THE pauper sat back, admiring his work. “Yes, I did that and have done a bloody good job of it. I’ll wait here until the police arrive.”

And remain Frank Rann did, until he was arrested for setting fire to the hayrick on the outskirts of Newport on the Isle of Wight.

The one time labourer, 61, had been in the company of fellow tramp Joseph Williams, evidently wearying of his joyless life which the night before had seen the pair trying to sleep behind the town’s gas works.

“I’m tired of walking about,” he sighed. “I’m going to set fire to the workhouse hayrick or the nearest one to it. I’ll be better off in prison rather than out of it.”

Rann suggested Williams should join him but he refused, informing the workhouse porter of his friend’s despairing plan.

Percy Munt immediately notified the authorities and then hid by the hayrick.

Inexplicably the police never acted on the tip-off and Munt kept watch alone, his patience eventually rewarded shortly after midnight when Rann approached the stack which soon caught fire.

The porter joined Rann who made no attempt to run off and the pair were eventually joined by Pc Skeats.

“I did it on purpose” he confirmed. “ I lay down under the rick between ten and eleven. I got cold and set it alight.”

Rann then produced a box of matches. “Yes, these are the ones I used.”

Asked why he had destroyed the £100 worth hayrick, he replied: “I had nowhere to go and nothing to eat as they turned me out of the workhouse.

"I am glad I have done because I’ll be better off in prison and not tramping about.”

The same morning on May 27, 1910, Rann appeared before the Island’s county magistrates who committed him for trial.

Less than a month later, he appeared before Mr Justice Ridley at Hampshire Assizes where he pleaded guilty to arson, offering no mitigation.

The judge heard it was not the first time he had appeared in court but his previous offending amounted to nothing more than disorderly behaviour. He was jailed for three years.

Rann was ironically followed into the dock by another labourer, charged in similar circumstances.

Leonard Paterson, 25, was said to have set fire to barley straw at Hurstbourne Tarrant, near Andover, after being thrown out of a local pub.

Jurors heard he had threatened to smash one of the windows before torching the adjacent rick. He told police on arrest he had only done it because of the furious row with the landlady.

The judge then stopped the hearing, telling barristers he did not think Paterson understood what was happening.

Dr Richards, Winchester prison doctor, agreed, and the jury were re-sworn to determine his sanity.

Dr Richards repeated his evidence that Paterson was of unsound mind.

The judge revealed he was unaware of his mental state when he fist appeared in the dock.

Jurors not unnaturally found him unfit to plead and he was ordered to be detained at the jail during His Majesty’s pleasure.