John Roberts, alias Colin Reculist, forger

Hanged alongside Henry Weston

Jul 14, 2025

In 18th-century England, as modern banking practices evolved, goldsmiths’ receipts for deposits began to circulate as a form of paper money. Their written promises to pay on demand were treated like cash. Financial legislation regularised the practice, and promissory notes became legally negotiable instruments, transferable by endorsement, functioning like privately issued currency.

The system of promissory notes—to pay a specified sum under certain conditions to a nominated person—gave stability and efficiency to financial transactions, but it was vulnerable to fraud. A forged note, falsely issued, undercut these advantages completely and immediately. If a promissory note could not be trusted, the financial standing of the purported issuer was damaged and his credit made suspect. The legal penalties for this were severe. Legislation in 1729 made forgery a hanging offence.

One forger convicted and hanged was a man named John Roberts (~1755-1796), also known as Colin Reculist, who claimed he was Northamptonshire mariner.

In 1783 Collin Reculest was tried for forging a bill of exchange dated 11 November 1782, supposedly issued by Captain J. Cotton and addressed to Ynyr Burgess, Esq., Paymaster at the East India House. The forged bill was for £56 15s, purporting to be wages owed to Reculest by the East India Company for service aboard the East Indiaman Royal Charlotte between 1780 and 1782. In his defence Reculest claimed to have served in the Royal Navy.

I am uncertain if Reculest was indeed a mariner. Burgess and Cotton testified in the trial that sailors were not paid with notes like the forged note he presented: the East India Company only paid wages directly. I feel if Reculest had been a sailor he would have known this.

Reculest was sentenced to death but was given a conditional pardon to serve in the navy.

A year later on 8 December 1784 John Collin Reculest was discharged by proclamation from Newgate prison on the basis that the bill to prosecute him was not sound.

Reculest was in prison again in 1786. Then again in 1788 John Collins alias Collin Reculas, was tried for fraud and acquitted. He was aged 33 (born about 1755), said to be a mariner, born Northamptonshire. Although acquitted he remained imprisoned in Newgate as a debtor. In 1791 John Collins alias Collin Reculus was in the Criminal Registers of Prisoners in Middlesex and the City. He was stated to be a mariner born Northamptonshire and his age was again given as 33, perhaps the clerk did not advance his age for the intervening years. He was discharged in 1792 still aged only 33.

On 26 June 1795 John Roberts forged a promissory note, dated 24 May 1795, Plymouth, purported to be signed by W. Howard. The amount was for five guineas and payable at Plymouth or at Messrs. Hankey, Chaplin, Hall and Hankey, bankers, London. Roberts presented the note to a publican at Spitalfields. The note was then presented to a grocer who paid the money and it was endorsed by John Roberts, the prisoner, with the name “John Stevenson”.

There is no link in the 1796 trial to using the alias Collin Reculast but I think the prison warders at Newgate had seen him before and hence said he was the same man.

Gloucester Journal 27 July 1795 page 2
John Roberts, alias Colin Reculist, was on Monday examined before W. Addington, Esq; at the Public Office in Bow-street, on suspicion of uttering divers forged bills, purporting to be bills on the Plymouth Bank for 5l. 5s. each. John Rubery, of Spitalfields, publican, stated that the prisoner, who was in the habit of frequenting his house, came there on the 26th of June last, and after having some liquer, requested change for a Plymouth Bank bill of 5l. 5s. which the witness being unable to do, took him to the shop of Mr. Heseltine, a grocer, who lives opposite to him, and who gave him change for the said note, which was produced, and proved to be a forged one. The prisoner was also charged with having passed a forged note of a similar description at Woolwich in March last, to which place he went a few days since for the same purpose, but the former circumstance being still in remembrance, he was taken into custody. Committed for further examination.

John Roberts, also known as Colin Reculist, was tried at the Old Bailey on 13 January 1796 and found guilty for the forgery of a £5 note. He received the sentence of death but the judgment was respited for the opinion of the judges.

Bath Journal 25 January 1796 page 3
John Roberts, alias Colin Reculist, alias John Stevenson, was found guilty of forging a Note for five guineas,
Mr. Alley, who defended the Prisoner, started, in arrest of judgment a point of law of the highest importance to be generally known, as it may enable the Public to avoid much imposition. He observed, that the paper, containing the Promissory note forged was unstampt, and contended, that as the statute of the 23d of George III: known by the name of the Stamp Act, rendered every Promissory Note, Bill of Exchange, &c. impleadable and inadmissible to be given in evidence in any Court, the instrument, with the forgery of which the Prisoner stood charged in the Indictment could be considered only as waste paper.
The Lord Chief Baron and the other Judges, after some consultation, allowed the weight of the objection, and it is supposed the case will be reserved for the opinion of the Twelve Judges.

At the Old Bailey, the “Twelve Judges” referred to a group of senior judges from the High Court, who would be consulted on points of law in cases that were considered complex or uncertain.

In the late 1700s forgery occupied a disproportionate amount of the attention of the Twelve Judges as the law as many technical issues arose and the rules and principles were evolving.

The appeal based on an objection on a point of law was unsuccessful in a judgement delivered 11 May 1796. In R. v. Reculist it was objected that a note that could not have been legally negotiated could not be a forgery. The judges held that the stamp act was a revenue law and the presence or absence of the stamp could not affect the status of the instrument as a forgery. “The stamp is not, properly speaking, any part of the instrument; it is merely a mark impressed on the paper to denote the payment of a duty; and is merely collateral to the instrument itself. To constitute the crime of forgery, it is not necessary that the instrument charged to be forged should be such as would be effectual if it were a true and genuine instrument.” But the judges went further in acknowledging the motive that trumped all others; “if the argument in support of the objection were permitted to prevail, the most pernicious consequences would ensue.”

John Roberts was executed by hanging outside Newgate Prison on 6 July 1796. He was executed at the same time as my first cousin five times removed Henry Weston (1773-1796).

*The last dying speech and confession; birth, parentage, and education, of the two unfortunate malefactors, executed this day before the debtor’s door, Newgate.* 1800 viewed through archive.org

John Roberts was a young man, born of honest parents, whose mother is now living at York. He behaved very penitent during the whole of his confinement.

When he was hanged John Roberts was said to be thirty five. I think he was possibly several years older and there was a clerical error in not updating his age from when he was imprisoned in 1786.

Colin Reculist was mentioned as being the husband of Sarah Best (1771-1853) in her 1797 trial when she had been indicted for stealing a cotton counterpane; Sarah was transported; her partner at the time was Peter Catapodi (1753-1810), who was found not guilty. Remarkably, although Catapodi was tried several times for forgery, he was always found not guilty. I will write about Catapodi, who seems to have been an associate of John Roberts, in a separate post.

Anne’s Family History

Discussion about this post

Anne’s Family History

John Roberts, alias Colin Reculist, forger

Hanged alongside Henry Weston

Related post and further reading

Discussion about this post