Flashback: The man who travelled England as returned convict

ELIZA Henwood was born in Basingstoke in 1811. 

In 1832 she married Giles Sims and in 1833 they had a son. In 1834 several items of stolen goods were found in their house.

At the Basingstoke Quarter Sessions, Giles described as “an old offender”, was sentenced to be transported for seven years.

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Chapel Street looking up (Image: Contributed)

The sentence was said to have “given much satisfaction, the prisoner having been long suspected of various robberies in the town and neighbourhood; and it is hoped that his conviction will be the means of breaking up an establishment which has, over a long period, been a receptacle for stolen property”. 

In 1849, after waiting seven years after Giles’s term of transportation expired, Eliza married William Biggs, a butcher who lived in Chapel Street, before they split up in the early 1860s.

In January 1863 a man arrived in Basingstoke who introduced himself as Giles Sims. He said he had returned from Australia anxious to see his wife and son.

The news that her long-lost husband was in town soon reached Eliza and she rushed to the Traveller’s Rest in Wote Street where she was told he was staying. He greeted her and, “with the utmost tenderness exhibited the greatest delight in seeing her again”.

But Eliza wasn’t so sure. She remembered that Giles had a snub nose, whereas this man’s nose was long and pointed. He seemed quite hurt by her hesitation and apparent coldness.

He asked her if she could expect that the hardships he had endured over so many years would have had no effect on his appearance. Almost with tears in his eyes, he concluded, “Now I am old and afflicted, you do not want to acknowledge me as your husband”.

After he had assured her that he had made his fortune in Australia and had amply provided for her and their son, having eight ounces of gold, two bales of silk and other valuable articles weighing altogether 10 hundredweight, which would be arriving with his baggage the next day, she began to believe that he was, indeed, her “dear Giles”.

After an affectionate parting, Eliza went home, promising to see him the following day, which she did, and then invited him to move in with her. A good dinner was prepared to celebrate the return of the wanderer to which a few friends were invited, and a merry time was had by all. In the evening the pair went upstairs and shared the same bed.

The following morning, he went out and, as his luggage had still not arrived, Eliza went to the railway station where she was told that they were not expecting any luggage for a Mr Sims.

By now, Eliza was beginning to think she had been conned, so she went to the police. A policeman found him in the Harrow in Church Street where he coolly admitted that he wasn’t Giles Sims and his name was John Shoebridge.

The real Giles Sims remained in Australia and in 1843, married a female convict, Matilda Ewer, at New Norfolk, Tasmania.

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Traveller's Rest (Image: Contributed)

The Basingstoke Magistrates charged Shoebridge with, “Feloniously assaulting, ravishing and carnally knowing, against her will, Eliza Biggs, at Basingstoke on the 7th of January 1863”, in other words, rape. They sent him to Winchester Gaol to await his trial at the next Quarter Sessions.

At the Hampshire Lent Assizes on 2 March 1863, Mr Sergeant Shee advised the Jury to ignore the charge of rape.

He explained that carnal knowledge of a woman by fraud which induced her to suppose it was her husband, did not amount to rape.

The jury took his advice and, as there was no law against obtaining carnal knowledge by fraud, they ignored the bill, which meant that they were not satisfied there was enough evidence to bring a criminal charge. 

John Shoebridge, whose real name was John Mobley, appears to have spent most of his life wandering around the country obtaining money and bed and board by pretending to be a returned convict.

The Governor of Aylesbury Jail said that Mobley had been five times in his custody, and he had, “good reason to believe that he had been in most of the jails in the kingdom”. John Mobley died in Aylesbury Workhouse aged 95, in December 1889.

This article was written by Bob Clarke