History of Dover

Mr. Knocker the Town Clerk appeared as the Clerk to the Local Board of Health in support of several information’s which had been issued charging the defendant’s on the information of Mr. E. Robinson, the contractor for sweeping the streets with unlawfully carting away gravel from the public roads. The case of Frederick Keyton, a lad about sixteen years of age, was first proceeded with.

Mr. Knocker said the practice to which this information related had grown to such an extent that it had thought necessary to endeavour to put a stop to it by bringing the offenders before their worships. The proceeding was instituted under the 68th Section of the Public Health Act, which rendered the removal, or injury of the material forming the public roads punishable with a penalty not exceeding £5. He should show the Bench that this formed a portion of the road and that its removal calculated to do injury to the road and that being so he thought if he proved the facts alleged in the information the Bench would have very little in granting a conviction. The Mayor before the case was gone into intimated that the chairman of the Local Board and therefore indirectly interested in these prosecutions, he would prefer taking no part in this case but would leave its adjudication entirely in the hands of the other two magistrates who were present.

Mr. Knocker then called the following evidence,

George Toms, a lad in the employ of Mr. E. P. Robinson, contractor for scavenging examined; I was out with my master’s horse and cart this day fortnight between six and seven in the morning in Hawkesbury Street when I saw the defendant getting gravel from the road opposite Bulwark Hill. I saw him scrape it up and throw it into the cart and start off with it. He had a cartload.

By the Bench; I saw him shovel three or four shovels into the cart. The gravel was in the gutter and appeared to have been washed down the hill.

James Joyce a policeman in the Borough Force; on the morning of Monday the 14th I was at Bulwark Hill about a quarter past five in the morning when I saw two boys filling a cart with gravel from the road. I believe the defendant was one of the boys. They were taking the gravel from the side of the road at a part just above the Brewery. I saw two or three shovels full put into the cart but I did not notice how much the cart contained.

By the Bench; the gravel appeared to have been washed down the hill.

The only reply the defendant had to make to the charge was that he got but a few shovels full of gravel from Bulwark Hill and that he put these into his cart at the request of a person in front of whose house it had been washed down.

Mr. E. P. Robinson on being called by Mr. Knocker said the gravel that came off the road was road material. He occasionally sold it again to the Local Board after collecting it. Twenty loads were put upon a street a few weeks since to bind in some broken granite, which had previously been thrown upon the surface. If gravel were incautiously taken up injury to the road would be occasioned. Mr. Knocker said that this time was the whole of the evidence in this case, but the magistrates thought they had better hear what was said in support of the whole of the information before coming to any decision.

William Dennis was then charged with a similar offence at Military Road. In this case the offence was proved by Mr. Robinson, who saw the defendant on Monday the 14th inst. between four and half-past four in the morning at the foot of Military Road getting gravel from the road. He had a horse and cart half loaded and again when it was fully loaded and defendant then took it away. The value of a load of gravel was half a crown or three shillings. That was what witness would have made of it. George Geddes, Police Sergeant of the Borough confirmed the evidence given by Mr. Robinson. He remarked to the defendant at the time that he had some “good stuff” there and the defendant concurred in that observation.

All the defendant had to say in defence was that he did not recollect any of the circumstances. William Gibbons, the boy who was in company with Keyton at Fort Hill, was charged with aiding and abetting him in the offence for which he had been summoned. The evidence in this case was precisely the same as that already heard in support of the first information. Mr. Knocker then said that it was not the desire of the Local Boards should their worships be satisfied that the offence had been committed to proceed vindictively. Their only object was to show these persons that practices of this sort could not be indulged in with impunity. (1860)