Charles Hitchen
Charles Hitchen, also mentioned as Charles Hitchin in other sources, was an English thief-taker and under-marshal of the City of London in the early 18th century, also, famously tried for homosexual acts and sodomy offences. Alongside his former assistant and then a major rival Jonathan Wild, against whom he later published a pamphlet and contributed to his sentencing to death, Hitchen blackmailed and bribed people and establishments irrespective of their reputation, suspicious or respectable. Despite the disgrace of the people he earned through his abusive exercising of his power, he remained in power and continued fighting against violent crime, especially after the ending of the war of the Spanish Succession and until 1727.
Widely known for his homosexual activities and considerably nicknamed as Madam or Your Ladyship, Hitchen publicly condemned this crime and even raided so called Molly houses being a member of Societies for the Reformation of Manners. However, largely due to his inaccuracy and growing contempt of people he himself appeared the subject of the Justice and was fined, pilloried and imprisoned, dying very soon after leaving Newgate.
Early life
Charles Hitchen was born in poverty to a family in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, presumably in about 1675. He was apprenticed as a cabinet maker before he married Elizabeth, the daughter of one John Wells of King's Walden, Hertfordshire, in 1703. Shortly, he set up trade as a joiner for a time and the couple moved to live on the north side of St. Paul's Churchyard in the City of London. They must have had at least one child as Hitchen mentioned his "family" though other than that nothing is known about them. In 1711, John Wells died and left his property to his two daughters to be equally divided between two of them. Not long after, Hitchen persuaded his wife to sell all her inheritance to invest in a very profitable business as he foresaw it and on 8 January 1712, with his wife's proceeds he purchased the office of City under-marshal for £700.The city marshals and their men
In 1570s, the Court of Aldermen introduced the "provost marshals" when the haphazard police force could not control the city's large population of beggars. In the 17th century, they acquired a regular salaried status, with duties very much like of those of constables, beadles and watchmen, and later also executed warrants of arrest throughout England and in America. They had been able to prosecute violations of licensing and the city's trading regulations. In the 18th century, they were empowered to investigate and suppress gambling houses, corrupt dealings and connivance. The two marshals, an upper and an under employing six men paid a shilling a day, had to buy their office at a public auction, which raised the possibility of selling the office for a higher price. By the time Hitchen bought his titled job, the price had risen from £300 in 1696 to £700 in 1712. This induced some marshals to seek recovery of their investment by unlawful means, including blackmail and even murder. Their official income was not ungenerous—the upper marshal receiving £100 p.a. and the under-marshal £60, both also given allowance for clothes and horse, £5 annually for good service, about £30 for selling "a Freedom of the City", and a share from each prisoner's entrance fee to the prisons and watch-houses. The marshals were also allowed to collect and retain a tax of one penny per stall-keeper at Bartholomew Fair.In the office
The former cabinet-maker did not restrict himself to the income from the Lord Mayor of London. In fact, his famous words: "What do you think I bought my place for, but to make the most of it?" used to justify his crimes, describe the readiness with which he embraced his "duties". Not being the first to use the position as a form of legal theft, he regularised the practice. He had probably acted as a middleman or receiver between thieves and victims several years before taking the post, otherwise it would be difficult to explain his familiarity with London's underworld. He made full use of his authority as a leverage to build or extend his thief-taking business and stayed as a middleman in it. Hitchen managed to regulate about 2000 thieves and organise for them to steal and fence the stolen merchandise through him, a practice pickpockets would find more profitable or less dangerous than going to a pawnbroker, since most desperate victims of the theft were ready to pay a fee negotiated by the "finder" for the return of their stolen items.With the growth of paper money transfers, the early draught notices, and "notes of hand", pickpockets were causing larger and larger economic losses to traders and merchants. Hitchen learnt how valuable these notices were to their owners and started the trade of returning them for a reward. The risk was not great since, e.g., wallets were often stolen by prostitutes whose victims would be unlikely to prosecute a finder.
The under-marshal raided taverns and dram-shops on a daily basis, and extracted contributions. At Hatton's, Basinghall Street, he read the advertisements offering rewards. At Woolpack alehouse, Foster Lane, he wrote blackmail letters. At the Cross Keys, Holborn, he lunched with thieves. At the Blue Boar, Barbican, he made plans with them, and at the Clerkenwell Workhouse, his tricorn adorned with gold braid glittered over 12-year-old pickpockets, in whose company he very often visited Moorfields and its infamous "Sodomites' Walk". Blackmail was applied to targets like prostitute Marry Milliner, and later to Jonathan Wild's accomplice, who paid Hitchen for "protection". He extorted bribes from tradesmen in exchange for immunity from being robbed; brothels and Molly houses made quarterly payments to him. So, the practice later called a protection racket was mastered by the marshal.
Accusations and suspension
Hitchen self-normalised his racket, so confident was he of his inviolability in the sense of having official immunity, that he began to boast of controlling dozens of thieves. At the beginning of September, the Court of Aldermen was presented an array of complaints from different layers of society, notably, all of whom were victims of pickpockets.The court did not show much willingness to investigate the marshal's case. Since the post was usually sold as mentioned above, Hitchen's utter discharge would clearly cause its devaluation, i.e., it would not be easy, if possible at all, to sell the office knowing in advance one could lose it before receiving the value for it. And though, on the face of it, the case was a deal between the holder and the purchaser, the city treasury benefited from the sale. Hence, the aldermen adopted a cautious and neglectful approach. However, due to the seriousness of the complaints and the letter sent to the retiring Lord Mayor Sir Gilbert Heathcote by Hitchen's accusers, reminding him of the 1706 statute and its severe penalties for receiving, a committee under the retiring mayor was appointed to examine the case.
By 27 October, there had already been taken 10 testimonies all of which involved Hitchen as a receiver. Thomas Rogers, a Blackwell Hall factor, for example, complained of losing his letter case and pocket book at the Royal Exchange. Walter Corbet had lost his case with £200 exchequer bills at Charing Cross when watching the pillory of three men. Another Blackwell Hall factor and a Quaker, Nathaniel Smith, having lost his pocket book to a whore, told about being taken to Temple Bar surrounding in western part of the city by the under-marshal to meet the gang of thirty to forty young pickpockets, whom he referred to by their names. As victims reported, they had placed the advertisements on their losses, offering certain amount for the recovery, in The Daily Courant. Hitchen relying on "his great knowledge of thieves and pickpockets" required exorbitant rewards as in Cobert's case, when a 5-guinea offering turned into a 50–60-guinea reward or when Dudley Downs had to pay 55 guineas for four exchequer bills of £200 value. But others like Smith, who was asked to pay 20 guineas, did not do so and caused marshal's campaign of vilification. Nevertheless, they dared to refer to other thief-taker Joseph Billers, an experienced competitor of Hitchen's, who was the one directing them to the Court of Aldermen. Most seriously, unsurprisingly, was taken the case, which concerned a loss of the letter with 200 guineas from a member of the nobility, Lord Barnard to Richard Lawrence, an apothecary. It was he who reported Hitchen in the court on telling him, during their negotiation, about making arrangements with 2000 thieves living in the Bills of Mortality. The fullest information, though, came from the written testimony by constable Wise of Shoreditch on 2 October 1712. He named the four infamous taverns, "Three Tuns", "Black Horse", "Blue Boar" and "King's Head" and an account of marshal's actual dealings there. He also remembered having arrested six pickpockets in one of the taverns above and causing marshal's rage, who upon showing a notice declared the county within his jurisdiction and took the thieves with him to the City letting them free. At the end of September, there were two pickpockets Christopher Plummer and William Field, notably from Hitchen's entourage, brought to the Guildhall and after testifying against their master granted freedom by Sir Charles Peters on 8 or 9 October 1712.
The embattled under-marshal would try hard to retain his power and after two months of being accused of the felonies, at last, on 16 December, he showed his written answer. The document is a record of the names of all those places mentioned above, where Hitchen met the thieves and organised crimes with them. It also gives the examples of social details, one of which explains how Lord Barnard's bills through a chain of accidents appeared in Hitchen's hands. If one did not tip the porter in the General Post Office, he would throw the letter out. Pickpockets, visiting the Office for their own purpose in the midnight, saw the other one at the door with the bills inside. Seeing the boys with the papers on the one side of the tavern and a sad victim on the other, set Hitchen to assist him. Certainly, this rather comic justification with others added to his main reason of being maliciously persecuted by the robbers was not to blindfold the Court of Aldermen, who were reluctant to take decision against him anyway for the clear reasons discussed above. On the other hand, they could not utterly ignore the Lord Mayor's reminder to the committee, that marshal's behaviour humiliated the city and reflected other officers' behaviour under the mayor. All they did, though, was rather cynical. After waiting for Hitchen's written defence, presented itself as late as 16 December, they did not read it until 16 January 1713. As for their decision on marshal's suspension, it came over five months late, that was 24 June 1713 and "forbade him attendance on the Lord Mayor" while retaining his power as a constable to obtain warrant when needed and apprehend.