Jane Leigh Perrot’s blunder

Jane Austen’s aunt, Jane Leigh Perrot, was prosecuted for shoplifting, for stealing a card of white lace from a shop in Bath Street, Bath. She was tried at the Somerset Assizes and acquitted on 29 March 1800. There was much evidence in her favour. She had walked back past the shop shortly after the alleged theft, which, as the judge said, certainly did not appear to be the conduct of a guilty person. When accosted in the street she denied that she had any white lace about her and handed over her parcel, as if to say, See for yourself. The white lace was underneath the black lace, which suggests that it had been put in first. She was fussy in her choice of lace. She spent two sessions examining the black lace before she made her final selection. If she stole the white lace, she had no time to examine it at all. And she was a devout Christian who regularly went to church twice on Sunday, once in the morning with the gentry and respectables and once in the afternoon with the tradesmen and servants. In her unsworn statement to the court, she appealed to God to attest that she was innocent. We know that wealthy people may sometimes indulge in shoplifting. Regular churchgoers are unlikely to do so.

On the other hand, there is much evidence that Charles Filby was the villain of the piece. He had already been bankrupt once and was going through the procedure a second time. He appeared in the London Gazette on 24 August 1799, shortly after the alleged theft. He desperately needed money. He changed his story between his statement to the Town Clerk on 8 August and his deposition for the magistrates on 14 August. In the first, there was an inner office and a Moroccan pocket purse. In the second they have both disappeared. And above all, if he saw Mrs L-P take the white lace, why did he give her her change and let her leave the shop? Why did he not stop her?

John Morris, KC, was fully convinced of her innocence even from the accusation itself, as soon as he knew the evidence originally given against her (i.e. the August 8 statement). He had had a successful career at the bar, particularly on the Western Circuit, and had recently retired to no. 8, Bladud’s Buildings, near to the Leigh-Perrots at no. 1, Paragon Buildings, though he had never met them. He had read the evidence. He gave his reasons. He would not change his opinion because of the common babbling and scandal of people, neither able to judge nor willing to enquire into the truth.

At that point we might reasonably conclude that Mrs L-P really was innocent and Charles Filby was guilty of perjury.

And then a letter turned up. It was written by Joseph Jekyll, the third of Mrs L-P’s four barristers. It was dated 29 November 1832 and addressed to his sister-in-law, Lady G Sloane Stanley. It was published in 1894 in the Correspondence of Mr Joseph Jekyll. It was not noticed until 1947, when Richard Austen-Leigh found it and published an extract in Notes & Queries, 1947, 474-5. Even then, it was not generally known to Jane Austen scholars until 1987, when Park Honan published Jane Austen, Her Life, The Definitive Portrait. The extract in Notes & Queries reads as follows:

Politics keep men enough in London. Ladies scarce except

those who frequent bazaars, and mistake other people’s property

for their own. It was the blunder of my client, Mrs Leigh-Perrot,

in former days, and I am told is still frequently committed. The

mother of these unlucky misses had a handsome sister who

married Sir T Plumer, Master of the Rolls.

Richard Austen-Leigh added: Who were the unlucky Misses? but did not answer his own question.

Park Honan did not quote the extract in full and, as far as I know, no subsequent author has done so, but he did assert three times (pages 150, 152, 153) that Jekyll thought Mrs L-P was guilty. But Jekyll was present throughout the trial. He heard the evidence set out in our first paragraph. He had conducted a devastating cross-examination of the apprentice, Sarah Raines, showing the inconsistencies in her evidence. How could he say now, without any reason or explanation, that he thought that Mrs L-P was guilty?

Park Honan’s treatment of the extract calls for three comments. First, he says, “it seems that wealthy ladies may become more unreliable than other women,” though there is no mention of wealth or riches in the text. Secondly, Joseph Jekyll did not say that Mrs L-P was guilty of shoplifting. She blundered. “It was the blunder of my client, Mrs L-P.” We shall need to ask what that meant. Thirdly, he omits the second half of the extract entirely, with its reference to “these unlucky misses” and Richard Austen-Leigh’s question: who were they?

We need to look at the context. The letter begins: “Mille graces for a newsy letter, and the list of an avalanche of visitors.” Jekyll continues with a series of comments on the items in her list. It is a kind of conversation through an exchange of letters, but we only have half the conversation, his half and not hers.

At the top of page 306 (attached) Jekyll writes: “Memoirs of Banditti,” two volumes, a pretty book by Macfarlane, who wrote the clever “Tour from Constantinople.” Presumably, this was a reply to a question or comment from her. It makes no sense otherwise.

“This is a sad loss to the poor Archbishop of York at his time of life, and I am very sorry for him.” What is the sad loss? Jekyll does not say. It was the death of his wife. Presumably it was mentioned in her letter and this is his comment. And there are several other examples on page 306.

And so we come back to “the blunder of my client” and “these unlucky misses.” What was the blunder of my client? Who were these unlucky misses? Presumably they have already been mentioned; but they are not in his letter; so they must have been in hers. The unlucky misses were the Norton sisters. On 9 November, they went into a jewellery shop; they bought one item, worth three guineas, and were accused of having stolen various others, though the proceedings against them were dropped.  The case was widely reported in the London and local newspapers in the last week in November. The parallels with Mrs L-P’s case are striking. The sisters had gone into the shop to buy one item and had blundered into the hands of fraudulent shop staff. Presumably that was more or less what Jekyll’s sister-in-law said. Jekyll commented, “It was the blunder of my client, Mrs L-P.” She was not guilty of shoplifting; she was the unlucky victim of a false accusation of shoplifting, just as the Norton sisters had been. John Morris, KC, was convinced that she was innocent. Joseph Jekyll thought so too.

Appendix: Mr Symes, the Lawyer

The Reverend William Holland, Vicar of Over Stowey, wrote in his diary for Saturday 22 March 1800 (a week before the trial): At Stowey met Mr Symes, the Lawyer. He told me that Mrs Parrot (sic) had bought off her prosecutor. Alas, alas, that money should be able to screen a person from Justice in this Kingdom so remarkable for good laws and uncorrupted Judges. She was accused of stealing lace out of a shop in Bath, is a person of considerable fortune and has a poor Jerry Sneak of a husband who adheres to her through all difficulties.

Of course, this information is wrong. All three prosecution witnesses appeared at the trial the following week. They were not bought off. There is a gap in Holland’s diary from Thursday March 27 to Thursday April 24, when he must have found out his mistake. Presumably, it was a rumour circulated by Charles Filby and William Gye, who were still hoping that it would be true.

Jerry Sneak was a hen-pecked husband. He was the leading character in The Mayor of Garret, a Comedy in Two Acts performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane by Samuel Foote in 1764. It was performed in Bath on Easter Tuesday 1798, and that may be when James L-P was first called Jerry Sneak. He went with Jane L-P to Ilchester Gaol in 1799-1800, and it was rumoured that if she had been convicted and transported to Botany Bay he would have sold up and gone out with her.

All this has nothing to do with Joseph Jekyll’s letter to his sister-in-law in 1832, but Park Honan, p. 152, connects them together. Claire Tomalyn, p. 152, goes further and confuses Symes and Jekyll. Mrs L-P’s “own counsel gossiped maliciously about her being a kleptomaniac, mocking James L-P’s uxoriousness for good measure. And the new Adventures of Jane’s Aunt Leigh Perrot assumes that Symes was the Perrots’ solicitor and that he warned her that she would probably be transported to Botany Bay. In fact their solicitor was George Watts, of no. 11, Bladuds Buildings, just below no. 1, Paragon Buildings, and he did not warn her about Botany Bay: he reported that her counsel wanted four character witnesses from Berkshire and four from Bath to save her from Botany Bay. Symes was a country lawyer from west Somerset who is a red herring in this story.

Attached, page 306 of Jekyll’s Correspondence.

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Further Reading

(See Works Cited at the end of Albert Borowitz v Jane Leigh Perrot, Persuasions On-Line 42.1 (2021))

1. “Aunt Jane’s Trial.” Jane Austen Blog: Regency History 29 Sept 2017. (One comment by Jane Hickman, retired Bristol solicitor, 20 Nov 2022.)

(My reply, 24 March 2023.)                          

1. “Was Aunt Jane a Shoplifter? Fundamina 24 (2018): 82-99.
2. “No. 1, Bath Street and Mary Smith.” Jane Austen Blog, 2 Sept 2019.
3. “The Trial of Jane Austen’s Aunt, Jane Leigh Perrot, and the Opinion of John Morris, KC.” Persuasions On-Line 41.1 (2020).
4. “An Enlightening Letter Regarding the Leigh Perrot Shoplifting Case: A Letter from RW to James Leigh Perrot.” Jane Austen Blog, 15 Aug 2021. (One comment by Susan Thomas about Barbara Ker Wilson’s novel, Jane Austen in Australia, 23 March 2022. My reply, 20 June 2022.)

(Comment by R Lamb, 7 April 2025, ref Lady Isobel Barnett. Addition by me on date of RW’s letter: should be 19 August 1799.)                      

1. “The Man is off and the Shop I Hear Must be Ruin’d: Reflections on the Trial of Jane Leigh Perrot.” Somerset & Dorset Notes & Queries,      (Sept 2021): 163-173.
2. “Albert Borowitz v Jane Leigh Perrot.” Persuasions On-Line 42.1 (2021).
3. “Family Intrigue: A Letter from Mrs A Foley to Jane Leigh Perrot.”   Jane Austen Blog, 9 January 2022.
4. “How large was no. 1, Bath Street?” Jane Austen Blog, 5 February 2023.
5. “Dr Harington’s epigram.” (Part of the story of Jane Austen’s aunt, Jane     Leigh Perrot). Jane Austen Blog, 7 June 2024.
6. “The adventures of Jane’s aunt Leigh Perrot: r/janeausten.                                                                             Comments by Funny_Scallion449.
7. Jane Austen daily, Hazel Mills’s Post: 3 comments.
8. Geri Walton, Jane Leigh Perrot, The Arrest of Jane Austen’s Aunt: Three comments.