Herrington Hall, near the Board Inn was the home of wealthy
Jane Smith, she was immensely rich and mixed with royalty but she lived on only
two pence a day, although worth around £250,000 she was well known in Sunderland
for her meanness and greed. Miss Smith was away collecting rents from her
tenants in farms across Durham and had left her servant girl Isabella, a thin,
shy teenager in charge with strict instructions not to light fires or candles
for comfort. On this night alone in the dark frightened and exhausted from her
work Isabella finally fell asleep.
Herrington was quiet until early morning when John Stonehouse a young blacksmith
who lived nearby looked out of his window to see Herrington Hall ablaze, not
knowing if anyone was inside he ran across and broke through a door. Inside with
her head smashed in her eyes badly swollen from a beating and her jaw broken was
Isabella, John dragged her dead body out of the Hall which was the left to burn.
Later that morning Miss Smith returned to see Herrington Hall still smouldering.
After being told of Isabella's murder Miss Smith began to rummage through the
ruins for nails, bolts and hinges that she could sell for scrap, and to save
even more money spent the night in a box in an out- building.
As the murder investigation started so did the rumours, the villages believed
that Miss Smith's admirer Sir Robert Peat was behind the murder. It was believed
that Sir Robert hired local villain Jimmy Wolfe to burn down the hall, so Miss
Smith would leave the area and marry him. Though Jimmy was believed to have
burnt down the hall and killed the servant girl not enough proof was found to
charge him, instead he was ignored by the villages the rest of his days. Sir
Robert a former military chaplain loved the high life and mixing with royalty,
but he had lost his fortune gambling and without money his high life was in
jeopardy, marriage to Miss Smith would solve his financial problems. When Sir
Robert had first asked Miss Smith now in her sixties to marry him she declined.
She wanted a title which he could provide but she did not want to lose control
over her fortune, so she said she could never leave her home, this was no longer
a problem.
After Sir Roberts failed attempts to have his new wife accepted in London, they
returned to Sunderland, and moved into the then fashionable Villiers Street
where Sir Robert soon found out about his wife's strange lifestyle. After he
found her pantry filled to the top with festered meat and mouldy pies which she
just would not throw away he could stand the smell no longer and moved out to
lodge with a Mrs Shields of Nile Street. The older Lady Peat got the worse her
behaviour became, she began stealing anything that would fit into her pockets or
shawl.
Anyone else would have been punished , but because she was a lady of wealth and
her husbands royal connections she only got a warning or a fine. One winter's
day a High Street shopkeeper had had enough, seeing Lady Peat putting a pound of
butter into her pocket he stopped her on her way out. The shopkeeper kept her
talking even as she insisted she must leave, next to an open fire until he could
see the melted butter running down her petticoats, satisfied the shopkeeper
laughed as Lady Peat hobbled away down the street. Sir Robert soon returned to
London the only thing his wife demanded was that he return once a year so that
they could be seen together and people would think they were still together and
happy.
Now Lady Peat had started to steal from people who instead of exposing her would
extort money from her to keep their silence, which meant that she told her
attorney to sometimes pay hundreds of pounds for the theft of a silver spoon. In
1837 Lady Peat was told that Sir Robert had died at his vicarage in Brentford,
she then went round the streets telling everyone the good news, and instead of a
black dress she bought a bright yellow gown with a bonnet and ribbons.
Lady Peat still lived in Villiers Street with her servant Bella using only one
room of the house, the kitchen the other rooms were only used to store her
stolen goods. Her stealing stopped because of blindness and infirmity and she
died alone in her house in 1842. When her house was emptied complete sets of
tools were found from any and all tradesmen who'd had the bad luck to come
across her path. Lady Peat left £250,000 to St Bede's convent of Mercy in
Sunderland, and her faithful servant Bella was left without a thought or a
penny.
