Trial of Henry Fauntleroy : and other famous trials for forgery / edited by Horace Bleackley.

  • Henry Fauntleroy
Date:
[1924]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Trial of Henry Fauntleroy : and other famous trials for forgery / edited by Horace Bleackley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and several bank clerks were called to corroborate their testi¬ mony. The investigation before the magistrate lasted for several hours. The whole truth was revealed. In a burst of contrition the wretched Fauntleroy confessed his crime. “ I alone am guilty,” he acknowledged. “ My partners did not know.” One of the partners wa-s present with him on this bright September morning during the long examination in Mr. Conant’s dining room — one George Edward Graham,1 a lieut.-colonel in the Army, who had fought with credit in the Peninsular War. He was a connection of William Marsh, and had been unlucky enough to join the firm soon after the death of Sir James Sibbald in 1819. Although ignorant of finance, Colonel Graham, like a child with a new toy, had devoted all his leisure to the service of the Berners Street house, actually presenting many of the forged powers of attorney at the Consols office of the Bank of England. Wholly unaware that there had been any irregularity, the unfortunate man was overwhelmed by the revelation of the stupendous crime. After hearing the evidence the magistrate was obliged to commit the prisoner; and, in the course of the afternoon, Fauntleroy was taken away by Plank in a hackney coach to the House of Correction, Coldbath Fields, under a warrant which charged him “ with having feloniously forged and uttered as true a certain instrument with intent to defraud the governor and company of the Bank of England,” John Vickery,2 the keeper of the prison, being instructed to keep him in safe custody. Vickery realised his responsibility. He placed Fauntleroy in the most secure apartment in the build¬ ing, and for fear that he should attempt to destroy himself, deputed a couple of turnkeys to sit with him all night. There were rumours that evening that a person of “ high respectability ” in the financial world had been arrested on a charge of forgery, but the greatest secrecy was maintained, 1 Subsequently he took the additional name of Foster Pigott, when he inherited an estate in Cambridgeshire. 2 John Vickery, died suddenly, in the street, of apoplexy, 18th June, 1840. He had been a Bow Street officer. Gentleman's Mag. (1840), II., 326.
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