Who “stole the great seal of England”?

Edward Thurlow (1731–1806, shown here) entered Parliament in 1765 and quickly made a name for himself as a Tory by defending the government’s actions to keep John Wilkes from taking his seat.

When Lord North became prime minister, he appointed Thurlow the solicitor-general of Great Britain. A year later the man became attorney-general, and in that role was involved in the discussions about which individuals could be tried for the Boston Tea Party and other resistance.

In 1778, at the urging of of King George III, Thurlow was made a baron, a member of the Privy Council, and the Lord Chancellor. The last post had a variety of duties, one of which was to look after the Great Seal used to signal that laws and commissions had received government approval.

Thurlow remained Lord Chancellor after Lord North’s fall and through the Whiggish governments that negotiated the Treaty of Paris. When a coalition of Charles James Fox and Lord North made the Duke of Portland prime minister in April 1783, Thurlow was replaced by a committee, but at the end of the year William Pitt the Younger first came to power and reinstated him.

Thus, as of March 1784 the Great Seal of Britain was back in Thurlow’s keeping. It was a gold disk, about six inches across, engraved with images and symbols of the king and the words “GEORGIVS III DEI GRATIA MAGNÆ BRITANNIÆ FRANCIÆ ET HIBERNIÆ REX FIDEI DEFENSOR” (George III, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith).

On 23 March, someone broke into Baron Thurlow’s mansion on Great Ormond Street in London and stole the gold seal, along with some money and two swords with silver hilts.

One might think that government ministers, especially those overseeing the judicial system, would be secure from such break-ins. But people of the time don’t show much surprise that crime could affect the Lord Chancellor. Indeed, back in the fall of 1774 Lord North himself had been the victim of a highway robbery while traveling from London to Oxfordshire.

Some folks speculated that there was a political reason for the theft. It was a remarkable coincidence that the seal disappeared on 23 March just as Parliament was clearly about to dissolve. Did some political actors take the seal to delay that action and the new parliamentary elections to follow? Or perhaps Thurlow didn’t notice the seal was missing until he checked for it on that date.

As it turned out, the loss of the seal had no official effect. The government just commissioned a new one with the year “1784” added in several places. That was in Thurlow’s hands by 25 March as the king officially dissolved Parliament. Another new seal, this one engraved with more care, was unveiled the next spring. By then Pitt had won a big majority and was firmly in power.

Still, lack of evidence didn’t stop prose and graphic satirists from accusing prominent Whigs like Fox of stealing the seal. If not to delay the election, then for its monetary value.

British reference books say the real seal thieves were never found. However, at All Things Georgian, Sarah Murden noted an item from the 21 April Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser:

William Vandeput was on Monday committed to New Gaol, Southwark, where he is now doubled ironed, on a charge of burglary in the house of the Lord Chancellor, and stealing there-out the Great Seal. A Jew in Petticoat Lane was yesterday apprehended, on an information against him for having purchased and melted the Great Seal into an ingot; but while he was conducting to the Rotation Office in Southwark, for examination, he was released from the Peace Officer by eight ruffians. The Jew melted the seal, while the robbers remained in his house.

The Lewis Walpole Library shares a broadside describing the execution of nine men on 1 Dec 1785. Those include Vandeput, identified as “by trade a jeweler, born of creditable parents.” He had been convicted with two other men of stealing silk from a warehouse. But the broadside added:

He was the person who broke open the Lord Chancellor’s house, and stole the great seal of England. For this fact he was tried, but for want of sufficient evidence, acquitted.

Thus, even if that theft officially remains unsolved, people blamed William Vandeput for it.

TOMORROW: Thurlow’s loan and Thurlow’s daughters.