by Barrie Jones
Chapter VII recounts Henry’s second long term imprisonment in Portland Prison, Dorset. He was tried at the Glamorgan Assizes, Swansea on the 14th November 1898 for the “Great Jewellery Robbery” at Treharris, again with David Davies. They had burgled the premises of John Edwards, Jeweller, Perrot Street, Treharris, stealing watches, chains, rings, and various other articles valued at two-hundred and fifty pounds. Superintendent Thornley commented to Justice Day that both prisoners were habitual thieves and burglars, and both had just been liberated on “ticket-of-leave.”
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 5th March 1910, page 11.
Chapter VII
I suppose many of my readers can well remember the great miners’ strike in 1898, when men, women, and little children were carried to their graves dying every day of starvation; a crime committed in those days was certainly excusable. It was for taking part in a jewellery robbery that I was tried and sentenced to penal servitude for nine years. I was afterwards transferred to Exeter Prison to serve six months’ probation. I made no attempt to escape this time, as I was too carefully watched, for the authorities had not forgotten the last event. I had no trouble there this time, but my troubles were to come. After serving my probation I was transferred to Portland Convict Prison, this being a first-class labour station, and it was here that I composed the “Convict’s Reflections,” which I will give for the benefit of my readers of the “Merthyr Express”:
The Convict’s Reflections
One eve as I sat in my cell, sad and lonely
The prison all quiet, and the warders away
I thought of the parents I had left far behind me
And prayed that again I might see them some day,
When all of a sudden, outside my cell window,
I heard a bird chirping – it seemed full of glee.
So just pay attention, old friends, while I mention
What that little bird told through the bars unto me.
It brought to my mind the bright home of my childhood.
It spoke of the grief and the many sad tears.
That my own darling sister had shed in the wild wood.
When she heard I was sentenced to nine long years.
It said that at night-time when that fair one was sleeping
She would dream of the time when her brother was free,
And even in her slumbers o’er me she would be weeping
The bird whispered this through the bars unto me.
It spoke of two honest, hardworking brothers
It is here, hardened nature, succumbed and tears flowed.
I had seen them, their children, like all jealous lovers,
Remove from the taint of their own flesh and blood.
Oh, sin, thou alluring, and fair faced deceiver,
When, when, shall frail man thy unmasked features see?
When your mates from the tomb hesitate to receive you
The bird whispered this through the bars unto me.
It told me of one who had died broken-hearted
When she heard of the sentence they passed on her lad
Oh, how she did weep on the day that we parted
When I think of my mother it makes my heart sad
How little she thought, on the day that she bore me
That the pride of her breast a poor convict would be
For she prayed that the angels above would watch o’er me
The bird whispered this through the bars unto me.
It spoke of my father, whose days were fast closing,
That the battle of life he himself had to brave,
And it said that he longed to be calmly reposing
By the side of his love in the peace of the grave.
Oh, how well I remember the way he would caress me
And tell me fine tales as I sat on his knee.
But no more in this world shall those fond parents bless me
The bird whispered this through the bars unto me.
And lastly it told me of one I loved dearly
It cost me a pang when from her I’d to part
For it said that she oft-times wished she was near me;
Though a convict, I had still the first place in her heart.
The little bird chirped a good-night, and departed,
But told me to hope for bright days yet to see
And often I think when I’m feeling down-hearted
What that little bird told through the bars unto me.
To be continued….