Welsh Journals

NOTES The Dartmoor Shepherd ROGER L. BROWN David Davies of Llanfyllin was as proud of his nickname as he was of his reputation. His nickname, 'The Dartmoor Shepherd' came from his activity as a prisoner in Dartmoor Gaol; his reputation as a thief derived from his specialisation in robbing church collection boxes. And though this was technically a question of sacrilege even cabinet ministers once expressed an interest in his case. The son of a farm labourer, Davies was born in the parish ofLlanfihangel, Montgomeryshire, in 1849. He died in his 80th year in 1929 on the open road, having absconded from the workhouse at Llanfyllin, where he had been put to avoid yet another prison sentence. There, at the workhouse, Davies delighted to work in the hayfields which belonged to it. One day, in the distance, he saw a shepherd attending the sheep and remarked, 'See that shepherd over there? I'll bet he's having good wages for looking after those sheep. I used to work at the same job in Dartmoor for nothing. David Davies had spent, it was calculated, fifty-five years in prison, and many of those years at Dartmoor. Here he became a trusted inmate, and was allowed out of the prison to look after the animals on the moor, and sometimes to thatch the haystacks or do other farm work. He seems to have been allowed considerable freedom, and once said picnic parties would give him buns, tobacco or cigarettes. In his later prison life he was much displeased that he was considered too old for this outdoor work, and required instead to work in the kitchens. On another occasion during those workhouse years Davies recalled a more celebrated incident in his life. Two visitors came to see him, a Mr George and a Mr Churchill. 'Shakes alive', he replied, 'have Lloyd George and Churchill followed me down here?' Apparently they had visited him in Dartmoor. The governor had summoned him to his office, and he was asked by the two politicians why he was in prison. 'I said, "Oh, I've only robbed a few coppers from a church." They had a few more words with me, and treated me like a gentleman'. Such was his story. All this had arisen because David Davies was generally released from prison with remission for good conduct as a ticket of leave man. This required him to report on a monthly basis to the police, and this he consistently failed to do. Those released on licence in this way and who committed a further crime during the period of remission could expect little mercy from the courts. In 1909 Davies was arrested for stealing from the offertory box at Whitchurch parish church, Shropshire. At the subsequent court hearing at Shrewsbury he pleaded guilty to stealing two shillings and to being an habitual criminal. The sentence imposed on him was three years in penal servitude for the theft and ten years preventative detention for the other charge. This sentence of thirteen years produced a national outcry and both Lloyd George and Churchill took up the case and gave public utterance to their disquiet, both inside and outside the House of Commons. It appears they actually visited Davies at Dartmoor, and the result was that he was released in late 1910 and given work on a farm at Ruthin. Davies was later to state that the Home Secretary had said that he had never seen 'anything parallel with the sentences passed upon me for nothing', and claimed this, together with the additional ten years he had placed on his age, as pleas for mitigation of yet another sentence. Alas, in spite of his later use of this incident, he felt no gratitude on this occasion and simply