Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

There was no shortage of drinking places in Sutton Coldfield in the 19th century.

Travellers from Birmingham were able to call in, or even stay at, the Horse and Jockey.

A newspaper advertisement from 1824 tells us that this tavern had two large parlours, a kitchen, a.brew house, piggeries and five bedrooms.

If a traveller did not stop at this pub, then it was not far to The Cup.

Here the long-serving landlord George Bunn offered 'a good family dinner' each day at 1pm, and encouraged trade from Birmingham on Sundays, providing the times of omnibuses which would give visitors 'ample time for refreshment and a stroll in Sutton Park.'

For those who were arriving in the town from Lichfield there was The Swan, located next to 'Bishop Vesey's Grammar School. Charles Spencer had been landlord for more than 20 years when he died in December 1828; his niece Frances Roe took over but died in July 1833.

This tavern was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century.

These pubs brewed their own beer, generally fairly weak, and were open all day.

With water unsafe to drink, beer was very popular for quenching the thirst of the farm labourers who toiled in the fields around Sutton. Drunken and disorderly behaviour often brought men and women before the magistrates.

In the 1880s, the fine was between one and ten shillings and costs, with previous convictions and how defendants reacted on being arrested by the police constables taken into account. The public houses of Sutton were frequented by particular classes.

At The Cup, there was a scheme in the 1820s to club together to buy a licence to fish in Wyndley Pool- suggesting that respectable working men often met there.

At the Three Tuns, a quantity of bank notes was left behind by one patron in 1832 - clearly the gentlemen of the town gathered there.

Pubs were also used for inquests and for auctions. When Charles Barker, the headmaster of Bishop Vesey's Grammar School was found dead in Penns Lane in October 1842, the inquest took place at the Swan; and, when William Orme died after falling under a train at Sutton railway station in February 1866, the inquest was held at the Station Inn.

At the auctions houses, furniture, timber and livestock were sold, usually by Samuel Kempson, a tanner who had set himself up as an auctioneer.

Stephen Roberts' books Glimpses into Sutton's Past Part I 1800-1850 and Glimpses into Sutton's Past Part II 1851-1885 can be ordered from Amazon, priced at £4.99 and £5.99 respectively.

Associate Professor
Stephen Roberts

On December 30, 1861, John Thompson of Sutton Coldfield was hanged for murder in front of the county gaol in Warwick.

By this time only murderers were hanged. Thompson was the only inhabitant of Sutton Coldfield to be executed for murder in the 19th century.

He was a wire drawer working in Aston and living in Sutton with Ann Walker, a married woman who had been estranged from her husband for several years and who he referred to as his housekeeper, and his five children.

The killing of Walker took place at a lodging house in Tanter Street in Birmingham.

Thompson and Walker had visited a fair in the town and were staying overnight at the lodging house. The next day they visited a number of pubs, at one of which Walker encountered a man with whom she had formerly co-habited. Walker returned to the lodging house and was soon followed by Thompson. Both were drunk.

An argument ensued in their room and Thompson cut Walker's throat. At the trial, Thompson's barrister, hastily pressed into service by the judge, urged the jury to. deal with him as they would a man of higher status.

The judge, however, made clear this was a case of murder, and the jury, in a very short time, returned a guilty verdict. An appeal to the Home Secretary for clemency was rejected. In his written confession, Thompson accused several witnesses who addressed the court of perjury but accepted his guilt and expressed his regret.

"I am sorry I did it for I was very fond of her and she was a good clean woman in the house," he wrote. Thompson was executed alongside another man convicted of murdering his wife.

They had both attended a service in the chapel before being pinioned and escorted to the scaffold. The executioner put on the caps, shook their hands and pulled the bolt. Their bodies were buried within the precincts of the gaol. It was tragic story of jealousy and rage, greatly aggravated by alcohol.

Public hangings for murder during these years were not an unusual sight. Attempts were made repeatedly by radical MPs to end capital punishment altogether, always unsuccessfully. In 1868 public hangings were brought to an end. The last man to be publicly hanged in England was an Irish Fenian Michael Barrett. Thereafter hangings took place behind prison walls. This was seen as advancing civilised behaviour. Executions continued to take plate in prisons for almost another century, finally ending in 1964.

Glimpses into Sutton's Past Part I 1800-1850 and Part II 1851-1886 by Associate Professor Stephen Roberts can be ordered from Amazon, priced at £4.99 and £5.99.

Associate Professor
Stephen Roberts