10th October 1812: A young apprentice to Joseph Mellor gives information to Joseph Radcliffe, which leads to arrests

After receiving information from Francis Vickerman via John Lloyd, that possible suspects in the assassination of William Horsfall had been at the house and workshop of the master cropper, Joseph Mellor, on Saturday 10th October 1812, the magistrate Joseph Radcliffe first acted to summon and question one of Mellor's apprentices, a boy called Joseph Oldham.

Oldham told Radcliffe that on the day Horsfall was shot, another apprentice called Thomas Durrance showed him 2 pistols brought to the house by 2 men that evening. Later on, a man he did not know called upon the house to ask if he could wash himself, accompanied by another man, called George Mellor - a cropper and his master's cousin. Oldham said that Mellor had walked about the workshop while the other man washed himself. He described the unknown man as stout and tall, with light-coloured hair, wearing a dark or drab-coloured coat, but with no marks of blood upon him. He said that George Mellor also wore a drab-coloured coat.

After the vague description that Vickerman had given Lloyd of the suspects, he now had a definite name: George Mellor.

16th September 1812: Captain Raynes informs General Acland of a new informer and a suspected Luddite in Cheshire

Hightown 16th Sepr 1812

Sir,

The enclosed is a Letter I have written to Mr. Ratcliffe the Magistrate, which if you approve, may I beg you will do me the Honor to forward

James Crowther, the man I mentioned in my Letter of yesterday, has been with me; he has given me a good deal of information, particularly about a man of the name of Joseph Oldham, who headed the mob at the destroying of the Rhodes’s Machinery at Tintwistle and the same person who assisted in rescuing the man from the Coal Pitt at Newton when the Watch & Ward were so ill treated, Oldham has also declared to my informant every particular of Crabtree's death. Crowther is not twisted in, he has frequently been asked by People at Leeds, Huddersfield, and this Neighbourhood, I have recommended him Sir, to be done immediately, he knows all the persons I have information against here. I have given him a little money and I do not doubt he will be a most useful fellow.

I shall take steps to apprehend Oldham as soon as I can obtain sufficient evidence to convict him, this I hope I shall soon be able to do, as I know where he is to be met with.

I have [etc]

Francis Raynes Capt
Stirling Militia

[To] Major General Acland
&c. &c. &c.