Arrest of Nat Gould

In 1906 Nat Gould had a memorable encounter with the local police, when he was arrested for being intoxicated in the Station Tavern in Bedfont Lane. The account of Nat Gould’s arrest was fully reported in the Middlesex Chronicle dated 7 April 1906. It was one of the early cases heard at the newly opened Feltham Magistrates' Court.

The newspaper report strongly hints that the police were determined to secure a conviction, but Nat was acquitted, to public acclamation. The report speaks for itself, but it is worth adding that Nat was actually 49 not 47. It is also interesting to learn from the report that he could play the piano.

What happened was that two police officers, having received an anonymous tip-off by phone, went to the Station Tavern at 1.30 pm on 28 March 1906 and found Nat Gould there drinking champagne. One of the officers said to the landord "Do you see this man is drunk?" but was told that he was all right when he came in. Further conversation with the landlord followed, and when the officer turned to arrest Nat Gould he found he had left the tavern and was trying to get into his horse-drawn trap which was waiting outside. He refused to get out and was arrested and taken to Bedfont police station, which was actually only a few yards away from his home in Staines Road. He strongly denied that he was drunk, and treated the matter as a joke, calling the policemen scoundrels.

Just before 2.20 pm Nat Gould's gardener came down the road from Newhaven, and bailed him out.

The magistrates expressed their dissatisfaction that, although the police had made many enquiries, the only evidence of the alleged drunkenness came from the police themselves. In contrast evidence to the contrary was given by several members of the public.

In his own defence, Nat Gould explained that he had gone out in his pony and trap to visit a Mr Harris at the Railway Hotel where he drank some champange with him. (This was a different pub, two hundred yards away in Feltham High Street, from the Railway Tavern where the arrest took place. Between the two pubs there was a railway level crossing.) When he left, he found the crossing gates closed across the road and the railway signals down. As his pony was rather skittish, he asked a man to hold him while he went into the Railway Tavern and drank half a glass of champagne. The man who held the pony's head gave evidence that Nat was sober and that the police treated both Nat Gould and his pony shamefully. Witnesses inside the Railway Tavern also gave evidence that Nat Gould was not intoxicated.

The magistrates ruled that the evidence was confused and that Nat Gould should have the benefit of the doubt. He was discharged, the decision being received with cries of "Hear, hear!" and loud applause from the back of the Court.