Catalogue description Prisoner name: Matthew Riely or Matthew Riley or Matthew Rielly . Prisoner details: Aged...

Prisoner name: Matthew Riely or Matthew Riley or Matthew Rielly.

Prisoner details: Aged 20, born in Dublin, employed as clerk by Messrs Lane and Croft from February 1824.

Court and date of trial: Old Bailey December Sessions 1828.

Crime: Uttering a forged cheque of Messrs Lane and Croft at Grote Prescott and Co banking house.

Initial sentence: Death, commuted to transportation for life.

Annotated: Considered at Report in Council, 15 January 1829.

Petitioner(s): Grote Precott and Co [City of London] bankers. Charles Lane (two petitions) and Archer Denman Croft, solicitors, the prisoner's employers. Mary McQueen, wife of John McQueen of Clements Inn Passage, Strand [Middlesex], the prisoner's landlady, undersigned by John McQueen and four inhabitants of Holborn. Thomas Waraker, Chancery Lane, London, law stationer.

Grounds for clemency: The prisoner's youth and previous honesty; he is without family in this country, having left Ireland at the age of 16; at times his behaviour bordered on insanity and his crime was not premeditated; most of the money has been recovered.

Correspondence: Letter concerning ticket of leave for prisoner in New South Wales.

Additional Information: Prisoner held in Newgate then transported to New South Wales.