Section from the service record of Edmund Heathcote. PRO ADM 196 36 page 415
| Subsequently George Law was exposed, not only as a seducer, but he had also used the Heathcote family name to obtain credit with local traders. In June 1850 he was confined on charges of embezzlement and at his Southampton trial was found guilty and sentenced to transportation for seven years. Transportation was not always what it seemed. Many people convicted to be transported were first sent to a group of ship hulks in Portsmouth harbour as temporary prisons. However, the convicts were often forced to work while at Portsmouth and most of them preferred transportation, so hard was life in the hulks and work for the Navy. There were instances of riots with the convicts demanding to be transported. It is just possible that George Law was one of those prisoners, forced to work on the building of Whale Island, where the figurehead of 'Constance' is kept; the ship which, had it come home sooner, might have prevented the tragedy which consumed Edmund, Lucy and George Law. |
| Divorce was not a simple procedure in mid-victorian times, an act of Parliament was required, preceded by an inquisition on the facts of the situation. The Hampshire Records Office at Winchester has the bulk of the Heathcote family documents. They had been in the offices of a London Solicitors partnership. When that office was closed in the late 1940's it was thought appropriate to give all the Heathcote records to Winchester. Although very few of the documents are concerned with Edmund, his divorce, necessarily, is well documented. These documents are found from the Heathcote two volume index, Volume 2. Heathcote family ref 63M95 P5 items 21 to 35. The records have the entire transcript of the legal proceedings, evidence from servants and family members and the statements that Edmund and others gave to the court. The servants, as no doubt happened in all Victorian families, knew most of what had been going on and provided full explanations of the behaviour of Lucy and George Law. They said that " ..there was much intimacy" and Lucy and George "..shared the same bed". |
| The court was also concerned to have clear evidence that the child could not have been Edmund's offspring. Since Lucy's baby, declared by the midwife a 'full-term' child, was born just over six months after Edmund returned, it appeared certain the child was not his. Edmund had been promoted from senior lieutenant to commander while he was with the 'Constance' in the Pacific. However, as soon as he was promoted, he was no longer listed in the ships company. In effect he became a passenger. He took 91 days to return to England and the court needed to know that he had been in the Pacific and that he could prove he had arrived back no earlier than the date recorded; 24th November 1849. Perhaps he needed to ask the Admiralty to help him prove that point. |
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Section from the service record of Edmund Heathcote. PRO ADM 196 36 page 415 |
| The ships book of 'Constance' showed that Edmund had been ashore at a place called Mazatlan near St Blas on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Now we would hardly mention St Blas since Mazatlan is much bigger - with an airport. While the ship's log proved Edmund was in the Pacific, he still needed evidence of the time of his travel home. The Admiralty service record of Edmund's career has the first entry concerning his trip home crossed out. The same dates of the first line are repeated in the line below but with three signatures against the new entry and an unusual note which says 'arrival in ship'. It seems to have been the Admiralty clerks helping Edmund to make clear that he did arrive on the date listed and that he was on the 'Constance'. The details of his return journey from the Pacific confirmed the facts of the situation and the marriage of Edmund and Lucy was annulled by Act of Parliament in 1851. |