Selling archives by the pound
On International Archives Day, here is a tale guaranteed to send a shudder down the spine of all archivists. It involves the East India Company, some records from Bombay, and a ham shop.
James Wood worked in the Secretary’s Office at East India House in London. In February 1798 Wood’s fellow clerk Joseph Hillman went to a nearby shop in Fenchurch Street to buy some ham. As he waited, Hillman’s eye was caught by some paper laid on a ham. He recognised it as being Bombay correspondence belonging to the Company records. Hillman asked shopkeeper William Hales to give him a sheet of the paper which he took back to the office. A search revealed that a number of records were missing. More Company papers were found at the shopkeeper’s house and Hales identified Wood as the man who had sold him the papers. Wood was arrested and charged with stealing a written paper book ‘bolted in leather’ valued at two shillings and 5lb weight of paper also valued at two shillings.
The trial was held at the Old Bailey on 18 April 1798. Hales gave evidence that Wood had been selling paper to him for three or four years, receiving 9d for 3lb of paper.
East India Company registrar Matthew Wall told the court that the papers found at the ham shop had not been locked away but kept in the office where Wood worked. About 50 books were missing, some very important.
IOR/E/4/471 Letters received from Bombay 1788-1792
Wood pleaded not guilty and threw himself on the mercy of the court, drawing attention to his six small children. He claimed that papers and books were given away at East India House – this was denied by Wall. Wood said that his desk was ‘in as public a place as the Royal Exchange, where there are all comers and goers passing and repassing from six in the morning to nine at night, where hundreds of papers and books are lying, and have been lying about the floor for several years; books of the same kind, that every body can look at as they pass by, and take away as they please; and, because I am a poor unfortunate man, it is laid to my charge’.
The jury found Wood guilty and he was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. However in May 1798 a petition in support of Wood was sent to the Home Office by 17 people from Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Bank, St George’s Field, and Southwark. The grounds given for clemency were: Wood’s service of 18 years with the East India Company; his previous good character; this being his first offence; his wife and six children needing to be supported; his age (45 years) and infirmity. The Company directors made known their 'wish to decline interfering on the occasion'. The petition was successful and a free pardon was granted to Wood on 3 August 1798.
Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records
Further reading:
Old Bailey trial of James Wood 18 April 1798 The whole proceedings of the Sessions of the Peace, and Oyer and Terminer for the City of London and County of Middlesex (London, 1730-1824) or via Old Bailey Online
The National Archives: HO 47/22/39 Petition on behalf of James Wood, May 1798
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