The Strange Affair at Conisbrough Station

Judge Rentoul delivered judgment at the Barnsley County Court in a case in which Harvey Hudson, tailor, of Earlsley, sued the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway Company to recover £6 for a parcel of clothing that had been lost.

The plaintiff had sent a parcel of clothes to Conisbrough on Saturday, 4 November, addressed to a person living on Marsh Bottom, Conisbrough. A representative of that person attended at the station late at night and asked for the parcel but was told that there was 6s. to pay on it, and he refused to pay the charge.

During the same night the booking office at the station was broken into and the parcel was stolen. Parts of the contents were afterwards discovered burnt.

The question before the court was whether the railway company were in possession of the parcel as carriers or merely as bailees on the night of the robbery. The judge held that they had ceased to hold the parcel as carriers and were only bailees. His verdict was therefore in favour of the company without costs, as both parties had suffered through the robbery, which appeared to have been committed for motives of spite.