On Saturday 2 December 1769, Thomas Wright was the victim of theft in his new house at Dulwich. James Simpson was accused of stealing a woollen coat, value twenty shillings. Wright’s coachman, Rubon Cannicot, gave evidence at the Old Bailey:
The coachhouse where the theft took place
‘I am coachman to Thomas Wright; he lives at Dulwich; our coach was locked up, and the great coat on the coach box. The key was left in the door, on the outside; the yard gate was all fast, and the yard is walled all round; whoever got the coat must get over the wall. I know nothing of the prisoner, I never saw him to my knowledge before I saw him here at the bar, it, (the coat) was missing last Saturday morning.’
Was this the coat stolen from Thomas?
Simpson took the coat to Cheapside, offering it to a clothes-dealer called Hugh Riley. Riley and Simpson then went to a pub in Paternoster-row where Riley offered Simpson fourteen shillings for the coat but would not pay until Simpson could prove it was his to sell. Riley was also a watchman for the City police force and becoming suspicious the coat was stolen, took Simpson to the lord mayor. Rubon Cannicot (the coachman) accurately described the coat to the lord mayor ‘before he saw it’. The prisoner’s defence:
‘My brother was a coachman; I had this coat of him; he was coachman to Mr Hutchinson in Southampton. I offered it to this man; (I) am bricklayer; my brother has been dead some time; I am a Guernsey man.’
Simpson was found guilty and transported to the American colonies. Simpson must have reflected on his bad luck that when he stole a coat five miles from London he then tried to sell it a stone’s throw from Thomas Wright’s business, a place where its livery was likely to be recognised and that the person he offered it to was a member of the City's own police force.
