A bushel of wheat

[carolegif]

What weight was a bushel of wheat. I have a case of someone being transported for stealing 4 bushels of wheat and I wondered if it was a lot.

Thanks

carolegif

[sddsddean]

http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~alan/family/N-B ushel.html

[carolegif]

Thanks! I wonder how he carried 320 pounds of wheat! Presumably it was over a period of time.

[dot.hawkes]

It isn't alot really in modern terms, but to the person he stole it from, it could have meant the difference between having enough on the Meal Ark to survive the winter, and starvation.
The severity of his sentence reflected that I guess.

[jno]

you could be executed for cutting down a tree or stealing a rabbit so transportation was quite a lenient sentence.

Wikipedia says: Michael Hammond and his sister, Ann, whose ages were given as 7 and 11, were reportedly hanged at King's Lynn on Wednesday, the 28th of September 1708 for theft. The local press did not, however, consider the executions of two children newsworthy

[carolegif]

I have been researching this for my Genealogy class and there are some tragic cases. It seems that if you stole anything from another person you were transported no matter how small the item.

The 18th century punishments were very severe indeed, especially for the working classes. However, some people who were transported made a new life for themselves and became people of property and also learned to read and write.

There is a wonderful old bailey site with past cases:
www.oldbaileyonline.org

Also www.pastfinders.net which has a page of "unclaimed convicts"!

Thanks for answers

carolegif