The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-16 00:00:00

DETECTION OF A GANG OF BUROLARS

WARRINGTON, Monday evening.—Within the last twelve
months a gang of burglars has infested the country within
a circuit of twenty-five miles of this county. The robberies
committed were of frequent occurrence, and the gang gradu-
ally became more daring. At first they paid their midnight
visits, armed only with bludgeons and crowbars, but more
recently they turned out, each well equipped with pistols,
dark lanterns, crowbars, centre-bits and brace, and -a set of
picklocks, skeleton. keys, &c, not to be exceeded in point of
usefulness by those in the possession of any of the London
cracksmen. At length, the burglary and attempted murder
at the house of Mr. Thomas Shaw, farmer, of PoultoK-with-
Fearnhead, about a mile from this town, brought things to
such a crisis, as to be no longer endured in silence. A hand-
some reward was offered for the detection df the offenders,
and the hope of a free pardon held out to any parties con-
cerned in the robbery, who would come forward_ and give
evidence against their companions. Mr. James Jones, the
deputy constable of Warrington, rendered himself remark-
ably active in the enquiry, and after scouring the country for
many miles round Warrington, at length obtained a clue to
the offenders, and assisted by some of the Manchester police,
took nine of the gang into custody. They all turned out to
be men of the most depraved habits and desperate characters.
Two o'clock in the afternoon was the time appointed for the
examination of the offenders before the magistrates in the
sessions-room. The magistrates present were Mr. T. Lyon,
chairman, Messrs. W. Hall, W. Stubbs, H. Gaskell, W.
Daken, and H. C. Lacy. Every part of the court was filled
and some hundreds were unable to obtain admission.

The first case gone into was the burglary at Poulton-with-
Fearnhead,

Wm. Parkinson, Samuel Penington, Wm. Barber, Henry
Ellis, and Thos. Goodyear, were charged with breaking and
entering the dwelling-house of Mr. Shaw, of Poulton-with-
Fearnhead, stealing £36 in gold, a silver watch, and sundry
articles of silver plate therefrom.

. -- -
On the night of the 26th of March last, Mr. Shaw's house
was attacked by a gang of six men, armed with pistols, crow-
bars, and carrying dark lanterns, and wearing crape over their
faces, and black jackets. Four went inside, while two re-
mained on the watch outside, one at the back and the other
at the front door. They fired their pistols twice at the dog,
and on Hannah Barton, the housekeeper of the prosecutor,
opening her bed-room window to see what was the matter,
she received the contents of a pistol or gun on the forehead.
It happily took a slanting direction or her death would in all
probablity have been the result. She afterwards escaped by
breaking away the casement of the wokshop window, but
the two men outside stopped her from giving the alarm, and
forced her back into the house by the same way as she had
got out. After rifling the house, they took their departure,
carrying away with them, in addition to the other articles,
the key of Mr. Shaw's front door, and a two-quart bottle,
containing about three pints of rum. They entered the
house about one o'clock, and stopped full an hour there.
Next day the slide of a dark lantern was found in the house.