Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Monday 27 February 1922

Mexborough Railwayman’s Two Homes.

Some remarkable facts came to light in a case heard at Horncastle Petty Sessions on Saturday, when Harry Belton, railway worker, Mexborough, was summoned for the non-payment of £9 10s. due under a wife maintenance order.

Belton applied for the order of 30s.—the original order was 40s. per week—to be varied, as his wages had been reduced. It was impossible for him to pay any of the arrears. He produced wage tickets in support of the figures he submitted anent his weekly earnings, but the Magistrates’ Clerk (Mr. J. E. Chatterton) advanced figures which did not correspond with Belton’s tickets.

Replying to the Chairman, Belton said he was living in rooms at Mexborough with another woman, by whom he had had a child.

Mrs. Belton objected to the order being reduced. There was herself and five children to keep. “You don’t love your children,” she told her husband, “and when you come to Horncastle you pass your own door. Your wife and children can go where they like and do what they like so long as you have another woman.”

The Chairman (to Belton): You have kept all your money and spent it on your mistress.

Belton was ordered to pay £5 down or go to prison for a month. The order was reduced to 20s. as from next Saturday.