It is hard to imagine a situation in Twenty-first Century politics in which 'The Honourable Member for Roxburghshire' or any other MP for that matter would stand up in the Commons to challenge and criticise their own party's criminal justice system.
But that is exactly what happened on more than one occasion in 1909 when Sir John Jardine, Liberal MP for Roxburghshire took up the case of a 13-year-old boy from Kirk Yetholm, near Kelso - described as a member of a hawker family - after the kid was birched for taking trout from the Bowmont Water by wire snare.
Apparently young William Norris had come to the attention of the authorities on more than one previous occasion, and had been the subject of a number of police warnings before Sheriff Substitute Hugh Baillie, the judge presiding at Jedburgh Sheriff Court, ordered the wee miscreant to be given a good thrashing.
Before becoming a MP Sir John Jardine had himself gained considerable experience in administering the law. He was judicial commissioner for Burma in 1878 and chief justice in the High Court of Bombay from 1895-97 before retiring from the legal profession.
Sheriff Substitute Baillie certainly seems to have been an enthusiastic advocate of birching, having meted out a similar punishment to three young rascals from Jedburgh for the heinous crime of poaching rabbits before he turned his attention to William Norris.
Sir John first raised the issue of the 'Jedburgh birchings' in Parliament on July 7th 1909, according to Hansard, the official record of proceedings in the House of Commons. Britain was ruled by a Liberal Government at the time.
He asked the Lord Advocate if the three sentences of birching passed by Sheriff-Substitute Baillie at Jedburgh on three boys of 12 or 14 years of age, had yet been executed in regard to a prosecution for taking rabbits out of a trap in Lord Campbell's park; whether any of these children had been previously convicted; and whether, in similar cases, the First Offenders Act or the Children Act has been brought to the notice of the courts in Scotland?
He was told by Lord Advocate Alexander Ure "I am informed that the sentences referred to
have been duly carried out. None of the boys had been previously convicted. On
the passing into law of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1907, and the Children
Act, 1908, respectively, the attention of judges in the summary criminal courts
in Scotland was directed to the provisions of these Acts by circulars issued
from the Scottish Office, and I am further informed that in selecting the form
of punishment which he considered the most judicious in the circumstances the
Sheriff-Substitute had fully in view the various methods of dealing with these
cases open to him under these Acts."
But in September Sir John felt duty bound to raise the vexed question of birching a second time.
This time he asked the Lord Advocate whether his
attention had been drawn to the case of William Norris, a boy of 14 years of age,
who had been sentenced by Sheriff-Substitute Baillie at
Jedburgh to be birched for taking trout from Bowmont Water; whether the
prosecution was a private one or had been initiated by any official acting under the
Tweed fishery laws; whether any sentences of birching had up to the present
time been passed as regards offences against the Tweed fishery laws; and if The
Probation of Offenders Act, 1907, was applicable to such cases?
The Solicitor General for Scotland (Mr. Arthur Dewar) told him -"Inquiry has been made, and it appears that the prosecution was not a private
one or under the Tweed Acts, but was at the instance of the Procurator Fiscal
for contravention of the Trout and Freshwater Fish Acts by taking 42 trout by
means of wire snares. Two boys were prosecuted, both of whom pled guilty.
Norris, being under 14 years of age, was sentenced to four strokes of the
birch. The Probation Act is applicable, but I am informed that the boy had been
previously twice convicted of malicious mischief, and had been repeatedly
cautioned by the police."
At least two other Liberal MPs condemned the use of the birch on small boys in the following exchange:
Mr. JOHN WARD (Stoke-on-Trent) Liberal-Labour. Does not the
hon. and learned Gentleman think that it is an atrocious punishment for a boy?
Mr. SPEAKER (James Lowther, Conservative 1st
Viscount Ullswater ) – MP for Penrith. That is a matter of opinion.
Mr. JAMES DUNDAS WHITE (Dunbartonshire) Liberal. Will my
hon. Friend take steps to see that the penalty of birching shall not be
inflicted on small boys for catching trout?
Mr. DEWAR I am afraid the Act of Parliament says that
birching may be inflicted in the discretion of the sheriff in certain cases,
and here my hon. Friend will notice that the boy had been twice previously
convicted.
So whatever happened to William Norris, born at Kirk Yetholm on October 11th 1895 to John Norris and Margaret Frater?
The truth is William did not live to see his twentieth birthday after suffering a much more deadly punishment than the birch.
On New Year's Day 1915 9174 Private W Norris, of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards together with an unspecified number of his fellow soldiers perished as they attempted to capture and hold a German observation post by the village of Cuinchy in rural France. Apparently they were mown down by withering machine gun fire, and owing to the position where they fell it was not possible to recover the bodies.
The history of his regiment says the 1st Battalion had gone to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force in the latter half of 1914. William and his colleagues had been crouching in trenches knee deep in water for several days prior to the fatal 3 am raid which cost him his life.
Private Norris, like so many of the fallen, has no known grave. His name is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais, France, and on the village war memorials in Leitholm and Yetholm. He was posthumously awarded the Victory Medal and the British 1914/15 Star.
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