The appalling Lady Jane Peat, the infamous Sunderland miser
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But you've never met a skinflint like Sunderland's Lady Jane Peat.
Readers may remember a couple of centuries after Jane, oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty installing a pay phone in his Surrey mansion. It's the sort of thing Jane would have failed to find controversial.
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Hide AdHowever, there was more to Jane than merely being as tight as a duck's behind. She was also a kleptomaniac and extraordinarily callous, managing to recoup some cash in the most deplorable way from the scene of the murder of her unfortunate servant girl.
She was quite simply, an appalling woman.
Background
With a nod to the 1887 Monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore and Legend...
Born Jane Smith in Sunderland in 1751, her father was squire Mathew Smith, from whom she inherited her incredible parsimony.
In 1786 father and daughter were fined £10 (equivalent to about £1,800 today) for failing to pay a toll to ride through a turnpike at West Rainton. They lied to the gatekeeper about having already paid to pass earlier. The gatekeeper successfully sued them.
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Hide AdJane was evidently not imbued with any sense of embarrassment, not if money was involved.
Little else is known of her, until August 28, 1815.


A brutal murder
Before that date she had left her home, Herrington Hall beside what is now the Board Inn, on a rent-collecting spree lasting a few days. No surprise that the awful chain of events began with the unstinting acquisition of money.
In Jane's absence her only servant, 20 year-old Isabella Young, stayed behind. Not wishing to squander coal and candles on a mere servant, Isabella was ordered to reside with a neighbour called Mrs Blackett, while Jane was away, thereby saving on both heat and light.
On the day Jane was supposed to return, but did not, Isabella went back to her own bed. During the night the girl was murdered by two blows to the back of head, probably from a poker. Her jaw was also broken in several places.
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Hide AdThe house was then set alight. Although Isabella's body was not burned, the house and most of its contents were destroyed.
When Jane eventually did return, she was distraught by what she found. That house had been worth a fortune.
Nevertheless, the classy chatelaine at least managed to retrieve a few bob by raking through the debris for nails, bolts, hinges or anything that might salvage a few pennies as scrap.
Rather than fork out for lodgings, she kipped for a while in the shed, covered for warmth by the same horse cloth which had been placed over Isabella's corpse. Ker-ching!
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Hide AdJane did offer one hundred guineas reward if the offenders could be brought to justice, so she must have been supremely confident that they never would. She was correct.
In August 1819 in Durham, John Eden, 28, James Wolfe, 56 and his son George Wolfe, 30, were tried for the murder, burglary and arson. John and James were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.
However, some Quakers argued, quite reasonably, that as James had been 100 miles from Herrington when the crime was committed, he might have a workable alibi. John Eden was found to have been convicted on by the lies of one James Lincoln, "a Seaman of Sunderland" who was later convicted for his perjury.
Lincoln presumably came dangerously close to trousering Jane’s 100 guineas. Phew.
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Hide AdWolfe was pardoned by the king, although the issue of a "pardon" for someone who hadn’t done anything wrong in the first place remains vexatious today (Alan Turing?).
The crime was never solved.
The ‘happy’ couple
On November 6, 1815 just 10 weeks after the murder, Jane Smith, then 65, married Sir Robert Peat, 43. Those of a romantic disposition should look away now.
John was an Anglican cleric, who had been chaplain and senior toady to the Prince Regent, later the shiftless gut-bucket George IV.
John was also inept at cards and by 1815 was looking to "marry well" as they say. His initial proposal to the wealthy Wearsider was turned down.
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Hide AdShe knew he needed money and, as we have surely now established, she was a congenital miser.
But after lengthy negotiations (the term is used advisedly), she agreed to become Lady Peat. A title for her; £1,000 a year for him.
Robert had lodged at Sunderland's Bridge Hotel, but the day after the wedding took his new bride to London to "introduce her to the town quality, in the hope of curing her of her bad habits, one of which was a disposition to appropriate whatever came in her way". He soon gave up.
They set up home in Villiers Street, which she furnished with the customarily purloined tat.
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Hide AdOne day Robert looked in the larder where "he found a large number of mutton pies, all mouldy, the shank bone of a leg of mutton in a state of decomposition and other exquisite dainties of a like kind."
It was Robert's only ever visit to the larder. Jane was, in the modern parlance, a minger.
Nevertheless, she was a good neighbour to others in Villiers Street, calling at their houses regularly. At mealtimes. Her husband was soon living in Nile Street. Alone.


The marriage lasted over 21 years, but was not a joyous one. She was usually in Sunderland; he at his vicarage in London where he died in 1837. Lady Jane was not exactly distraught at the news of his passing.
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Hide AdIn fact she was chuffed. She was still “Lady” but now didn’t have to part with £1,000 a year for the privilege.
She went out to celebrate by buying, yes buying, a gaudy new bright yellow dress, in a High Street shop; albeit she unsuccessfully attempted to nick an ostrich feather while she was there.
She just couldn’t stop pilfering
Jane is understood to have ridden in the boot of a stagecoach so she could only be charged as luggage. But as mentioned earlier, in addition to being a spectacular tightwad, Jane was also a kleptomaniac. If it was discrete and not nailed down, it was hoisted.
Other well-know kleptomaniacs include, for example, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones. But whereas Mr Jones' habit was born of poverty and later overcome, neither claim can be made for Jane.
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Hide AdSo hooked on pilfering was she that when caught: "She had often to pay a hundredfold or a thousandfold for what she had stolen - a year's rent of a farm for a silver spoon," but continued stealing anyway
She once swiped some butter from a grocers, upon which: "Some wags in the establishment managed to place her near a rousing fire, and kept her there talking till the butter ran all down her petticoats." Ha! Ha!
An errand boy once dropped off baskets full of quality food at her Villiers Street home. It was the wrong address, but Jane was good enough to return the baskets. Empty.
Death and legacy
Lady Peat died on November 26, 1842 aged 91 and left over £250,000 worth of property in her will; about £25million in 2024 money. She had no children (have you seen the price of nappies?).
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Hide AdYou can't take it with you - as she would assuredly would have otherwise done so - so she left it to acquaintances who were already well off. Her faithful domestic, old Bella, received zip.
In 2009 a sculpture was unveiled in Jane's dishonour in East Herrington Play Park. It deliberately resembles coins and is inscribed: "Take heed from Lady Jane Peat, miser of Herrington (1750–1842); And Isabella Young her maid, murdered in 1815.
"Money is a good servant but a bad master."
The last bit is attributed to Francis Bacon; the philosopher, not the painter.
A nearby blue plaque hangs outside Middle Herrington Methodist Church, near where Herrington House stood. It mentions Isabella Young and politely describes the incorrigible grasper as "the eccentric Lady Jane Peat”.
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Hide AdIt gives Jane's year of death as 1824, which is incorrect. So whoever ordered the plaque should demand their money back, as there could be no more appropriate way in which to remember Sunderland's greatest ever miser.
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