It seems young Eliza was in the service (in more ways than one) for six or seven years to a JAMES KIRK, a gingerbread maker of Bridg(e)water. James had married MARY ANN LUFF on the 5th November 1821 in St. Mary's Church and when this article went to print they had five children together.
RICHARD HOWELL was also in the service of James Kirk as a servant. Having a servant suggests that James Kirk was a successful gingerbreak baker and probably respected as such.
James Kirk thought he could buy himself out of a sticky situation when he was caught with his gingerbread pants down and Eliza fell pregnant. James tried to pay off Eliza by placing the blame of her 'child at breast' on his servant Richard, who by all accounts had witnessed scenes between the two in Honeysuckle-walk.
The story was big enough to be published in the LONDON STANDARD on Tuesday 12th April 1831. It reads;
SPRING ASSIZES - TAUNTON APRIL 8
Eliza Bennett, a young woman having a child at the breast, was put to
the bar upon an indictment, which charged her with having committed
wilful and corrupt perjury in an oath made before the mayor and other
magistrates on the borough of Bridgewater.
It appears by the evidence, that the prisoner had been, for six or
seven years up to September last, in the service of a person named
James Kirk, a ginger-bread baker, of Bridgewater, and that Kirk, who
has a wife and five children, had carried on an illicit intercourse
with the prisoner, which terminated in her pregnancy. The real
father, wishing to shift the burden of supporting the child himself,
induced the girl to swear before the mayor of Bridgewater, that the
father of the child was a servant man of Kirk's, called Richard
Howell, Upon summoning Howell, and hearing his answer, the mayor and
magistrates were so much convinced of the falsehood of the charge,
that they dismissed the complaint. Upon a subsequent occasion the
woman acknowledged that she had been guilty of perjury in imputing to
Howell that he was the father of the child, and excused herself by
saying that she had been suborned to do so by Kirk, who promised her
3l., and paid her 8s. 6d., to induce her to lay the child at Howell's
door. She made the same excuse upon present occasion, and Howell
deposed to his having been himself an eye-witness of scenes between
Kirk and the prisoner which were quite sufficient to account for the
birth of a child without Howell's interference, and which occurred in
a place called Honeysuckle-walk. He also swore that there did not
exist the slightest round for imputing the paternity to himself.
The woman was found guilty of the charge, and sentenced to 12
months' imprisonment, and such hard labour as was consistent with her
situation.
So Eliza 'excused herself' for being blackmailed or suborned by a man who employed her, got her pregnant, then shifted the blame to his servant Richard Howell. The
court acknowledged that James Kirk was the father of Eliza's child
but nothing is mentioned as to his fate. As for Eliza, it seems she
was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she admitted James
Kirk to be the father she would no doubt have lost her employment. As an unmarried mother, Eliza would not be employed due to the shame she carried and would have received very little support from community or church.
It is not known what became of
Eliza or her child.
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