John Stafford was born in London in 1766.
By 1815 Stafford was the Chief Clerk at Bow Street.
One of his main tasks was to recruit Home Office spies, give them
their orders and to receive their reports. In 1816 the government
became very concerned about the growth of Spencean
Philanthropists, a group inspired by the ideas of Thomas
Spence. Stafford recruited John Castle,
a convicted convict to join the Spenceans and to report on their activities.
In October 1816 Castle reported to Stafford that the Spenceans were
planning to overthrow the British government.
On 2nd December 1816, the Spencean group organised a mass meeting
at Spa Fields, Islington. The speakers at
the meeting included Henry 'Orator' Hunt
and James Watson. The magistrates decided
to disperse the meeting and while Stafford and eighty police officers
were doing this, one of the men, Joseph Rhodes was stabbed. The four
leaders of the Spenceans, James Watson,
Arthur Thistlewood, Thomas Preston
and John Hopper were arrested and charged with high treason.
James
Watson was the first to be tried. However, the main prosecution
witness was the government spy, John Castle.
The defence council was able to show that Castle had a criminal record
and that his testimony was unreliable. The jury concluded that Castle
was an agent provocateur (a person employed to incite suspected
people to some open action that will make them liable to punishment)
and refused to convict Watson. As the case against Watson had failed,
it was decided to release the other three men who were due to be tried
for the same offence.
John Stafford
remained concerned about the Spenceans
and in early 1817 he asked a police officer, George Ruthven, to join
the group. Ruthven discovered that the Spenceans were planning an
armed rising. One of the leaders of the Spenceans, Arthur
Thistlewood, claimed at one meeting that he could raise 15,000
armed men in just half an hour. As a result of this information, John
Williamson, John Shegoe, James Hanley, George
Edwards and Thomas Dwyer were also recruited by Stafford to spy
on the Spenceans.
It was
information obtained by these spies that made it possible for the
arrest of the men involved in the Cato Street
Conspiracy. After the experience of the previous trial of the
Spenceans, Lord
Sidmouth was unwilling to use the evidence of his spies in court.
George Edwards, the person with a great
deal of information about the conspiracy, was never called. Instead
the police offered to drop charges against certain members of the
gang if they were willing to give evidence against the rest of the
conspirators. Two of these men, Robert Adams and John Monument, agreed
and they provided the evidence needed to convict the rest of the gang.
On 28th April 1820, William Davidson,
James Ings, Richard
Tidd, Arthur Thistlewood, and
John Brunt were found guilty of high treason
and executed at Newgate Prison on the 1st May, 1820.
Robert Peel offered John Stafford the post
of Police Magistrate but he turned it down "from a feeling, perhaps,
of diffidence in his own abilities, and a natural desire not to obtrude
himself into a situation which would necessarily bring him so frequently
before the public." John
Stafford
died at his home in September 1837.
(1)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, letter to a friend
in 1817.
It is impossible to know how far the higher members of
the Government are involved in the guilt of their infernal agents.
But this much is known, that so soon as the whole nation lifted up
its voice for parliamentary reform, spies went forth. These were selected
from the most worthless and infamous of mankind, and dispersed among
the multitude of famished and illiterate labourers. It was their business
to find victims, no matter whether right or wrong.
(2)
John Stafford recorded his first meeting with John
Castle (6th February, 1816)
I told him he did not deal candidly with me, and that
I knew he had not disclosed all he knew. He declared nobody could
say anything against him, for he detested violence and bloodshed.
When people had too much drink they talked of that had better not
been mentioned. He said he knew he was liable to be brought to Bow
Street and publicly examined. He with others had suffered a great
deal from distress and that he did not much care for his life and
a man could only die once.
(3)
The Times, John Stafford's obituary
(September, 1837)
His sound knowledge of criminal law, his consummate skill in the
framing of indictments, and his long practical acquaintance with the
duties which devolved upon him, caused him very frequently to be consulted
by the ablest criminal lawyers of the day.
When the Cato Street Conspiracy was fully detected and the capture
of the party determined upon, Mr. Stafford volunteered his services
to head the Bow Street officers who distinguished themselves on that
occasion, although his duties as Chief Clerk by no means required
that he should hazzard his person in such a desperate enterprise.
He had prepared his pistols and made the necessary arrangements when,
just as he was about to join the officers and proceed to the scene
of action, a message from the Home Office requiring his immediate
attendance compelled him to forego his intention. He gave his pistols
to the brave but ill-fated Smithers.
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