Copped Hall in Essex has been a home since the early medieval period, but was significantly altered and rebuilt in the 1750s by John Conyers as a modern Georgian mansion. In 1775 though, it was the scene of a violent and sudden robbery.
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| Copped Hall, Essex by Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
At about 2am one July morning, a group of men broke into the hall through the parlour. There, they made their way through the darkness to the butler's pantry, where the butler slept. Hearing them, he was startled and woke, and on seeing that he had stirred, one of the robbers threw the bedsheets over his head so he could not see the assailants. Steadying a cutlass across his throat, the robber told the butler that he would kill him if he moved or tried to wake up the family.
The butler stayed still, feeling the cold steel of the blade through the bedsheets, and hearing the sounds of movement around him. He later testified that he heard the family's silver plate being slipped into sacks. The attack lasted around an hour, as he heard the clock strike 3am, and soon afterwards there was quiet. The man standing over him with the cutlass lingered for a few seconds longer and then left, but not before telling the terrified butler in a low voice that 'he would blow his brains out if he either rose or called out for an hour to come'.
Gingerly, the butler got up, and found his door locked on the outside. Awkwardly stepping out of a window, he managed to get back into the main house and alert the family as to what had happened. The Conyers' sent servants quickly out onto the roads to see if they could find the attackers and recover the family's valuables. Messengers were also sent to Bow Street in London relating what had happened for officials to investigate. Scouts were sent to monitor roads, streets and lanes to find out if anyone was selling the family's silver plate, but nothing unusual was reported.
Later that afternoon there was a breakthrough. An eyewitness had remembered seeing a Hackney coach, with the number 44 on it, passing near Copped Hall towards London very early in the morning, with the blinds of the carriage drawn tightly closed. It was soon discovered that coach 44 belonged to a man named Mr Mountaine in Oxford Road who had owned it for almost fifty years. Mountaine said that the coach however had not been returned to him that evening, making him worried about its whereabouts. An official was then stationed at the coach yard to wait until the carriage returned. Immediately, on its late arrival the driver of the coach was arrested and questioned.
Initially unco-operative, the driver eventually began to explain where he had been for two days and why Mountaine's coach had not been returned as usual. He testified that he drove six men, the leader being named Lambert Reading, to Copped Hall in the early hours of Monday morning. Once they had loaded their sacks of plate and valuables onto the carriage, he took the men to a house in Brick Lane, where they offloaded the bags. Investigators took the address of the property and a description and entered the house. They found Lambert Reading 'in bed with his girl, ten loaded pistols lying by him, and the greatest part of Mr Conyer's plate'. It was found that Lambert was a repeat offender and had previously been imprisoned in New Prison, Clerkenwell over the previous two years.
Justice for Lambert was swift. With the goods back in Conyers' possession, the leader of the gang was arrested. The Annual Register of that year remarked that Lambert was 'apprehended on Tuesday morning early, examined at Bow Street on Wednesday, and committed to New Prison, Clerkenwell, where he was removed n a coach at five o'clock on Thursday morning, to Chelmsford where he took his trial and was convicted the same day'. His sentence was to be executed on the following Saturday. The house's owner only lived for two more months after this terrifying ordeal, dying in September 1775. The ownership of Copped Hall transferred to his son John.
Liked this? You might also like Mary Edmonson, Accused Georgian Murderess, Mary-Ann Ryan, Highway Robber of Georgian England and Life in Eighteenth Century Theale, Berkshire.
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Sources:
Copped Hall website [accessed 16 August 2025]
The Annual Register for the year 1775, via archive.org, 24 July 1775
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