A Grim Almanac of South Yorkshire - Kevin Turton - E-Book

A Grim Almanac of South Yorkshire E-Book

Kevin Turton

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Beschreibung

A Grim Almanac of South Yorkshire is a collection of stories from the county's past, some bizarre, some fascinating, some macabre, but all equally absorbing. Revealed here are the dark corners of the county, where witches, body snatchers, highwaymen and murderers, in whatever guise, have stalked. Accompanying this cast of gruesome characters are old superstitions, omens, strange beliefs and long-forgotten remedies for all manner of ailments. Within the Almanac's pages we visit the dark side, plumb the depths of past despair and peer over the rim of that bottomless chasm where demons lurk, with only a candle's light to see by... metaphorically speaking of course. You are invited to take that journey, if you are brave enough, and meet some of the people that populated the past... while author Kevin Turton holds the candle at arm's length.

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A GRIM ALMANACOF

SOUTH YORKSHIRE

A GRIM ALMANACOF

SOUTH YORKSHIRE

KEVIN TURTON

The Grim Almanacs are from an original idea by Neil R. Storey

First published in 2004

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Kevin Turton, 2004 2013

The right of Kevin Turton to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978-0-7509-5422-8

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Iam deeply indebted to the following, without whom this book would not have been completed nor would it have told so grim a tale. The staff of the Sheffield section of the Local Studies Library without whom I would have floundered in the dark; the superb help of Doncaster Archives where nothing was ever too difficult to find; Anthony Munford who died recently and whose help, knowledge and expertise, not only in the writing of this book but also in past enterprises, have been unstinting; the staff of Rotherham Archives and Local Studies who were tireless in their help and for whom nothing was ever too much trouble; Doncaster Local Studies Library for helping to guide me through the town’s rich and varied past; and the authors of the following magazines whose extensive knowledge of dark and murky deeds have proved a rich source of both material and inspiration: the Ivanhoe Review, the Gentleman’s Review, the Gentleman’s Magazine, Burland’s Annals of Barnsley, Sheffield Local Register, Thorne Monthly Illustrated, Historical Notices of Doncaster and of course those hundreds of anonymous newspaper reporters who worked on the Rotherham Advertiser, the Sheffield Mercury, the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, the Yorkshire and Derbyshire Independent, the Barnsley Chronicle and several others whose names have long disappeared. Their reporting of events, be they bizarre, macabre or murderous, has been both detailed and enthralling. No researcher would have such easy recourse to the past had they not reported in detail not only the events but the people involved in them, mundane or sensational. It would seem that nothing of note ever happened over the past couple of centuries without a reporter, clutching a pad and pencil, being on site to record the event for posterity. I am eternally grateful for their vigilance, their accuracy and the various libraries’ foresight in keeping copies of this written record.

My thanks must also go to a number of authors and their works: Armley Gaol 1864–1961 by Malcolm Wright, Crime in Sheffield and The Sheffield Gang Wars by J.P. Bean, Witchcraft in Yorkshire by Patricia Crowther, Strange South Yorkshire by David Clark, Hangmen of England by Brian Bailey, The Art of Mystery & Detective Stories by Peter Haining, Diary of a Hangman by John Ellis, The Sheffield Hanged by David Bentley, Black Barnsley by Ian Harley and The Encyclopaedia of Executions by John J. Eddleston.

My research on this book has taken me into some dark corners of the past and en route I have met some extremely nice people. These interested folk have pointed me in the right direction when I have wandered off course and have directed me towards stories and events I would never have uncovered without their invaluable help. My thanks to all.

Every attempt has been made to contact owners of copyright for images used in this book. If any omission has been made it is not deliberate and no offence was intended.

Lastly I must thank Maureen Yule for her love, support and expertise in helping to bring this book to fruition.

Please note: All pictures are from the author’s collection, unless otherwise credited.

INTRODUCTION

Towards the end of 1910 the celebrated international cellist August Van Been wrote a letter to John Ellis, Britain’s official executioner, requesting that he send him a piece of the rope used in the execution of Hawley Harvey Crippen. The reason for so morbid a request was not Crippen’s notoriety, nor was it because the keepsake could be used to impress guests around the dinner table. It was simply that the cellist had made a number of poor investments over the preceding months and needed a talisman, a good luck charm if you like, something to help him achieve more success in the future. Such was the power of the infamous. To touch the clothing of those newly hanged or to take possession of something owned or used during their execution had long been believed to hold some kind of powerful magic.

The dawn of the twentieth century and with it a more educated populace had obviously done little to discredit the practice. But John Ellis, who served as executioner for twenty-three years and was involved in 203 executions, would never have been allowed to agree to the request. The rope was the property of the Home Office as were all other pieces of apparatus at his disposal. Had he complied he would have been removed from a post in which he took a great deal of pride, and that he would never have been prepared to risk. However, the public’s interest in the darker side of human nature and their fascination with all things macabre was so strong that trafficking in items of this type had once been commonplace.

Just how this bizarre belief developed is not known, but certainly during the latter half of the eighteenth century a widespread interest in crime and all things criminal was tapped into by a variety of writers. Most were poorly paid and remained unrecognised, but they were responsible for the production of broadsheets sold on the day of a public execution at this time. These broadsheets related the tale of the condemned and where possible the final confession, though this was often more fiction than fact. This in turn led to the Newgate Calendars or Annals which reported in greater detail, and often more graphic prose, those crimes deemed to be unusual. These accounts were accompanied by lurid woodcuts, which the broadsheet producers could plagiarise as they saw fit. A huge commercial success, the Calendars sold in their thousands and led Newgate chaplain, the Revd John Villette, to produce a book in four volumes known as The Malefactor’s Register. An expensive work relating the stories of some of this country’s most violent crimes, it sold well among the wealthy but proved beyond the reach of ordinary people. Publishers were quick to recognise this fact. In order to reach a wider audience, they employed a small army of writers whose task it was to produce a weekly penny issue of Newgate Crimes, an almost comic-book format where fact and fiction were often blurred; it attracted a wide readership. The ‘penny dreadful’ had been born.

By the mid-nineteenth century penny dreadfuls had been replaced by weekly serials, eight-page issues of sensational crime stories, well illustrated but often poorly written and produced by publishers whose sole intent was to sell copy, and lots of it. A similar number of writers remained in employment but whereas those who had worked a century earlier were adhering in some small measure to the truth, here the brief was almost the opposite. Those who created the stories of what became known as the ‘penny bloods’ were under instructions to create as much drama and bloodshed as they could legitimately get away with, regardless of the truth. It obviously worked because these publications were hugely successful, fuelling the public’s ever-growing interest in the gruesome, often shocking and certainly repellent world of the murderer and all that murder entailed.

By 1869, when public executions were banned and the scaffold erected within the confines of the prison grounds, these same weekly editions were used to tell the story of the accused in much the same way as the eighteenth-century broadsheets, which had been sold to the waiting crowds gathered around a public gibbet. Such was the interest that if the crime was considered more than usually important, the print run was increased to match demand. Interest was generated by local newspapers, most of which would have reported the crime and subsequent court hearing almost verbatim. The public at large would often still arrive in their thousands outside the prison gate on the day of an execution. Drawn by the stories or by morbid curiosity, they would stand in silence as the clock chimed out the appointed hour, wait for the prison chaplain to post the notice or raise the black flag to signify that the sentence had been carried out, then slowly break up into smaller groups and begin to make their journey home again.

Throughout the Victorian period public interest in this dark and lurid aspect of life remained obdurate. No surprise then that fiction writers began to turn their attention to crime, in some instances taking as their lead the convoluted plots of the penny papers. Edgar Allan Poe, who had enjoyed success in America with his fictional detective, Auguste Dupin, found a market in England. George Reynolds, who had written for the penny bloods, found success with his books of crime stories and these men were followed by such greats as Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. The detective genre had been born.

To a public brought up on stories of the criminal fraternity this was manna from heaven. Eagerly they bought the books, keen to understand how the criminal mind worked – it mattered little whether the story was truth or fiction. All the book-buying public wanted to know was the how and why of a crime. What Poe, Collins and other authors of the late nineteenth century were able to bring to their readers was precisely that, plus a little extra. By this time the police force in Britain was reasonably well established. It lacked scientific knowledge but revelled in procedure, priding itself on the law’s ability not only to catch those who perpetrated ghastly crimes, but also to try them effectively in a court of law. Authors of the stature of Collins and Dickens understood the mechanics of the police force. Dickens retained a fascination for police work for much of his life; he knew a number of Bow Street Runners and, as part of his own research, had spent time talking to convicts in Newgate prison. One of the leading policemen of his day, Inspector Field, no doubt helped fill any gaps in his knowledge of how the force functioned. A great deal of this information was no doubt imparted to his friend Collins, who through a chance discovery of a copy of the Newgate Calendar also began to develop an interest in crime and criminals. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was thrown into the mix there is little wonder that Victorian readers were able to sustain their appetite for all that is grim.

But there were others who were beginning to explore areas that had proved taboo for previous generations. The Victorians not only wanted to know about murder, suicide, infanticide and execution, they also wanted to know what happened next. Did the spirit exist and if so in what form? Where did the spirit go after death? This led to the growth of spiritualism and a fascination with death itself. Newspapers, all too well aware of the reading public’s foibles, began to detail the macabre side of life whenever the opportunity allowed. They reported on coroners’ courts, funerals, murders and subsequent court hearings with greater detail than had hitherto been felt necessary. The public, through ever-increasing newspaper sales, were demanding ever-greater knowledge and there were reporters only too eager to give it to them. Stories of the condemned man’s last moments were no longer enough. The readers of the local dailies wanted a reporter inside the prison sharing the last meal and helping the convicted on to the scaffold. And if that couldn’t happen then a fictional account was perfectly acceptable – just as long as it sounded genuine. Right up to the last executions in mainland Britain, those of Peter Anthony Allen and John Robson Welby who were hanged on the same day in 1964, this continued to be the case.

Today, the interest has not waned. If it had, TV would not exist in its current form and writers would not sell books on all aspects of crime, be it fact or fiction. No one would know of the dark arts and ‘paranormal’ would simply be a hard word to pronounce.

This Grim Almanac is therefore a collection of many of these stories, some bizarre, some fascinating, some macabre but all equally absorbing. I have spent many hours researching those dark corners of South Yorkshire where witchcraft, body snatching, highway robbery, murder and execution, in whatever guise, have stalked through life. I have visited the dark side, plumbed the depths of past despair and peered over the rim of that dark and bottomless pit where demons lurk, with only a candle’s light to see by . . . metaphorically speaking of course. I invite you to take the same journey and meet the people that populated the past . . . while I hold the candle at arm’s length.

JANUARY

1 JANUARY1810 Thomas Tuke, who had died just before Christmas, decreed in his will that a penny was to be given to every child that attended his funeral and a shilling to every woman living in Wath. He also requested that at noon every Christmas Day in perpetuity, forty dozen penny buns were to be thrown from Wath bell tower. Seven hundred children mourned his demise, filling the churchyard and lining his funeral route as the coffin passed. They all received their reward, as did the women, but the distribution of so many penny buns proved a bequest too far. It was abandoned several years after his death because an ever-increasing number of people suffered broken limbs in the scramble to catch the buns as they fell from the lofty height of the tower.

2 JANUARY1676 Adam Hawksworth, innkeeper of Rotherham, appeared before the bench at Rotherham’s courthouse charged with harbouring the notorious highwayman John Brace, alias William Nevison or, as he was known locally, Swift Nick. Nevison, who by this time was well known throughout Yorkshire, was captured weeks later having made a ride from Kent to York in fifteen hours. He was eventually imprisoned in the Yorkshire capital, but escaped after a five-year incarceration. Freedom was short. Recaptured in March 1684, he made the walk to the scaffold a few weeks later. As for Adam Hawksworth, magistrates ordered him to remove his sign, effectively stripping him of his livelihood.

3 JANUARY1842 Williamson Etches was appointed police superintendent for Doncaster, as reported in the police register. He was to base himself in a room inside the town hall, which was to act as his temporary station house. Along with his salary of £80 per year he was given an allowance of coal for his fire and candles to light his office.

4 JANUARY1880 Charles Beasley (aged 12) shot his friend Edward Shepherd in the head while they were playing near their school at Swinton. He had taken his father’s gun from the house that morning believing it was not loaded. Over the course of a couple of hours the two lads had both used the weapon, pretending to shoot at each other, but had not actually pulled the trigger. That was left to Charles and only happened as a result of an accidental slip. After pointing the revolver at an old wooden door he stumbled as he aimed, pressed hard on the trigger and poor Edward was unfortunately in his line of fire as the gun went off.

5 JANUARY1923 Lee Doon (aged 27), a Chinese laundry worker, was executed by Thomas Pierrepoint for the murder of his boss, Sing Lee, in Crookes, Sheffield. Doon had apparently planned to rob his employer and on Saturday 9 September had stayed behind after work for that sole purpose. In what was a frenzied attack, he beat and strangled the man then buried his body in the cellar. On the following morning Lily Siddall, who had worked at the laundry for eighteen months, turned up for work as usual and was told that Sing had returned to China. But Lily had got to know her boss rather well and found the idea that he would have returned to China without her knowledge hard to believe. Suspicious of the story of so unlikely a journey, she resolved to discover if there could have been any truth in it. Resourceful as ever, and aware of Sing’s contacts in the North West, she travelled to Liverpool where she contacted his relatives and told them what she knew. They were equally disbelieving and told Lily that if he had returned to China it had been without their knowledge, which was highly unlikely. When she returned to the Sheffield laundry her worst fears were confirmed: after finding no one managing the shop, she discovered Doon digging in the cellar. Police were called, and the beaten body was discovered locked inside a trunk some 2ft down.

6 JANUARY1842 After a previous falling-out Henry Vaughan stormed into the Sheffield home of Hannah, Sarah and Harriett Poole and attempted to shoot all three sisters. Whether the gun was faulty or his aim was off is not known, but his shots missed all three. Drawn by the women’s screams of alarm, neighbours quickly gathered outside the house. Vaughan ignored their shouts to throw the gun out into the street, and instead turned it upon himself. This time his aim was true and the bullet penetrated his heart, killing him instantly.

7 JANUARY1926 Lorraine Lax (aged 28), fond of drink and gambling, was executed for the murder of his wife Elizabeth. Having always had a stormy relationship, the couple had split up on two occasions over the previous five years, but by August of 1925 were living together again in Sheffield. On the morning of the 31st Lax claimed his wife had attacked him with a cut-throat razor and in the ensuing fight he had disarmed her and killed her in the heat of the moment. Unhelpfully for his case, an examination of Elizabeth’s body revealed that a great deal of violence had been used during the killing. It was unlikely, argued the prosecution, that events were as claimed by the defendant. The jury agreed.

8 JANUARY1657 On this day Thomas Jefferson and his wife Mary, of Woodhouse, Sheffield, were arraigned before the court charged with practising witchcraft. Both, it was claimed, had dug up bodies from Woodhouse churchyard for the purpose of necromancy. According to locals Thomas Jefferson had also cast a spell upon a young woman, Mary Almond, which had caused an illness from which she had died, while his wife had bewitched an old woman by the name of Beatrice Wynne. The court declared Thomas innocent, but hanged his wife as a witch.

9 JANUARY1845 The statement of accounts from Sheffield’s police showed the force was staffed by seventeen constables (first class) at a cost of 18s per week, seventeen constables (second class) at a cost of 17s per week and sixty-four night watchmen at varying rates of pay, all under the watchful eye of three sergeants at a weekly rate of 21s, three inspectors at 25s and a chief constable who cost the city £315 per year.

10 JANUARY1840 Samuel Holberry, a stranger to Sheffield’s streets, was arrested at his house in Eyre Lane after it became known that his arrival coincided with a planned Chartist uprising to attack and burn the city. At his home a quantity of spears, daggers, firearms, bombshells, hand grenades, ball cartridges and fireballs were discovered in a back room. The self-styled leader of an ill-disciplined group of rebels had planned the attack for the following morning but an unknown informer had tipped off the head of Sheffield’s local yeomanry. As he was led away, a muster of this rabble army took place in the streets and surrounding lanes, resulting in shots being fired. A number of night watchmen were wounded before the army were able to break up the mob and regain control of the city. Holberry and his co-conspirator Thomas Booker were charged and tried for high treason two months later and sentenced to four and three years’ imprisonment respectively, sentence to be served at York Castle where Holberry died two years into his sentence. Booker was released in August 1841.

11 JANUARY1858 The Rotherham and Masbrough Advertiser reported that Sarah Ann Harman had pleaded guilty at the Sheffield Intermediate Sessions to stealing a gold watch, a handkerchief, a prayer book, a frock, three books, a brass measure and a pearl handle. In the interval between the robberies and her appearance before the bench, she had married. The court therefore decided upon a more lenient sentence believing marriage would lead her to a better course of life. She was imprisoned for one month.

12 JANUARY1897 George Flowers, labourer, appeared before magistrates at Rotherham West Riding Police Court charged with arson. After being refused admission to Rotherham workhouse because he had been there so often, he had resolved to force police to arrest him in order to gain shelter for the night. Walking into fields at Hough, Rawmarsh, he had deliberately set light to hay ricks, then calmly walked the streets in search of a policeman to whom he could admit his guilt. However, Flowers rather ineptly caused far greater damage than he had intended and magistrates ordered him to be remanded and stand trial at the Spring Assizes.

13 JANUARY1858 Four men died at Killamarsh pit when the rope securing the cage that lowered them to the coalface snapped. According to the coroner’s inquest held at the Navigation Inn there had been a small fire the previous day and the rope had been burnt. George Twigg, responsible for ensuring the men’s safety, ought to have adhered to the written rules as laid down by the government’s inspector of mines. It transpired during the hearing, however, that the unfortunate George Twigg could neither read nor write.

14 JANUARY1860 The tragic case of Hugh Connor, an Irishman living in Barnsley, was related at an inquest held this day. It appeared that Connor had been out drinking the night before with a good friend. Having consumed far too much alcohol, the two set out to return to their lodgings, a walk of some three-quarters of a mile. Caught up in a fierce storm and unable to continue walking against the wind, Connor fell into the gutter and was left there by his friend who could no longer support his weight. He was found dead next morning still lying beside the road but with his trousers round his ankles because his braces had frozen stiff and snapped.

15 JANUARY1908 In their eagerness to see a cinematograph show at Barnsley’s public hall, sixteen children between 4 and 6 years of age were crushed or suffocated to death on a staircase. Not realising just how many children had arrived at the hall, organisers stationed inside at the top of the stairs turned the leading children around and sent them back down, intending the group to enter the building on the ground floor. But such was the popularity of the show that hundreds had joined the back of the queue, the sad result being that those caught in the middle had nowhere to go and died in the ensuing crush.

16 JANUARY1865 A tragic event occurred on this day, when Mary Ann Morris (aged 8) lay down to sleep before a roaring fire. Hot cinders fell on to her clothes and ignited. By the time she awoke and became aware of her awful situation she was engulfed by fire. In a state of panic she ran all around the house screaming for help until neighbours rushed in and managed to extinguish the flames. But it was too late: Mary died some hours later.

17 JANUARY1896 This date brought a report of a freak accident at Bentley. Reuben Clark, a young man of 20, was on his way to work when he saw a loose horse running down the street towards him. Clark had worked with horses in the past and he stepped out into the centre of the road waving his arms in the air to slow the horse down. As it reached him he grabbed at the reins, but just as he managed to turn the horse’s head it reared, he slipped and the frightened animal brought the full weight of its front legs down upon his neck. He was killed instantly.

18 JANUARY1681 At the Angel Inn, Doncaster, Scottish nobleman Alexander, Earl of Eglington, and a travelling companion named Thomas Maddox played dice. After a sizeable win the Earl demanded Maddox pay his debt. Maddox refused, a fight of sorts ensued and, drawing his sword, the Earl stabbed Maddox twice. When Maddox died of his wounds, the Earl Alexander was charged with his murder. At his subsequent trial he was found not guilty and the case was dismissed.

19 JANUARYOld Yorkshire Beliefs, Omens and Sayings If a loud, mysterious tap is heard as of a bullet falling on a table, or three successive strokes on the chamber floor or any of the doors, the hearer is either doomed to die or to hear of the death of a near and dear friend.

To see a pigeon alight on the roof is an omen of sickness about to befall the family.

20 JANUARY1911 The trial of William Hammond, a miner of Wosbro’ Dale accused of murdering his father of the same name, opened this day. But although he was found guilty and sentenced to hang, public opinion and a petition of 3,000 signatures had the sentence commuted to one of life imprisonment.

21 JANUARY1859 Sitting magistrates at Barnsley Courthouse found George Acklam guilty of neglecting his family on this day. After leaving his wife and child five years earlier in order to travel to America, from where he sent no money home, he had returned to Barnsley claiming his wife to be a drunkard and demanding the child be given into his custody. The court disagreed, citing his failure to support his family financially, and insisted he not only repay the amount of relief given to his wife during his absence, but also pay court costs.

22 JANUARYSouth Yorkshire Cures To cure whooping cough you must eat bread baked only by a woman who married without changing her name.

23 JANUARY1823 The government introduced the treadmill into the house of correction for the first time. This was a piece of equipment that served no useful purpose other than as a form of punishment. Prisoners sent to the treadmill would walk up its moving platform for 6 hours a day and climb the equivalent of 8,640ft, while existing on a diet of oatmeal, bread and water.

24 JANUARY1870 Riots broke out in the early hours of the morning at Westwood, Thorncliffe, after employers Messrs Newton Chambers & Co., owners of the Thorncliffe Colliery, gave their entire workforce one month’s notice to quit their jobs and their homes. During a strike lasting seventy-three weeks the company consistently refused to recognise the trade union and workers stubbornly refused to return to work. After the company attempted to renegotiate contracts with each individual miner and to replace the strikers with new labour, over 300 colliers gathered at Tankersley Park to voice their opposition. Local police officers, armed with cutlasses, were sent on to the streets to break up the meeting. When the miners refused to disperse, the police were ordered to charge the crowd, which they did, causing numerous casualties. After regrouping at dawn around Tankersley pit, the miners, whose numbers had swelled to over 500, attacked the homes of company directors and were only prevented from inflicting serious damage by the arrival of police reinforcements who formed a line and charged into the rioters. A pitched battle then broke out, and it was some time before police regained control of the streets. Twenty-three men were consequently arrested and sent for trial at York.

25 JANUARY