James Lardant

• Birth Notes
  • Shown as Larden in register

• General Notes
  • James was a naughty boy!
    From The Times 25 January 1890
    
    At West Ham, Alexander Gilbert, 13 ; James LARDANT, 13 ; and John Docherty, 13, schoolboys, were charged with being concerned together in breaking and entering the shop No. 1, Liverpool-road. Canning-town, and stealing therefrom a box of cigars, 3oz. of tobacco, a dozen tobacco boxes, and other articles, valued at £1, the property of Edmund Lerpiniere. The evidence showed that on Tuesday night the prosecutor left his shop secure, but the next morning he found a large hole in the plate-glass window, and missed some cigars, tobacco, &e. At half-past 9 o’clock on Thursday morning Detective Cooper saw Lardant and Docherty loitering about. They went to an unfinished shop and got over the boarding, and when they returned to the street Lardant handed something to Docherty. Cooper then spoke to them, and they produced four cigars, Lardant remarking, " I did not break the window ; it was another boy." Asked what window, he said, “ The tobacco shop ; Gilbert broke it with a stone, and knocked the glass in with his elbow," Gilbert was later on arrested, and Detective-sergeant Dicker found a portion of the stolen property under the flooring of the unfinished shop mentioned. Prisoners now pleaded “Guilty,” but said there were other boys concerned. Gilbert’s father said his lad was beyond his control, and the superintendent of the Boys' Home at Regent's park said that Lardant had absconded from that institution. The prisoners were each ordered to receive 12 strokes with the birch.