Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

[West Riding Assizes]
SHEFFIELD SLANDER ACTION
Damages – One Sovereign

Ethel Hawkins, of 139, Howard Road, Walkley, Sheffield, brought an action against Percy Broomhead, fish dealer, of 137 Howard Road, Sheffield. L. Andrew (instructed by Messrs Taylor and Emmett) appeared for plaintiff, and Mr S Fleming (instructed by Mr J.E. Wing) for defendant.

The plaintiff, said Mr Andrew, was a domestic servant in the employ of Mrs Bland, who keeps a grocer’s shop, and the defendant lived next door. The alleged slander arose in this way. The defendant and his wife were in their house on the 28th September, and the defendant went out and invited Mrs Bland to come inside. Mrs Bland went into the house, and found that there had been a quarrel, and the wife at once began to make complaints, in the presence of Mrs Bland and the defendant, in regard to plaintiff’s character. She remarked that it was not the first time that she had had to complain about the matter and she “knew now where the money was going”. It was at a subsequent interview at which the slander which was the subject of this action took place.

On the evening of the 6th October the defendant entered Mrs Bland’s shop, and demanded to know where the plaintiff was. The girl came into the shop, and Broomhead then used abusive epithets to the girl, who asked him what grounds he had to complain of her conduct, and what made his wife jealous of her, adding that, if she had the money, she would make his wife pay for it. Defendant then put his hand in his pocket, and drew out some coins, which he threw on the counter, saying. “You are a little —. You will take either married or single men’s money.” The expression, of course, bore the obvious meaning that the girl was unchaste.

The next day the girl consulted a firm of solicitors, who wrote to defendant, giving him an opportunity of making an apology for the expression which he had made use of. There was no answer to the letter, and though the defendant lived next door, he never once denied making use of the expression until the pleadings in the action, and he never offered an apology. He (counsel) now again gave the defendant an opportunity of apologising and paying the plaintiff’s out-of-pocket expenses in coming to bring the action, when there would be an end of the proceedings. The plaintiff did not ask for vindictive damages. She came before the court as a perfectly chaste girl, whose character and reputation Mrs Bland would tell the jury were unblemished, and that character she wished to vindicate. Mrs Bland was the first witness, and she described what happened when she went into defendant’s house. The defendant then told her that his wife was jealous of the plaintiff, and witness replied that she had never seen anything wrong with the girl. Defendant’s wife remarked that she had seen enough of her. A week later the defendant entered witness’s shop and demanded to see plaintiff. The latter came forward, and asked him what he wanted, and he replied that he would soon show her if she insulted his wife. Plaintiff replied that she had done nothing to cause Mrs. Broomhead, to be jealous of her, and declared that it would serve her (Mrs Broomhead) right if she summoned her. Defendant then threw ten shillings onto the counter and said, “There’s the money. Fetch her up.” Plaintiff replied that she had money of her own, upon which defendant said she was not particular whether it was a married man’s money or a single man’s money.

The plaintiff then entered the box, and corroborated the substance of Mrs Bland’s evidence with regard to what took place in her shop, besides speaking to an interview which she had previously had with Mrs Broomhead in consequence of what had been said at the latter’s home the week before. This was the case for the plaintiff.

The defendant gave evidence, and swore that he did not make use of the expression referred to. In the interview which plaintiff had with his wife, she (plaintiff) called her “a stinking nuisance,” and defendant subsequently went to Mrs Bland’s shop to complain to plaintiff as to that. He admitted calling her “a little —” for pushing his child out of the house after “the bother,” and also showing her the money, but he denied placing it on the counter, or making use of the expression alleged against him. In reply to Mr Andrew, he denied having used further abusive language after the issue of the writ.
Have you got a revolver? — Yes.
Did you fire a revolver at the back door of Mrs Bland’s house? — I fired it off but not at the back door.
Do you recognise this bullet as fitting your revolver? — Yes.
Do you know that one went through Mrs Bland’s window? — Yes.
And you offered to pay for the glass? — Yes, I had it put in.
You don’t dispute the fact that a great many bullets were picked up at the back door? — I heard about it afterwards (Laughter.) I didn’t aim at the back door.
What were you doing, firing a six-chambered revolver? — It was the 6th of November. (Laughter.)
I could understand it if it had been the 5th but why the 6th of November? — I did it to amuse the children. I hadn’t time to do it on the 5th, so I did it on the 6th. (Laughter.)
The Commissioner, in summing up, pointed out that the jury must consider whether the words alleged to have been used were mere abuse, or were meant to be an imputation on the girl’s chastity. He called to the jury’s attention to the fact that the girl had suffered no pecuniary loss on account of what had been said.
The jury, without retiring, returned a verdict for the plaintiff for £1.
Judgement was entered accordingly, cost to follow.

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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.

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Comment

Via Chris Hobbs.

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Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Adultery (8) W/G ·
• Chastity (4) W/G ·
• Defamation (4) W/G ·
• Marriage (13) W/G ·
• Prostitution (15) W/G ·
• Sexual intercourse (6) W/G ·
• 📌Sheffield (80) W/G ·
• 📌Walkley (3), predominantly Victorian suburb of Sheffield, west of Burngreave, south of Hillsborough and north-east of Crookes. W/G ·

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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.

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Via Chris Hobbs.

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Similar

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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.

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Via Chris Hobbs, who has traced some of Colgrave’s life and death, but doesn’t seem to have met with the following sensational account by Tim Carew of the events of 30 October 1914:

This preamble leads up to one story of what happened during the fighting round Messines.
A certain sector of the line became untenable, and the order came from the 3rd Cavalry Brigade for a general retirement. The orders did not reach Captain Forbes, commanding the Punjabi Mussulman Company of the 57th Rifles, and they were attacked frontally, from both flanks and surrounded. They fought back valiantly with bayonets, rifle butts, boots and fists, but Captain Forbes received severe wounds from which he subsequently died and Lieutenant Clarke was killed. A bare half company – some forty men in all – managed to escape.
All the Indian officers had become casualties, and there was no one above the rank of naik left alive in the company: the bugbear of jimmiwari was ruthlessly exposed.
Obeying some herd instinct the survivors sought the temporary shelter of a shell-torn barn, where they huddled together in miserable groups, awaiting what fate had in store for them.
It may seem that the conduct of these men was not entirely creditable. They had no British officers and no orders; they did not know where they were. But one and all had fought with the greatest gallantry against an enemy who had outnumbered them by something like ten to one; they were not afraid, they simply did not know what to do. They needed a leader, and they needed him quickly.
They were soon to get one, in the improbable shape of Corporal Colgrave of the 5th Lancers.
Colgrave was a Kiplingesque character. Once, a long time ago, he had been a Squadron Quartermaster-Sergeant. But a fondness for liquor, first in a trickle, and then in a rush, had brought him down. He claimed intimate acquaintance with General Allenby, which was true in a way because Allenby, when Commanding Officer of the 5th Lancers, had ‘busted’ Colgrave to the ranks.
Now Corporal Colgrave was climbing the weary promotion ladder once more. His officers had looked for qualities of leadership in him and looked in vain; it seemed almost certain that the two stripes he wore, precarious at that, represented the peak of his promotion prospects.
Colgrave and a squad of a dozen men had been looking after horses about a mile in rear of Messines, when an urgent order summoned them forward to a point in the line where the addition of thirteen more rifles would be of incalculable value. The barn on which they happened looked tempting, and Corporal Colgrave ordered five minutes’ halt for a smoke.
‘Got a fag, Corp?’ asked a trooper hopefully outside the barn. ‘Only got one,’ said Colgrave.
‘I only want one.’
‘Less of your lip. Get inside.’
Corporal Colgrave had done many years’ service in India, and regaled newly-joined young soldiers with largely untrue stories of gory encounters on the North-West Frontier against the wily ‘Paythan’, massive commercial deals in bazaars and gargantuan copulation in native brothels. Like many another vintage British soldier, he was firmly convinced that he was a fluent speaker of Hindustani.
The Lancers entered the barn and gazed upon forty miserable Indian faces; when he is really downcast, no race of man can wear a darker mask of woe than an Indian.
‘Blimey, what a bunch,’ said the corporal; then loudly, ‘Sab thik hai idher?’
Clearly, everything was very far from being ‘thik‘. The Indians eyed him warily and without enthusiasm. On the other hand, although he was not a Sahib he had a white face and wore the two stripes of a naik and might take on the jimmiwari.
‘Kis waste this ‘ere? asked Colgrave. ‘Sahib kidher hai?’
‘Sahib margya,’ said a dozen sad voices.
‘Well, blimey,’ said Colgrave, in trouble with the language already, ‘you want to marrow the fuckin’ Germans, don’t you, malum?’
The idea was beginning to catch on. ‘Jee-han!’ said a dozen voices.
Corporal Colgrave winked at the other Lancers, one of whom was heard to say ‘old Charlie fancies ‘isself as a fuckin’ general’.
Smiles were beginning to appear on downcast brown faces; there was something about the gamey, ribald approach of Corporal Colgrave which seemed to be a positive denial of defeat. Murderous shelling, which had blown men to pieces and buried men alive, had taken some of the heart out of the Punjabi Mussulmans, but Colgrave was putting it back.
‘Right, then, you miserable-looking lot of buggers,’ said Corporal Colgrave with affection, ‘idher ao: Abhi wapas, got it? Marrow all the German soors. Abhi thik hai?’
‘Thik hai!’ said forty voices in unison.
‘Achi bat. Now, then, who’s going to win the bleedin’ V.C.? Chalo!’
And so thirteen Lancers went into the line, with the priceless addition of forty by now one-hundred-per-cent belligerent Indians, and that particular sector of line was held for the next twenty-four hours.
(Carew 1974)

Carew’s footnote:

Some sort of glossary of this strange conversation is required. Sab thik hai idher is ‘everything all right here?’ (clearly it was not); margya is dead; malum, literally translated, means ‘know’; jee-han is ‘yes’; idher ao is ‘come here’; abhi wapas roughly means ‘we are going back now’; achi bat, in the language of a British N.C.O., can be construed as ‘right, then’; chalo, literally translated means ‘dive’, but in this context can be taken as meaning ‘let’s go’; ‘kis waste this ‘ere’ almost explains itself – it is ‘what’s going on here, then?’, the rhetorical question asked by English policemen in almost any circumstance.

Who was his source? Not everybody trusts him!

Ciarán Byrne says that Colgrave’s band were also from the 129th Baluchis, but I trust Carew more. I think that, in General Willcocks’s discussion of the 57th at Hollebeke, Colgrave is the officer referred to here:

It is instructive to read in the reports that some of the men in Messines “had the good fortune” to come across an officer who spoke Hindustani, and was thus able to direct them to rejoin their Headquarters (Willcocks 1920).

Khudadad Khan of the 129th Baluchis won a VC on the following day:

In October 1914, when the Germans launched the First Battle of Ypres, the newly arrived 129th Baluchis were rushed to the frontline to support the hard-pressed British troops. On 31 October, two companies of the Baluchis bore the brunt of the main German attack near the village of Gheluvelt in Hollebeke Sector. The out-numbered Baluchis fought gallantly but were overwhelmed after suffering heavy casualties. Sepoy Khudadad Khan’s machine-gun team, along with one other, kept their guns in action throughout the day, preventing the Germans from making the final breakthrough. The other gun was disabled by a shell and eventually, Khudadad Khan’s own team was overrun. All the men were killed by bullets or bayonets except Khudadad Khan who, despite being badly wounded, had continued working his gun. He was left for dead by the enemy but managed to crawl back to his regiment during the night. Thanks to his bravery, and that of his fellow Baluchis, the Germans were held up just long enough for Indian and British reinforcements to arrive. They strengthened the line, and prevented the German Army from reaching the vital ports; Khan was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Khan also figures in Carew.

Michael Keary has some excellent excerpts from the letters of Henry D’Urban Keary, who commanded an Indian Division on the Western Front, e.g.

Douglas Haig and French hate the Indian Army and want to get rid of the whole thing… No recognition of anything good … I think no-one in the Indian Corps feels safe or induced to do his best… I suppose this is the penalty for going into the Indian Army and having the bad luck to be sent to France where we are in a minority, rather than to Egypt or Dardanelles where they are equal or a majority (Keary 2021).

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