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In The News

 In The News: 2023 Week 30 of #52Ancestors

 I recently got a subscription to Findmypast, and began searching the newspapers in Surrey and Kent for traces of my UK great-grandparents and associated relatives. As they say, don't ask the question if you don't want the answer. Since my great-grandfather has a fairly distinctive name, Montague Augustus Bailey, it wasn't hard to find him. Unfortunately, much of it is not what you would call flattering.

He was a contractor, and his business included picking up supplies and making deliveries via horse-drawn carts. I found four articles between 1898 and 1903 where he was summoned to petty sessions in Bromley, Kent on charges of causing a horse to be worked while in an unfit state. The driver in each case faced charges of "cruelly ill treating a horse", albeit at the direction of my great-grandfather. 

In the first case, he admitted he knew the horse was lame, but had told the driver to keep using it until he was stopped by the RSPCA. Now that that had happened, he planned to sell the horse. He was found guilty and fined 4 shillings and costs, and ordered to pay the vet's fee of half a guinea (a guinea being 1 pound, 1 shilling). The next case was only a few weeks later, with the same horse! He claimed the horse had been "well attended to" since the first case and was recently sold at auction (after this stop was made). The court fined the driver but dismissed the case against Bailey.

The other two cases, in 1900 and 1903, followed a similar pattern, although in 1903 he was driving the horse himself. That time the fine was 3 pounds and costs! It made me wonder if it was just him, or if the general attitude was uncaring when it came to animal welfare. 

I searched for similar articles in the same area (Croydon and Bromley) and date range (1870-1910) to see how widespread such cases were. There were several cases of ill-treating a horse (typically lame), and also pigs, a dog, a donkey, and a performing bear! In Mr. Bailey's case it may have come down to which was cheaper, paying repeated fines or having the horse treated and unable to be used for a while. I was thinking that our modern viewpoint is likely different from theirs, but then again, look at the damage to wildlife caused by toxic dumping and oil spills. Animal cruelty on a large scale in the pursuit of business.

He did appear in the paper under better circumstances: 

  • The local surveyor accepted his tenders in 1891 for road watering and providing pit flints and Croydon gravel for road materials
  • An ad in 1896 selling a five year old black mare
  • Repeated ads in 1897-99 offering "20,000 yards of Building Sand from 3/6 per yard"
  • Repeated ads in 1899-1900 for bricks: "Don't let the building stop for the want of Bricks, but send to M. A. Bailey, L. C. & D. Ry [London, Chatham, & Dover Railway]"

The family left for the U.S. in January 1906, but there's probably more to be found in earlier newspapers, as well as the activities of his siblings. Hopefully good news!

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