French defeat had quelled the fear of contagious revolutionary ideals. All was right with the world. Except that 300000 unemployed British soldiers and sailors flooded the countryside, attempting to rejoin communities who could provide neither support nor jobs. Mass unemployment dimmed the glow of victory; harvest failures doused it. As domestic consumption, production and trade withered, England spiralled into a depression. As usual the poor were the first to suffer.

With few sources of social welfare available other than the dreaded workhouse, the primordial instinct to survive motivated much of Britain's criminal activity, the Wilkinsons' no doubt included. Perhaps Isaac was unemployed or ill. Presumably the family's expenses surpassed their meagre income. Whatever the circumstances, Elizabeth turned to crime to support her family. Her decision to use her alluring thirteen-year-old daughter as an accomplice was undoubtedly deliberate. Jane would be useful as a decoy, or to actually pull off the theft, and to twist any heartstrings — particularly male — if they were caught.

On 13 November 1818, Jane, her mother and a sixteen-year-old accomplice, Josephine Townley, were indeed caught. They had entered the premises of shopkeeper Ann Mainwaring. Elizabeth and Josephine possibly distracted the woman while Jane snatched two pairs of boots. Whether Jane was spotted committing the crime or discovered with the boots in her possession is not documented. The records merely show that Manchester's corrupt deputy constable, Joseph Nadin, already notorious for arresting innocent people and for accumulating wealth through thief-catching and pay-offs, arrested them. He charged all three of them, committed them to stand trial at the next sessions and trundled them off to the New Bailey prison at Salford on the outskirts of Manchester.

Considering the Dickensian image of nineteenth-century prisons, Salford's New Bailey was better than most. Upon their arrival Jane, Elizabeth and Josephine had to strip and hand over their clothing for disinfection, then bathe, the authorities recognising the importance of cleanliness in reducing outbreaks of prison fever. Wearing the appropriately colour-coded prison garb — a drab-coloured wrapper, woollen petticoat, body linen, and clogs for the pre-trial females — the three were escorted through the courtyard to the female quarters where the felons were lodged and fed separately from those facing minor charges. Children received little special treatment, being thrown in with the hardened adult criminals.

Jane attended the prison's school two days a week, although the students were not taught to write; lessons from the Bible served as the foundation for their education. Did the authorities believe that proverbs like the loaves and fishes would miraculously provide them with the sustenance they needed to survive? On the remaining days, Jane toiled at the mundane repetitive work considered appropriate as punishment: weaving, wool-picking, hair-picking, rope-making, pin-heading, clogging, shoemaking, tailoring and the loathed bobbin-winding.

Two months into their incarceration, the women faced court. Considered more serious than the usual misdemeanours brought before the magistrates, their case was presented at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held in the prison's courtroom on 19 January 1819. Much pomp and ceremony accompanied the quarter sessions. Black robes, wigs, Latin phrases tripping off the tongue. The crowds resisted the formality, rustling noisily in the gallery, the volume increasing as loud voices and rattling chains heralded the prisoners' arrival. The ever-present tipstaffs cast a black shadow as they hovered in anticipation, ready to take into custody any offender sentenced to imprisonment, transportation, or worse.

Out of sympathy for the girls' youth, Ann Mainwaring valued the boots at only a penny apiece. This 'pious perjury' — undervaluing the stolen goods below the capital threshold — ensured that a conviction would not propel the girls towards the gallows. Such a thought revolted even the most hardened supporters of capital punishment.

'How will you plead?' enquired the judge.

'Guilty,' Jane piped up, acting upon her mother's instructions. Elizabeth and Josephine followed. 'Not guilty,' both pleaded. Although the case against them was evidently less convincing, the jury expressed their scepticism. As it turned out, Jane gained no benefit from pleading guilty. Both girls received fourteen-day sentences although these were passed for time served. Elizabeth was remanded for twelve months.

With her mother in gaol, her family in trouble — her father died within the following two years — and few readily available jobs, particularly for those with a known criminal conviction, Jane's return to criminality seems inevitable. But at some point desire infiltrated necessity. As later financial independence failed to curb her shoplifting pursuits, she must gradually have become enthralled by the sense of exhilaration it gave her. The delicious feeling of anticipation upon venturing into a store, of crossing into 'their' world. The heightened sense of awareness, of watching out for an opportunity while concealing her intentions. The focusing of attention on a particular object which pulled her in, wanting to be possessed. The sleight of hand required to grasp and hide the object. The ruse allowing her to escape undetected. The satisfaction at achieving a successful violation of the rules both moral and legal that shackled her to a tedious existence.

It was a game with a winner and a loser and, as Jane quickly learnt, shoplifters usually won. Constables were in short supply so criminals were rarely apprehended. Victims had to pursue prosecutions, so many grudgingly accepted their losses because of the expense and trouble involved. Adept thieves could follow their calling for years before facing the consequences.

Jane managed eighteen months. With another accomplice, a widow named Ann Ogden, she shoplifted twice in the one day: three scarves and six yards of silk from one shop, two lengths of cotton cloth from another. Committed to the Salford gaol on 21 August 1820, the two faced the quarter sessions on 23 October. The stolen items were again valued at only a few pennies, and both pleaded guilty, received six-month sentences, and were remanded to the same prison. This time, Jane found herself in the garb of a convicted felon — the blue and yellow clothing that shrieked of a more serious offence.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Wilkinson pursued her own timetable. Indeed, mother and daughter conceivably spent more time together in gaol than out of it. Released in January 1820, Elizabeth remained outside the clutches of the law for twelve months, until she and an accomplice, Elizabeth Hotchin, stole ten handkerchiefs (five silk) from one shop and six pairs of gloves from another. Although the goods were again undervalued and she pleaded guilty to both crimes, Elizabeth Wilkinson was sentenced to hard labour at Lancaster Castle for two years. Her previous conviction undoubtedly contributed to her harsher sentence.

Three months after Elizabeth's second conviction Jane was discharged, however she managed only a month of freedom. On 26 May 1821, Jane and a 33-year-old widow, Ann Bates, were caught stealing twenty yards of ribbon, undervalued again at one penny. By this time Jane knew that a guilty plea carried few benefits. Convicted on 16 July, she was remanded for twelve months although she apparently spent the duration in Liverpool Gaol. Her accomplice joined Jane's mother at Lancaster Castle for twelve months.

When the guards unbolted the gaol door in July 1822, Jane was only sixteen years of age, had three convictions behind her, and was well-known to the corrupt constable Joseph Nadin. She had little chance of eluding his grasp even if she found secure employment and resisted the compulsion to continue shoplifting. Jane slipped away, heading ten miles south to Macclesfield in East Cheshire where she reportedly found work as a dressmaker.

Macclesfield was awash with silk. These shimmering swathes of beauty competed against the supreme French silks made at Lyons, the centre of France's silk industry. Ironically, Lyons was also home to Jane's future nemesis, a woman named Madame Rens, who would sail for Australia two years later carrying a piece of silk fabric that was to prove Jane's undoing.

RICHES OR RUIN?

I sentence you, says the Judge, but to what I know not: perhaps to storm and shipwreck; perhaps to infectious disorders; perhaps to famine; perhaps to be massacred by savages; perhaps to be devoured by wild beasts. Away, take your chance; perish or prosper, suffer or enjoy; I rid myself of the sight of you; the ship that bears you away saves me from witnessing your sufferings.

Jeremy Bentham, The Rationale of Punishment

When Jane awoke on 13 March 1824 she could not have known that she hovered at a crossroads, that the choices she made as the day progressed would change her future irrevocably. Was it a spur of the moment decision to enter David Jackson's premises as she wandered past? Had she a desperate need for the two pieces of cloth valued at five shillings apiece or the money they would fetch, or was her decision to snatch them merely a flutter of opportunism? Whatever Jane's motivation, her adversary was determined to thwart her. Despite beseeching looks, tears, pleas, Jackson remained firm. He hailed a constable who imprisoned her, he lodged charges against her, and he pursued the prosecution despite the time and expense involved in travelling 33 miles west to Chester Castle to do so.

With three previous convictions, Jane knew she faced a harsh penalty if again found guilty. She told the authorities her name was Jane Henry, although they soon discovered the truth. She had plenty of time to bemoan her fate as she was carted from Macclesfield to Chester, ankles chained and chafing, at the mercy of the stares and jeers of those she passed. For six weeks she languished in the gaol at the back of Chester Castle, her fears no doubt escalating when another inmate was gibbeted and his body dissected and anatomised.

Trials were swift and the accused benefitted from legal representation only if they could afford it. Eighteen-year-old Jane was most likely alone as she faced the judge and jury on 27 April 1824. She shuffled to the prisoner's box, heard the charges read, and pleaded not guilty. Her accuser David Jackson testified, describing the robbery and the goods stolen, and pointing to Jane as the thief. He was convincing. Two other witnesses, both female, offered their testimony. The prosecution rested. If Jane was granted permission to speak in her own defence she failed to sway the court.

'Guilty,' declared the jury.

'Seven years' transportation to such parts beyond the seas as His Majesty with the advice of the Privy Council should direct,' pronounced the judge. And with the bang of his gavel, Jane's future was ordained.

A seven-year sentence of transportation — which effectively comprised lifelong banishment as few emancipated convicts could afford the return journey — for the theft of goods worth, in today's terms, considerably less than $50? A harsh punishment indeed. Yet it could have been worse. Under the law, convictions for shoplifting goods worth more than five shillings merited a death sentence. The noose. Perhaps Jane's youth and physical attractions had influenced the judge when he sentenced her.

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Excerpted from An Irresistible Temptation by Carol Baxter. Copyright © 2006 Carol Baxter. Excerpted by permission of Allen & Unwin.
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