Now! Then! A Leeds jury shows limited sympathy for Job Robinson, a London fashion designer, who lost his job with Hardwick’s of Briggate through alcohol and cricket

4 April 1825: A Leeds jury shows limited sympathy for Job Robinson, a London fashion designer, who lost his job with Hardwick’s of Briggate through alcohol and cricket

Leeds Mercury. 1825/04/09. Yorkshire Lent Assizes. Leeds. Get it:

Excerpt

Mr Scarlett addressed the jury for the defendants, and said that the plaintiff, among other London fashions, had brought down some which the tradesmen of Leeds could not put up with. He took the liberty of absenting himself frequently from his work – he went on one occasion to play at cricket with Lord Harewood, and on another to play at cricket on Woodhouse Moor, without asking leave of his employers. They remonstrated with him, but without effect, for on the Friday night, the 31st December, he resolved to drink out the old year, and made himself so ill that he did not go to his work on Saturday. On Sunday he went without leave to Manchester, and did not return till Tuesday. Whenever he was absent, the men were standing for work. This was manifestly a breach of his agreement, and justified his employers in dismissing him. The jury, after a short deliberation, said they returned a verdict for the defendants, but thought they ought to pay the plaintiff the expenses of coming down from London. This produced a loud laugh in the court, and Judge Bayley told the jury that if the plaintiff had lost his situation by his misconduct, the defendants ought not to be charged with his expenses. The jury then returned a verdict for the defendants.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Via Paul Smith (Smith 2013). Was the Harewood story true? Would association with a Tory landowner have helped or hindered with a jury in a (Liberal) manufacturing town like Leeds? What happened to Mr Robinson?

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Original

ROBINSON v. HARDWICK & OTHERS.-This was an action brought by Job Robinson, a foreman in the employment of Messrs. Hardwicks & Co. drapers and tailors, in Leeds, for the violation of a written agreement made with him when they invited him to their service from a fashionable house in London, by dismissing him without any sufficient cause. By this agreement, which was signed in June, 1824, the plaintiff bound himself to serve the defendants in the capacity of cutter-out, foreman, or shopman, for four years, at a rate of wages, rising from three guineas, and two suits of clothes in the first first year, to £4 12s. and two suits of clothes in the last year. Mr. POLLOCK, who stated the plaintiff’s case, said that the managing partner of the defendants’ firm, Mr. John Nelson, had dismissed the plaintiff, either because they had got all the advantage of his skill and patterns, or for some other equally good reason, assigning as a justification that their tempers did not agree, and also that the plaintiff had absented himself two days from his work. Now, the agreement distinctly proved that an occasional absence was contemplated; for it was provided, that, if the plaintiff absented himself without leave, the defendants might make a certain deduction from his wages. He had been absent in consequence of taking a highly important journey to Manchester. It was for the Jury to assess the damages which it would be proper to give the plaintiff for his loss of situation, and for the expense of bringing his wife and five children from London.
The agreement was then read.
Mr. John Prince was called, and stated that he accompanied the plaintiff to Mr. Nelson on the 5th January, when the plaintiff made a tender of his services, which Mr. N. refused, saying that he had absented himself: the plaintiff said he had been ill on the Saturday, and on Sunday, wishing to go to Manchester about a situation for his son, he went to Mr. N.’s house to ask his permission; and, finding him in bed, desired the housekeeper to go to him; and receive for answer that Mr. N. said he might go. Mr. N. said he recollected something about Manichester, but was so ill he could not say what; he called the housekeeper, but she was not there: witness then desired Mr. N. to take a second trial of the plaintiff, but he replied that it could not be, their tempers were so opposite they would never agree: witness went another day with the plaintiff to ask for his wages; and on that day he again offered his services, but they were not accepted.
John Milnes knew the plaintiff in London, where he was considered a good workman: witness worked for the defendants, and left their employ on the Saturday before plaintiff left; saw the plaintiff set off to Manchester on the Sunday; he returned on Tuesday,
Mr. SCARLETT addressed the Jury for the defendants, and said that the plaintiff, amongst other London fashions, had brought down some which the tradesmen of Leeds could not put up with. He took the liberty of absenting himself frequently from his work; he went on one occasion to play, as he said, at cricket with Lord Harewood, and on another to play at cricket on Woodhouse-moor, without asking leave of his employers. They remonstrated with him, but without effect; for on the Friday night, the 31st December, he resolved to drink out the old year, and made himself so ill that he did not go to his work on Saturday; on Sunday he went, as would be shown, without leave, to Manchester, and did not return till Tuesday: and, whenever he was absent, the men were standing for work. This was manifestly a breach of his agreement, and justified his employers in dismissing him. But there was another reason that would have justified them in this step; as it was discovered afterwards, that the plaintiff had taken away, at different times, considerable quantities of list from his masters’ shop, and appropriated them to his own use. The agreement was on either of these grounds rendered void.
Mary Kirk, Mr. Nelson’s housekeeper, stated that the plaintiff came to her master’s house on the Sunday morning between seven and eight o’clock, whilst her master was in bed, and desired her to go and tell him he was going to Manchester; she went and spoke to her master, who made some answer as if half asleep, which she could not understand; she told the plaintiff this, and he said he must go to Manchester, having taken his place, and that he should be back on Tuesday.
Michael Hudson, Robert Walton, and Abraham Bottomley, who are in the employment of the defendants, stated the absence of the plaintiff from his work, and the stoppage of the men on account of his absence; and the latter two stated that the plaintiff had desired each of them to take a bag full of lists from the shop to his house.
Mr. POLLOCK replied for the plaintiff, and contended that his client had not absented himself unreasonably from the service of his employers, as it was only proved that he had been absent two days in six months, and it was not to be supposed that he was to be bound to incessant service without a single day’s remission of toil. He contended also that it was to the last degree improbable that the plaintiff should have taken away the lists from his master’s premises, if he had not considered them as perquisites; and this view was strongly supported by the fact of his not having taken them himself, but having ordered two men in the service of his employers to do it.
Mr. JUSTICE BAYLEY, in summing up, said that he hoped always to see masters keeping their place as masters, and servants as servants; and he was quite clear, as the point had lately been determined in the Court of King’s Bench, that the agreement between these parties, allowing the defendants to deduct from the wages of the plaintiff for the time he might be absent without leave, gave him no right whatever to absent himself without leave, but was merely intended to give the employers a mode of obtaining compensation for their servant’s absence, without the trouble of summoning him: it was a security for them, but none for him. He should not desire them to consider the fact of taking away the lists, as that did not appear to have been known to the defendants when they dismissed the plaintiff; but he had no hesitation in saying, that it would have formed a very sufficient reason for dismissing him, as, when a man began to take little things from his employers without authority, he would in all probability soon take greater things. In his opinion, acts had been proved to have been committed on the part of the plaintiff sufficient to justify his dismission.
The Jury, after a short deliberation, said they returned a verdict for the defendants, but thought they ought to pay the plaintiff the expenses of coming down from London. This produced a loud laugh in the Court, and Judge Bayley told the Jury, that if the plaintiff had lost his situation by his misconduct, the defendants ought not to be charged with his expenses. The Jury then returned a Verdict for the defendants.

1261 words.