first-hand experience.^107 But we also know about Hitchen because he was an
officer of the City, having purchased the place of under-marshal for seven hun-
dred pounds early in 1712.^108 Within a few months of taking office he was
accused of receiving and concealing stolen goods and of encouraging thieves
and pickpockets—and of misusing the authority of his office to support these
illegalities.^109 The charges were made so soon after he came into office that it is
inconceivable he only took up these activities then. Indeed, he may have been
willing to pay a large sum for the post because he saw how the authority it con-
ferred might help him extend his business. He made himself a target and many
enemies, including Joseph Billers, who was to play a part in orchestrating the
case brought against Hitchen before the Court of Aldermen within a year of his
taking office.^110
The evidence about Hitchen’s activities as a go-between came in the first
place from several victims of pickpockets whom Hitchen offered to help recover
their stolen goods—for a fee, of course. Several of them complained to the al-
dermen and were too respectable to be ignored. The Court of Aldermen set up
an enquiry in September 1712 and established a committee to look into his ac-
tivities. The aldermen heard from Thomas Rogers, a Blackwell Hall factor, that
having lost a letter case and pocket book at the Royal Exchange he published an
advertisement in theDaily Courantoffering a reward of two guineas for its return
to a coffee house in Basinghall Street, no questions asked. A day or two later,
Hitchen sought him out and told him that he should have applied to him in the
first place, and that for ten guineas he could recover it for him, for ‘he knew sev-
eral Clubs of Pick Pockets’.^111 Rogers apparently did not take up his offer. But
Walter Corbet did. He too was a victim of a pickpocket: as he stood watching the
pillorying of three men at Charing Cross, someone stole his letter case contain-
ing exchequer bills to the value of two hundred pounds. Corbet advertised a
reward of five guineas, after which, as he told the committee, Hitchen got in touch
with him and pressed to be employed in procuring the letter case, ‘insinuating
the great Knowledge he had of the Thieves and Pick Pockets and his power
over them’. Hitchen wanted ‘a Reward of 50 or 60 Guineys’, which in the end
Detection and Prosecution 253(^107) See below, pp. 255 – 6.
(^108) The money came from his wife, who raised it by selling land she had inherited from her father
( Jor 57 , fo. 207 ).
(^109) The following account is based on a considerable body of evidence in the CLRO, particularly
among the Papers of the Court of Aldermen for 1712 and 1713 , the Repertories for those years (Reps
116 – 17 ), and a collection identified as Misc. MSS 105. 8. Howson used many of these records in his
account of Hitchen’s career (Thief-Taker General, ch. 6 ).
(^110) It emerged in the course of the investigation that Billers had a personal reason for pressing the case
against the marshal, for one element of the charges eventually brought against Hitchen was that he had
‘falsely charged Mr. Billers before the Lord Mayor’ (CLRO, Misc. MSS 105. 8 (‘Articles against Hutchins
[i.e. Hitchen]’) ).
(^111) CLRO, Papers of the Court of Aldermen, 1712 (information of Thomas Rogers, 2 October 1712 ;
included in the abstract of ‘Informations upon Oath agt Charles Hitchen the Under Marshal taken
before a Committee of Aldermen’, no. 1 ).