One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 124 ............ poaching returns to Chorlton

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

They came in the night or very early in the morning and picked the entire crop of cherries from the tree in the front garden.

It promised to be a good crop, and while we lost some to the birds, there were still plenty left.

Now I am sanguine about the theft, after all in the great sweep of horrible things unfolding across the world, stealing our cherries ranks pretty low.  And I am the first to accept that I did my share of scrumping as a kid in south east London.

But theft it still is, and my only consolation is that the cherries were not quite ripe, and the thieves clearly didn’t know they were stealing Morello cherries, which are best not eaten raw.

Having had my rant I was reminded that poaching was a common occurrence when we were still a rural community.

"It was the most obvious rural crime along with stealing from the fields.   

For some this was an acceptable practice.  It might take the form of stealing game or produce from a local landowner and justifying it on the basis that the landlord had much and they had little.  

And there is no doubt that during periods of the 19th century, poverty and scarcity stalked the fields, and for many families driven by hunger poaching was a means to an end.

Rural accounts suggest this was often committed by people in the same neighbourhood.  

But our close proximity to Hulme and Manchester meant that some rural crimes were committed by urban visitors.  

So it was that in the October of 1855 an organised gang from Hulme descended on the farm of William Knight and stole eight loads of potatoes only to return the following Sunday and attempt to take another two and half loads. The crime is interesting because we have the names, addresses and occupations of the thieves. 

Just across the Mersey in the preceding decades, there were cases of poaching fraud and robbery.  Peter Gleave was fined £5 after he had been caught setting snares in the grounds of the Trafford family, James Hall had stolen money from the farmer who employed him  and three men had been apprehended for repeatedly passing fake bank notes.

And it is worth noting that the penalties if caught of poaching in the 19th century could be very severe."**

Still odd that it should reappear last night here on Beech Road.

Now I could go on, but the details of the poaching stories along with the references to the newspaper account are available in the book.**

Location; Beech Road

Picture; the poached cherry tree, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The Story of a House, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

**The story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton