IT was a charge like no other when William Godsell appeared at the Hampshire Quarter Sessions in late 1847.

Godsell, described as a respectable looking young man from Cowes, was accused of committing an assault on himself!

The indictment read as follows: 'You, the said William Godsell did attempt to suffocate, kill, drown, murder or otherwise hang yourself, and with a rope did then and there suspend yourself for the purpose of causing suffocation, constituting a misdemeanour within the meaning of the Act, whereby you have rendered yourself to be liable to be imprisoned for the space of two years.'

However, the public were virtually deprived of much further information.

All the readers of the Hampshire Independent were told was that Godsell pleaded guilty and blamed the folly on alcohol.

"Why I had a drop to drink and that's all," he explained. "I don't know what I done."

It led him to spending the next six weeks behind bars with hard labour.

Though the calendar was heavy, there was little out of the ordinary, save for the appearance of a woman bearing an aristocratic nature and dress.

However the appearances were deceptive and the extravagantly attired Sarah Ann Estcourt Willcox, 32, was far from what she seemed.

She was charged with stealing silverware from Lady Willis who lived at Binstead on the Isle of Wight.

Willcox had been shown into the house by the impressed footman who had to apologise for leaving her momentarily unattended as he had to attend to other matters.

"That's perfectly all right," she reassured him in her impeccable upper class accent.

When he returned, he was surprised she had gone - and even more shocked to find the items missing.

When police finally tracked Willcox down, they did not find her in an elegant carriage but in a carrier's cart. She offered no resistance when asked to be searched and from her apparel, an inspector retrieved not only four plated spoons but also several pawnbroker tickets.

It transpired Willcox had gone to the premises of a Newport silversmith, purporting that she was selling the property on behalf of another who was embarrassed at falling on hard times and wanted to remain nameless.

Jurors, who swiftly convicted her of theft, then discovered Willcox faced a second indictment which involved a similar ploy at the York Hotel in Ryde where several articles of plate and plated goods were taken.

Willcox confessed she had just redeemed them from another pawnbrokers business on the Island.

During questioning, she admitted her appearance was a charade as she was really a penniless cook desperate for work.

Willcox, who appeared to be "entirely overcome by the disgraceful situation in which she had placed herself," offered no defence.

Similarly she put forward no mitigation when asked what she had to say in mitigation.

The judge, Sir William Heathcote, was scathing.

"It is entirely hopeless to expect an amendment in the course of life you have chosen to adopt. The court therefore sentences you in the first case to be imprisoned for one week and for the second to be transported beyond the seas for ten years."

For once there was no acting.

Willcox immediately swooned and crashed to the floor of the dock from which she was carried out insensible.