Damaging a front door and threatening his mother

CHELTENHAM POLICE COURT.

WEDNESDAY.

Present – C. L. Harford, Esq. (chairman), and W. Jones, Esq.

YEEND AGAINST YEEND – MOTHER AND SON. – William Yeend, plasterer, was charged with wilful damage to a door, at Marsh-lane, the property of Mrs. Charlotte Yeend.

The prisoner is son to the complainant. He is married, but is separated from his wife, and lives with Mr. Cook, gardener, Marsh-lane. About a quarter to twelve complainant and her servant were in bed, and heard some one knocking loudly at the door. On looking out of the window complainant discovered that it was her son. He demanded admission, and refused to go away, and before either complainant or her servant could go to the door he had forced it open with his violence. He then threatened the former with an instrument termed a “ripper” which he had in his hand, and she had to call up her neighbours to interfere to protect her. Complainant’s husband [William Yeend (1815-1865)] had been dead only three months. She wished prisoner to be bound over, as she feared in some of these outbreaks he would do her bodily harm. He was not perfectly sober.

Prisoner maintained a perfect indifference to all that was said, and in reply to the Bench said he had nothing to offer in explanation of his disgraceful conduct.

The Magistrates ordered him to put in surties in £10 for his good behaviour for six months. The expenses, amounting to 3s. 6d., was paid by the mother, as her son said he had no money whatever.

(Cheltenham Examiner, 15th November 1865)

Death of William Yeend, 1865

DEATHS.

Aug. 20, at Marsh cottage, after a long and painful illness, aged 50 years, Mr. William Yeend, builder and plasterer

(Cheltenham Chronicle, 22nd August 1865)

Witness at a coroner’s inquest

Home News.

FATAL ACCIDENT TO A BOY.

An inquest was held on Thursday last, at the Worcester Arms, Tewkesbury-road, before J. Lovegrove, Esq., on the body of a child named William Poulton, who had met with his death on the previous evening under the following circumstances:-

Thomas Baugh, of Moor’s Gardens, gardener, deposed: Yesterday afternoon, about a quarter past four, I was standing at my garden gate watching some men who were at work at the sewerage. There was a heap of soil on the right side of the road, about five feet from the kerb-stone. The deceased was upon the heap, with several other children. There was a cart loaded with coal going up the road in the direction of Cheltenham, at a slow walking pace. The deceased got off the heap, and ran in the direction of the cart, and whether the cart shaft struck the deceased, or whether the deceased ran under the wheel, I cannot say; it got under the wheel, which passed over its head and shoulder. The carter was on the right side of the road, but on the opposite side to where the occurrence took place. The cart was about five feet from the heap. The person in charge of the cart was sober. I shouted to the carter, and he stopped the horse in about two yards distance from the spot where the accident happened. I ran to pick up the child, and Mr. Yeend came and assisted me to remove the child on to the footpath.

The Coroner: Was the child dead then?

Witness: No; I held it for a couple of minutes, till a handbarrow was fetched to carry the child away. I thought the child moved as I put it on the barrow; but I can’t say if it was dead. I carried it home. I then found the child was dead, and I gave orders that it should not be moved until a policeman came.

A juror: There was no blame attached to the carter?

Witness: Not the least.

The Coroner: Did he stop at all?

Witness: He did, some few minutes.

William Yeend, of Marsh-lane, said: I am the contractor of the branch sewage works. I passed across the road for the purpose of driving some children off the soil, and just as I was doing so I saw the wheel passing over the child’s head. I had not seen the cart previous to that.

The Coroner: But if you crossed over should you have seen it?

Witness: I had just been to fetch a pipe, and the cart was behind me. It was moving as slowly as it could when the occurrence happened. The works are still going on. The heaps are removed every night, and nothing is left in the way.

The Coroner: That is perfectly right.

A juror: Do you think there’s any blame attached to the driver?

Witness: No, certainly not.

Thomas Williams said: I am a coal dealer, living in Townsend-street. Yesterday I was coming into Cheltenham with a cart load of coal from the coal yard, and passed by the sewage works. I was walking on the near side of the horse, near its head. There were some children on the other side of the road, who were being driven away by William Yeend, and I was looking at them. As they were running away a man shouted out to me, and then I heard the cart wheel jolt, and found it had passed over the deceased.

The Coroner: Then the child was going in the direction of the other children?

Witness: Yes; crossing the road, I suppose.

A juror: Did you see the child at all before it was run over?

Witness: No, I did not.

Sarah Poulton, of Malvern-place, the mother of the deceased, said her son was six years old. He had not been home that afternoon since he left the Waterloo Infant School. He appeared to have returned that road instead of going direct home.

The jury were of opinion that death was purely accidental, and that there was no blame attached to the driver.

(Cheltenham Journal and Gloucestershire Fashionable Weekly Gazette, 27th October 1860)