The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.49 No.1 | June 2022

Member’s article

Charles Bramble and Highway Robbery Charles BRAMBLE, my 3 x great uncle, was just a name on my family tree until recently. For years the only information I had about him was his baptism at Crawley, near Winchester on 14 August 1799, May of that year matters came to a head when he put into place a plan which he hoped would give him easy money – he decided to commit a robbery. But were his actions premeditated or did he just act on the spur of the moment? What is not in dispute is that on 12 May he robbed a woman for cash on the road from Winchester to Hursley. There were reports of

eldest of 12 children born to Charles and Mary Bramble (nee FIFIELD) and that he had died in 1857. As so often happens to me, while I was looking up information for someone else’s family tree I stumbled across information about Charles. I have managed to piece together his life story and sad to say he didn’t amount to much, ending up dying in the Workhouse as a pauper. Charles married Rose Hannah DROVER on 7 April 1828 at St Maurice Church, Winchester. She is referred to in various documents as Rose, Rosanna, Rose Hannah, Roxanna and Anna. Her family were from Itchen Abbas and she was baptised as Rose Drover there on 22 Feb 1801, one of around 12 children born to Thomas and Ruth Drover nee Etherington. Charles and Rosanna’s first child was a son, Charles, baptised at St Maurice on 24 May 1829. The family then moved to the parish of St John, Winchester where there is an entry on 12 Dec 1830 for the burial of Charles Bramble age 1. The family remained living in the parish of St John and a daughter Harriet was baptised there on 20 Feb 1831 followed by another daughter, Elizabeth, on 17 Feb 1833. A third daughter, Martha, was baptised on 19 Sep 1836 and buried on 7 October the same year. Charles was described as a labourer throughout, meaning he would have had to take what work he could manage to get. By 1838 with a wife and 2 children to support, things began to get tough for Charles and in

the robbery in 3 newspapers under the sensational heading of “Highway Robbery” plus an entry in the UK Prison Commission Records of Calendar of Trials, Winchester Gaol. A Warrant was issued dated 17 May 1838 for Charles Bramble charged with committing highway robbery on 12 May in the parish of Hursley, and he was arrested and taken into custody to await trial at the Summer Assizes. This is the account I have pieced together from details of the newspaper reports and trial which took place at Winchester Assizes on 12 July 1838: Charles Bramble, aged 39, was charged with assaulting Mary Geary, a Negro woman in the employ of a farmer from Ashley, and stole from her person 2 half-crowns and other money, her property, the produce of her eggs and butter. Mary Geary stated that on her returning home from Winchester Market on the evening in question, when she got to Pit Down she saw the prisoner standing in the road with a large bludgeon in his hand. He came up to her and demanded her money. She told him she had not any, he said he knew she had and if she did not pull it out of her pocket he would do it for her. She then took out of her pocket about nine shillings which she gave him. He said she had more and she being afraid of his weapon, gave him 3 half-pence more. She afterwards described the man to the police. Browning,

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