At the Middlesex Sessions held in September 1823, James Wilson, a watchcase maker, of Northampton Row, Clerkenwell, London, was accused of ‘having repeatedly endeavoured to ravish his own daughter.’
Wilson’s wife died in 1819, leaving behind two daughters and a son. Sarah, the eldest daughter, was around fifteen when her mother died and was serving an apprenticeship as a dressmaker.
Soon after his wife died, Wilson, ‘this hoary Sinner,’ began to take ‘indecent liberties with his daughters,’ principally with Sarah, who was about four years older than her unnamed younger sibling.
The Wilson sisters shared a room, ‘and it was the constant practice of the incestuous brute to get into the bed of his children and strive to accomplish his revolting purpose.’ The two girls managed to fight off their father’s advances.
When the sisters threatened to expose their father, ‘he would protest most solemnly to annoy them no more.’ Wilson’s promise only lasted a few days, until he began ‘soliciting Sarah, like a lover, to submit to his embraces. The villain seemed as anxious to pervert their minds as to debase their bodies; for when his eldest girl used to reproach him for his unnatural conduct, he told her it was the tyrant laws of custom, and not those of nature, which bound her to resist.’
Often, Sarah would drop to her knees and remonstrate that ‘his conduct was unnatural, but he only laughed, telling her the Almighty saw no harm in it, and to obey his inclinations was no crime.’
Eventually, Sarah, unable to cope with her father’s unwanted attention, fled the home and obtained a position as a household servant. Finally, James Wilson tracked his daughter down and prevailed upon her to return to the family home with him, saying that he hoped his arms would fall off if he ever attempted to molest her again.
Inevitably, Wilson was unable to keep his bargain with Sarah. On 17 December 1822, James threw Sarah to the floor, ‘and was proceeding to the most indecent liberties, when she resisted, scratched his face, and cried out for help, on which he desisted for that time; but in a day or two resorted to the same offence.’
The Wilsons were boarding with a Mr and Mrs. Smith, who eventually became aware of what was occurring (one wonders why it took them so long). They found lodgings for the two girls without informing their father.
James Wilson, this ‘enraged monster of a parent’, unable to discover the whereabouts of his two daughters, had a handbill printed and posted in the local area. It read: ‘Left their home, two girls, the eldest between eighteen and nineteen, and the youngest about fourteen. There is little doubt but they have been enticed away from their home and duty by wicked advisers, the eldest having absented herself once before to associate with the basest of mankind, who spend their time in wickedness and drunkenness. She is capable of the basest insinuations, even to disgrace her father, who has from infancy worked hard to support her.’ In the bill posted, Wilson went on to describe what his daughters had been wearing when he had last seen them, and threatened the gravest consequences for anyone who sheltered them.
Acting on the advice of Mr. Smith, the two girls reported their father to the authorities. James Wilson was taken to the Hatton Garden police office, where Sarah and her sister preferred charges against their father.
Wilson was asked for his response to the charges exhibited against him, responded: ‘it’s as false as hell— that elder girl is a felon and a prostitute, and capable of the worst actions.’ When the magistrates showed no inclination to believe him, Wilson responded huffily that the sisters were ’not my daughters, they are only my children by adoption.’
Wilson stood trial at the Middlesex Sessions on 18 September 1823, charged with ‘having repeatedly endeavoured to ravish his own daughter’. During the course of the trial, which occupied a single day, Sarah ‘sobbed aloud frequently, and was an object of general compassion.’
In his defence, Wilson repeated his assertion that he was wholly innocent, that Sarah had robbed him, ‘and that she had been turned away from her situation for being a thief and a whore.’
The gentleman who had employed Sarah refuted Wilson’s accusations, stating that he and his wife would have retained her if she had not been persuaded to return home with her father.
Mr. Const, the Chairman of the Court, told the jury ‘he could not help thinking, from the collected appearance and the indifference of manner manifested by the prisoner, and some incoherent questions and observations that had fallen from him, that his mind must be somewhat deranged.’
The jury was unconvinced by James Wilson’s protestations of innocence; they considered the evidence for a short time before finding him guilty.
Wilson’s son, who had earlier testified on his father’s behalf, grasped his parent’s hand, tears coursing down his face, as Wilson was sentenced to ‘twelve months imprisonment in the House of Correction.’
’The boy, on hearing the sentence, exclaimed to his father, in blubbering accents —“Never mind; you sh’ant want, if I starve father!”
James Wilson turned in the dock and looked directly at Mr. Const. ‘I am basely sacrificed, your Honour, you may rely on it,’ he declared earnestly.
© Mark Young 2025
Sources
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-hull-packet-and-original-weekly-comm/179780362/
Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men 
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