Powys Digital History Project

Punishment of women 2
An escape from the whip

  A mark of ignominy
An unusual entry from the records of the Quarter Sessions is shown below. This refers to the curious sentence laid down for a pregnant woman who was spared a whipping due to her condition.

Breconshire
Quarter Sessions
Easter 1754

Powys
County Archives
B/Q/SO/4

 

This extract, from the Order Book of the Breconshire Quarter Sessions of 1754, reads as follows:
"County Goal
Anne Thomas being indicted tryed and convicted of stealing one flaxen sheet of ye property of Margarett Prossor and in respect of her pregnancy excused by ye Court from ye bodily Correction of Whipping and instead thereof It is ordered that she shall stand the three next Markett days in the most publick Markett place within ye Town of Brecon for a whole Hour each day with ye Word Thiefe wrote in large Characters on paper to be laid and pinned on her right shoulder to signify her said offences and as a mark of ignominy upon her
."

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