CHAPTER 3

A Poacher Shooting

1846

The problem for Lynn was that the stock of his gun was cracked

amekeeper John Wainwright was enjoying a pint with his friend at the Eagle and Child tavern on 15 April 1846. This was near the Earl of Derby’s estate at Knowsley, where Wainwright was assistant gamekeeper. This was about a mile from the village of Prescot, and it should have been a good place to relax, but at half past nine that night, shots were heard outside the pub and Wainwright sensibly went outside, via the back door, to investigate this with some caution. But the person out in the dark was ready, and when the gamekeeper reached the gate, a volley of shots was fired, some hitting him, wounding him in the leg and hand. When the landlord of the pub ran outside to see what was happening, the gunman was seen to run off into some of the woods belonging to Sir Thomas Birch. As Wainwright collapsed in pain, the landlord ran after the attacker, but he was soon away into the night.

But the shots were fired by a man who was soon traced, as a footprint was found in soft earth that night, where the gunman had run away, and these matched the show of the major suspect, Charles Lynn. He was soon in court, and witnesses who had been drinking in another pub close to where the attack took place, the Rose and Crown, said that they saw him take out a gun which was in two parts, and then assemble it. The problem for Lynn was that the stock of this gun was cracked, and that was noticed; when a gun with that feature was found in the Birch plantation, the match was obvious and the link to the villain was made sure. In the pub, he had been with a friend, and as they loaded the gun, his friend said, ‘Put some of the others in, they’ll tell a tale.’ That meant that he loaded two kinds of shot, and he was heard to say that he would go out for game ‘in spite of anybody.’

The man must have been amazingly reckless, because people reported that when he left the Rose and Crown he was heard to say, ‘Let either Birch or Wainwright molest us on the road and we’ll do their job for them.’ Again, with crazy bravado, Lynn had been seen by a passer-by near the plantation and had been asked what he was doing. He replied, ‘I am looking for a hare’ and that he would have a hare ‘and Birch afterwards.’ No less than a pile of twenty-five shot was found in the doorway where Lynn had been standing that night.

There had been a series of game laws passed between 1671 and 1830, aiming to confine the shooting of game (mostly hares, partridge and pheasants) to those estates with a value of over £100 a year. Often poaching was ignored, or incurred small penalties, but it was for Lynn a far more serious affair. He had surely been attempting to kill his man. In the years between 1814 and 1834, for crimes involving ‘shooting at, stabbing, wounding … with intent to murder’ 359 people had been sentenced, and of these, 315 were executed. Lynn had staged his attack at a time only ten years or so after the revisions of the massive number of capital crimes on the statute books, brought about by Sir Robert Peel.

After all, it is clear from the facts that Lynn had been waiting for Wainwright, and that he had a grudge against him. He must have been in position, knowing where the victim was likely to emerge from the pub, so he knew the man’s habits and then fired shots to rouse him. This highlights the uneasy relationship between gamekeeper and poacher at the time. If the shots had hit their target only a few inches higher, then the gamekeeper would probably have died from wounds. It is of no account that the background to this grudge was related to the common view of poaching as something other than a crime. The almost universal opinion among the poorer country people was that game were ‘in a wild state, not the property of any one individual.’ But the steps leading from that mindset to this one of an intention to maim or kill, was exceptional. The punishment was certain to be severe.

It didn’t take long to find the man guilty. He was sentenced to fourteen years transportation. Technically, the offence was grievous bodily harm, an offence that was only truly defined within the Offences Against the Persons Act of 1861; basically, Lynn had been very fortunate in that the wounds had not been mortal on Wainwright. There was a fine line between attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. Only two years before, on the estate of Lord Derby, a poacher called Roberts had shot and killed a gamekeeper. Roberts and four others who were with him, and who did not fire, were condemned to death. An anonymous correspondent to The Times picked up on the anomalies in punishments for poaching, saying:

Again and again has the ruffian, whose act has really come so near murder that it would be scarcely possible to draw the distinction, and who at any rate has shown all the animus and brutality of the murderer, escaped with some few months’ imprisonment, while the miserable half-starved purloiner of a bit of bread has had his seven years’ transportation. It is on this very account that we take up this case at Liverpool.

The writer of this was puzzled at the trial of the four men for the murder of the gamekeeper and how it compared to other sentences. The letter was expressing the kind of weaknesses that the judge and jury of Lynn realised, and so his sentence was tough. What lay behind all this was the lingering doubt about the act of poaching itself, regardless of the fact that Lynn had gone to the Eagle and Child that night to settle a score. What would have irritated Lynn most of all was that he would have been subject to a fine of £2, as stated in the 1831 Act, for ‘trespass in daytime in pursuit of conies’ and in pursuit of game in daytime, £2, and if this was not paid, then the prison cell waited for him, for two months.

These petty squabbles and everyday encounters in situations where many people thought it was a universal right to take a hare anywhere and any time, in this case, led a man to shoot and maim a gamekeeper, even at a time when he was not on duty.

The severe penalties for breaching the game laws are illustrated by the reactionary acts introduced in the reign of George I, when the death penalty was imposed for ‘Robbing Warrens’ and for ‘stealing or taking any fish from any river or pond.’ Sixty-eight people were hanged for sheep-stealing between 1814 and 1834.