Tea Theft: Trouble’s Brewing
Over the course of 300 years, tea’s curious curled leaf has made its way from noble classes down into the habitual practice of every Briton today. 100 million cups of the stuff are brewed every day in the UK, according to the International Tea Committee, and is now available to everyone at a reasonable prices from most grocery shops. Here at Porter Hill HQ, we’ve used Old Bailey court records to see what happens if one couldn’t afford enough tea for brew, and the sentences handed to those found GUILTY!
The famous East India Trading Co. had run a monopoly on products from India and Southeast Asia since 1600, but during the 18th century they were simply unable to supply the demand. It was believed that two thirds of tea was smuggled into the supply chain without parliament knowing about it and, more importantly, able to tax it. Published in 1745, the Proposal to Precent the Smuggling of Tea¹ noted that,
The home consumption of tea, since 1721, greatly increased in these Kingdoms; insomuch that it is upon good grounds believed that the annual consumption thereof is near three millions of pounds of weight; two millions of which is at present openly, and in denance of the laws and the civil government, smuggled and run in.
Smuggling, though, is a crime involving many moving parts. Usually, tea destined for auction houses was nicked along the way, pocketed for home use or sold into the black market. If caught, one of many punishments could be imparted, from a stint in the house of correction to banishment. Below are just three stories resulting from the petty theft of tea.
A pair of Special Breeches
On the 28th of May 1791, Richard Martin, labourer for the East India Co, was found guilty of stealing 4oz of tea while nailing up boxes in the warehouse. Fellow labourer, John Tadmire, swore before the jury that he saw Martin ‘put his hand twice into the chest, and take tea out, and put it under his coat’². Was this an honest man taking a handful of tea home or a small premeditated crime? As it turns out, on the day of the theft, Richard was wearing his specially made, big boy breeches. Elder of the warehouse, My Wilson, searched Martin and found ‘a large piece of leather sewed to the waistband of his breeches, sewed quite round, separate from the breeches, and open on the top of the waistband, and in it was that tea”². Although bringing five witnesses before the jury to count on his good character, Richard Martin was found guilty and sentenced to a good whipping.
Newgate Inmate
Eighteen years later, Thomas Cole met the same fate. Also a labourer, Cole was caught with a whopping 3lbs of Indian congue and campre tea on him, stolen from East India’s Crutched Friars warehouse. Worth £30 in today’s money, this was no small crime, and made all the worse by running off when caught. Customs House officer, John Burgess, left no pocket unturned upon searching Cole, finding 12oz of tea split between his two coat pockets and a further ‘one bag of tea on his right side, under his arm; I searched on the other side, I found another in a similar direction on the left side, and another smaller one just at the pit of his stomach’³. Guilty at 22, he was spared public execution, instead serving a month at London’s Newgate prison along with a daily course of whipping.
HMS Retribution
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Henry Hall was not so lucky. The Transportation Act was introduced in 1718, which allowed the state to pay merchants to take convicts to the Americas or the West Indies, in the name of reformation. On 28th October 1724, Hall was sentenced to seven years' transportation for the theft of tea, coffee and sugar from tea-dealer George Davis. What reads like the classic bait and switch, Davis recounts,
Mr. Thomas Gold, of the Cambden Arms, public-house, had given [Hall] an order for grocery, and if I would give him part of the profit he would give it to me - I agreed to do so, and sent it by my young man, with orders to bring back the money, or the goods.⁴
After a short walk, returning to the pub, Hall took possession of the parcel from the boy and asked him to wait while he nipped in to get the payment. Hall did not reappear. As it turns out Henry Hall was never an employee of the Cambden Arms and the whole thing was a ruse.
Home Office: Convict Prison Hulks: Registers and Letter Books, 1802-1849. Microfilm, HO9, 5 rolls. The National Archives, Kew, England.
Interestingly, Hall’s transportation sentence did not see him leave the country. Instead, he was sent to HMS Retribution, née Edgar, a decommissioned 74-gun ship turned prison hulk. Hulks were brought into service to ease the onshore prison population and Retribution, moored in Woolwich, was one of the worst. Hall’s records show he was received by the ship on the 13th November 1824 and, unfortunately, that’s where the paper trail ends.
Fellow prisoner, James Hardy Vaux, in his memoir, writes of the 600 sum convicts on board, the callous treatment by guards, fatigue-inducing work, and
on descending the hatch-way, no conception can be formed of the scene which presented itself. I shall not attempt to describe it; but nothing short of a descent to the infernal regions can be at all worthy of a comparison with it.⁵
Needless to say, Porter Hill Tea do not have the power to send shoplifters to HMS Retribution, but they will be reported to the local Huddersfield bobby!
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² https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t17910608-12
³ https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18090412-27
⁴ https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18241028-44
⁵ Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux: A Swindler and Thief Now Transported to New South Wales for the Second Time, and for Life, 1929. https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks22/2200021h.html