Saltley Reformatory Inmates

Samuel Byfield

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Notes:

25 November 1881 There is a report of the crime in the Lichfield Mercury Friday 25 November 1881 p.8 col.3: ROBBERY BY BOYS. - Samuel Byfield, aged 11, and Enoch Byfield, aged 8, were brought up in custody charged with having on the 15th inst. stolen at Brownhills two pairs of boots, the property of William and Charles Stackhouse. - Annie Reader, wife of Cornelius Reader, of Chasetown, pawnbroker, said that the prisoners went to her shop on the previous Tuesday week. The elder prisoner, Samuel Byfield, went into her shop. Until then he was a stranger to her. He produced a pair of men's boots - they were new - and asked her to advance something on them. He said that they were too large for his father. She asked him his age. He said he was 13. He said that there was a liittle boy outside, whose mother had been ill a fortnight. He was afraid he was not old enough, but the mother wished him as the big boy to pledge a parcel which that little boy had. She asked to see the little boy. The little boy was brought in, and he placed another pair of boots upon the counter. The latter were also men's boots, and new also. She questioned both the lads. The little boy said that his mother had worn the boots for a fortnight. The answers did not seem satisfactory to her and she sent for the police, detaining the lads in the meantime. P.C. Peake went to the shop and the lads were further questioned. She said that the two pairs of boots looked as if bought together, and the elder boy said that his father had gone with the mother of the little boy, and they had bought the boots at the same time. The big boy added that his father had been in the new boots to Wolverhampton, but they had not been much dirtied as the train was clean. - P.C. Peake corroborated. He added that he said to the boys that they had stolen the boots from somewhere, and they said that they had not done so, but had been sent by their father and mother to pledge them. On leaving the pawnshop the boys started off one up the street and the other down as hard as they could run. At the station they made a statement in consequence of which witness took the boots to the shop of Mr. Stackhouse at Brownhills, who identified the goods as his property. - Mr. William Charles Stackhouse said that he had just commenced business as a boot and shoe seller at Brownhills. He did not know the prisoners, except that on the 14th inst. two boys entered his shop with some newspapers. He could not, however, identify the prisoners. He did not miss the boots until the following morning. They had been taken from two nails inside the shop. He next saw the boots when brought by the police. The boots could be reached by the elder boy. The value of the goods was 18s. 6d. the two pairs. - The elder prisoner said that the shoes were lying under the shop window, and they knocked at the door to return them but nobody came - Mr. Passy, school attendance officer from Brownhills, was called, and said that he could not get the children to school. The father had regular work, and the defendants had not been to school since March, and only 30 times in the six months previously. Witness gave the elder boy a good pair of boots, but the mother wore them herself. The father was a miner, and would earn about £1 or more a week. There were four children - one girl older and one a boy ysunger than the prisoners. - Col. Bagnall said it was a very bad case. The children were grossly neglected, and there could be no doubt that the boys had been set up to dishonesty. The boys would go to Stafford for one month each and then for five years to a Reformatory, the father paying towards their maintenance. - The Bench complimented Mrs. Reader on her part in the case.

In a similar report in the Walsall Observer and South Staffordshire Chronicle p.7 col.5 the brother's name is erroneously given as William./p>

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