The exact location of the Red Cow is unknown but William Clark was landlord of a beerhouse by that name in the 1830s.
July 1836 Wm Clark fined £2 for allowing men drinking whilst in a state of intoxication on a Sunday against the statute, Clark admitted the offence claiming as he kept a cow he was up early tending to it before going back to bed, when he arose his niece had allowed the men into his house serving them with ale,
In 1837, Clark was heavily reprimanded by the Mayor after Clark had been charged with assaulting Mary Freer. During a quarrel the landlord kicked Freer, who was heavily pregnant, in the stomach. Clark’s defense was that Mary Freer was a quarrelsome, meddling woman. The Mayor described Clark, who had previous licensing convictions, as a ‘very unfit person to keep an alehouse and the fine he was about to inflict would render him unable to continue as alehouse keeper; it would be to the benefit of the town of Leicester.’
Clark was fined £3 or two months and either paid up or served the time as he was still at the Red Cow in 1840, when he charged George Kilby with stealing some apples from his garden. Kilby was arrested on the West Bridge by PC 24 with a quantity of apples on him. Clark testified they were similar to the ones missing, and footprints were also found in Clarks garden matching Kilby’s. Kilby was threatened with three weeks in prison if he failed to pay a fine of 10/-.
In October 1842 David Lawrence of the Red Cow Redcross Street (perhaps a lodger), was charged with assaulting the police at the Yeomanry race. Lawrence had his spurs on at the time, kicking the policeman and causing injury. He was fined £2 or a month in prison. ‘I’ll take the time’, Lawrence replied.
William Clark is still recorded as victualler of the Red Cow in Whites’ Directory of 1846, a year after he was accused of shameful conduct when he with others broke open the gates of Freemans Place with a crowbar turning the horses out. The horses were soon lodged in the cattle pound by the police but not before Clark and the others had fought a battle with twenty or thirty police and stout freeman.
There is little reference to the Red Cow in Redcross Street after 1850, other than William Clark, Redcross Street was described as a cow keeper in the 1857 poll register. In 1858, William Clark had his dwelling house and cow house in Redcross Street up for sale.
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