York Read online

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Chapter One York’s Gaols

  Chapter Two Trial & Punishment in York

  Chapter Three Gallows Galore!

  Chapter Four Arsonists

  Chapter Five Counterfeiters & Coiners

  Chapter Six It’s All Relative

  Chapter Seven Infanticide and ‘Pleading the Belly’

  Chapter Eight Rebels, Rioters and Reformers

  Chapter Nine Gentlemen of the Road

  Chapter Ten Poisonous Perpetrators

  Chapter Eleven Devout Detainees

  Chapter Twelve Carnal Crimes

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  * * *

  Peculiar as it may seem, it is still legal to kill a Scotsman within the city walls of York, so long as your chosen weapon is a longbow and you don’t shoot on a Sunday! Just one of the many historic un-repealed laws still remaining on the statute book; though it may seem nonsensical today, at the time this law was passed it was considered expedient legislation in the face of the repeated Scottish raiding parties, terrorising York after the defeat of Edward II’s army at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

  York’s history is long and colourful, reflected in the street pattern of the city that still thrives within the confines of its walls, evolving from the Roman Eboracum to the seventh-century Anglian Eoforwic then the Viking Jorvik, and while the York of the Middle Ages is all but hidden and disguised beneath Georgian and Victorian façades, the fabric of the city is almost entirely medieval underneath it all.

  In the 1720s, Daniel Defoe wrote of the city in his A Tour Thro’ The Whole Island Of Great Britain that, ‘Fires, sieges, plunderings and devastations, have often been the fate of York; so that one should wonder there should be any thing of a city left.’

  The glorious York Minster was once juxtaposed with streetscapes of noisy and crowded narrow lanes crammed full of dwellings – a far cry from today’s York. It was smelly too! Butchers’ offal rotted in the street, and where privies didn’t empty into the city moat or over the Ouse Bridge, slops were destined for the street; little wonder then that in the fourteenth century, York was ranked amongst the filthiest of cities. In a letter from Edward III to the Mayor and bailiffs of York in 1332, Edward, who knew York well, complained of ‘dung and manure wherewith the streets and lanes are filled and obstructed.’ In spite of a number of ordinances passed stating that pigs, prostitutes and all manner of excrement were no longer to be tolerated on the street, the lane called Patrick’s Pool, a continuation of Swinegate, was described in 1249 as ‘so deep in mire that it was impassable’.

  The social situation with regard to overcrowding, filth and disease was further exacerbated in the late eighteenth century, when the population swelled from 17,000 inhabitants in the year 1800 to 40,000 by 1850. This increase inevitably spawned dark and overrun tenements in certain districts of the city, which in turn bred crime and disorder. The three Waters lanes of the city (though swept away by a flush of Victorian development in 1881 creating King Street, Cumberland Street and Clifford Street) overlay a former neighbourhood of the poorest classes, known for housing the desperate and the poor, including many of York’s population of prostitutes. Large families were forced to live in back-to-back courtyard dwellings sharing a single standpipe and one midden privy – no small wonder, then, that in 1831 the unfortunates from just those three streets alone accounted for 10 per cent of all the cholera deaths suffered in the epidemic of that year. Naturally, theft and violent crime was rife in these areas and dealt with harshly. Writing in 1856, Charles Phillips, Barrister & Commissioner for the Court of Insolvent Debtors, remarked that, ‘We hanged for anything – for a shilling – for five pounds – for cattle – for coining – for forgery, even witchcraft – for things that were and things that could not be.’

  Of course, York today is a healthy and vibrant city. However, there are reminders everywhere harking back to its more discordant past; if one enters where the road pierces the city walls at Monk Bar, if you look above as you pass beneath the fourteenth-century four-storey gatehouse you will see the crude limestone figures positioned around the top of the crenulated turrets, poised to drop rocks on the heads of any potential miscreants entering the city.

  In this book, I have drawn together what I hope will prove an interesting and varied set of accounts of murders and crimes, of punishment, incarceration and executions in York. From treason, insurrection and highway robbery to plain old theft and slander, all were viewed as transgressions in the eyes of the law and treated as such, and invariably with decisive finality.

  Rather than scrolling off a litany of criminals and their crimes in a staid chronology of York’s darker past, I have tried to give a flavour of the everyday as well as the notorious. While some of the higher profile murders and crimes mentioned herein may not have actually been perpetrated within the city walls, I hope that the reader will forgive me for straying outside of the city boundaries, as every soul included in these pages, regardless of the geographical specifics of their transgression, was either tried, imprisoned, punished or ultimately executed in York itself. Their accounts are too interesting and poignant to exclude on the pretext that they may deviate from strict titular adherence – they do, after all, form part of the fabric of York’s judicial history.

  I hope you will enjoy this collection of some of the foulest deeds perpetrated and punished in York’s past, uncovered from the often overlooked shadier side of this city’s character. With stories ranging from child murders to brutal stabbings, the transgressions that are revealed promise to shock and fascinate in equal measure.

  I would like to acknowledge and offer my grateful thanks to all those who have assisted with the writing of this book. To Jack Gritton especially for the photography; Michael Woodward of York Museums Trust for his patience in the face of my interminable permission and copyright enquiries, along with the staff of York Castle Museum, and Ian Drake, Keeper of the Evelyn Collection for The Yorkshire Architectural & York Archaeological Society.

  Whether your interests lay in true crime or historic York itself, I hope you will enjoy the accounts that follow as much as I have enjoyed researching and writing about them.

  Summer Strevens, 2013

  CHAPTER ONE

  YORK’S GAOLS

  * * *

  In the heart of old York, and probably the oldest candidate as a site of incarceration, stands Clifford’s Tower. The tower is almost all that now remains of York Castle, originally built by William the Conqueror in 1068. Sited on the defensible vantage of a tall mound and offering panoramic views out over the historic city, Clifford’s Tower is surely one of the most popular and iconic of York’s historic attractions today. In 1190 the tower was the scene of a tragedy fuelled by anti-Semitism that is remembered still and commemorated with the memorial stone at the base of the castle mound. In fact, it is said that the ground within the tower is still stained red, even after being dug up and replaced.

  Clifford’s Tower, York.

  Memorial Stone commemorating the deaths of some 150 Jews who were massacred in a pogrom in the castle keep in 1190.

  William the Conqueror built two castles in York; the second, known as the Olde Baile, was built in 1069, across from its counterpart on the River Ouse. Both constructed as motte and bailey fortifications, they were sited so that a chain could be slung across the river between the two, in order to prevent a repeat of Norwegian King Harold Hadrada’s watery attack some three years previously. Like York Castle, the Old Baile was also used as a gaol, passing into the ownership of the Archbishop of York in 1194 and thereafter known as the Archbishops’ Castle, with part of the defences evocatively named Bitch Daughter Tower and used as a royal
prison. Though undergoing various changes of use over time, with the upper storeys providing a ready supply of stone when the Ouse Bridge was in need of repair in 1567, Bitch Daughter Tower was also utilised as a guardhouse during the Parliamentary siege of York in 1644. By the nineteenth century however, it had fallen into use as a lowly stable.

  Written records attest to York Castle being used as a gaol from the earliest times, and it was certainly employed as such during the troubled reign of King John from 1199 to 1216. While the keep of the castle formed the royal quarters, providing for John’s own security, prisoners taken during the King’s Irish campaigns were also held there. In the reign of John’s successor, King Henry III, York Castle’s role as a gaol was expanded to hold a wide range of prisoners, with over 300 inmates incarcerated at any one time in what were described as ‘appalling’ conditions, often resulting in death during imprisonment. Responsibility for the gaol during this period fell to the Sheriff, but his deputy usually filled the role of full-time gaoler; though the efficacy of the deputy in charge during 1298 must be open to question, as twenty-eight prisoners successfully broke out in this year. In 1307, York Castle was used to hold many of the arrested Knights Templar on the dissolution of their military order, and in 1322 King Edward II also used the castle as a repository for rebellious barons taken prisoner during his reprisal campaign, many of whom, following his victory at the Battle of Boroughbridge, were executed there.

  York Castle continued to be used extensively as a gaol, with prisoners distributed around the various towers surrounding the bailey, although during Cromwell’s Commonwealth, efforts were made to separate Clifford’s Tower (which Parliament was using as a garrison) from the bailey buildings, which continued to be used as a prison. Political prisoners continued to be held in the castle after the Restoration, most notably George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends.

  Bitch Daughter Tower.

  A panorama of fifteenth-century York by E. Ridsdale Tate. York Castle is on the right-hand side of river, opposite the abandoned motte of Baile Hill. (Courtesy of York Museums Trust, York Art Gallery)

  As one might expect, the York authorities also controlled a number of municipal premises for the purposes of penitentiary, and the first solid reference to a public prison granted by the Crown is in 1278–9, when the Kidcote is mentioned. (The Close Rolls – the Chancery’s administrative records of the time – do allude to such a prison earlier on in 1248, however.) The origin of this name is uncertain but it may well have been a facetious nickname, as the literal meaning of kidcote is ‘A pen used to confine young goats’, and the use of the name seems more prevalent in the north, with Lancaster, Wakefield, Lincoln and Gainsborough all boasting Kidcotes.

  Guarded by bailiffs during the day and the city’s butchers at night, the Kidcote was used to confine detainees of both sexes before they could be brought before a court. Mere suspicion of being a ‘night walker’ could prove strong enough grounds for being locked up; in other words, if one was found to be out after dark and deemed to be of dubious appearance, then there was a good chance of spending some time in the Kidcote. It would seem that by 1398 York had a need for increased holding capacity, as there are references to more than one Kidcote. Numbering at least seven, it is known that two of these, the Sheriffs’ Prison and the Mayor’s Prison, were in operation. These were sited at either end of the medieval Ouse Bridge, and while conditions must have been squalid at the best of times, the situation must have been considerably worsened when the river flooded. The Ouse did and still does flood frequently, but the flooding in the winter of 1564–65 caused part of the bridge to be swept away.

  A panorama of York Castle (c. 1730). (Courtesy of York Museums Trust, York Art Gallery)

  In York, certain Kidcotes were used by various authorities, depending on the specific transgression committed. The differentiation in the criminal criteria determining which Kidcote was used to hold which offenders is not entirely clear cut; however, as an example, a man charged with stealing the keys of Bootham Bar in 1489 was held in the Sheriffs’ custody, as was a suspected murderer in 1522, while another man accused of posting ‘slanderous bills’ in 1536 was detained at the other end of the bridge, in the Mayor’s Kidcote.

  York can also lay claim to being the only city on historical record to have ever had a dedicated ‘forest prison’. Located on Davygate in a building called Davy Hall, this lock-up was used exclusively to hold those who had broken Forest Law, a harsh legislation introduced by the first of England’s Norman kings, William the Conqueror. Operating outside of Common Law, it was intended to protect and preserve the level of animals in newly designated Royal Forests from lowly poachers, to ensure a plentiful supply could be hunted exclusively for royal pleasure. Appropriately enough, Davy Hall was administered by the king’s Larderer, who was responsible for ensuring sufficient fresh meat a-plenty was available for royal consumption whenever the monarch visited York. The first royal records which mention the Larderer, in 1135, show that his name was David; his descendants, usually called David, were to remain in this hereditary role until the fifteenth century.

  Ouse Bridge in 1791, by artist John White Abbott. (Courtesy of York Museums Trust, York Art Gallery)

  Surprisingly, even York Minster had its own prison, though this was exclusively for holding clerical lawbreakers. In view of the more relaxed punishments meted out to the clergy in their own church courts, it was commonplace for accused criminals to try to ‘plead clergy’, claiming to be a churchman and thereby eligible to be tried by the ecclesiastic courts and hopefully receiving more lenient treatment. Known as the Bishop Prison, or latterly the Convict Prison, the Archbishop’s gaol was in operation by 1351. Located in the precincts of the Archbishop’s Palace, most probably in the crypt of St Sepulchre’s Chapel, it has been mooted that a possible alternative site for this prison was within the Old Baile, however, in 1816, during the rebuilding of The Hole in the Wall pub, the discovery of an underground room measuring 32ft by 9ft was made beneath the building, lending weight to the prior claim that St Sepulchre’s had in fact been somewhat irreverently converted into a public house.

  Ouse Bridge as it appears today, without the Kidcotes.

  The Church’s custodial reach also extended to its tenants, over whom it exercised independent jurisdiction. Both St Mary’s Abbey and the Minster exercised control over all that went on within their own walled boundaries, the areas inside known as the Liberty of St Mary and the Liberty of St Peter respectively, hence York Minster’s very own gaol and gallows are known as ‘Peter Prison’. The first mention of ‘Seyntepetreprisons’, as Peter Prison was sometimes known, is in 1275 and was initially sited where Stonegate enters the Minster Yard (now Minster Gates, Deangate). Later, at some unspecified date, the prison was relocated to a site that lay within the Lop Lane gate of the Minster precincts, and the York Arms public house in High Petergate now lays claim to occupying the former site of Peter Prison.

  By 1289, St Mary’s Abbey Prison, the sister gaol to Peter Prison, was built. The abbey’s right to keep the prison was expressly granted by charter in 1448 and despite the dissolution of King Henry VIII’s reign, the Liberty of St Mary’s Abbey was preserved along with its privileges, which included the maintenance of a debtors’ prison located beside the abbey’s north gate. However, by 1736, records show that the prison and adjacent courtroom were in a ‘neglected’ state and it can be assumed that use of the premises were curtailed from this time, if not before. Ironically, stone from the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey was used in the construction of the new County Prison, completed in 1705.

  Davygate, York.

  In addition to these church prisons and various Kidcotes, other prisons did exist in the city. One such was located close to the city moat, in the area known as Bean Hills, midway between Fishergate and Walmgate bars (‘Bars’ being the name given to the imposing gateways punctuating the city’s impressive walls, all four are still in existence today). It is likely that the actual guardroom of
Fishergate Bar (later known as Bean Hills gate) was used to imprison both sexes who were held as ‘recusants’ – nonconformist Roman Catholics in the reign of Elizabeth I – and by 1577 the surge in their persecution necessitated the use of the gatehouse of Monk Bar as a prison as well, with the addition of a new prison on the King’s Staith, built in 1585.

  By 1609, overcrowding in York Castle Gaol had reached such a level that prisoners were being pardoned and released, in order to make room for the new detainees. By 1636, however, the gaol had fallen into such a state of decay that several attempts to escape were successfully made in the following years. Most notably by James Willas who, having been imprisoned in September 1731 for house breaking, escaped from York Castle Gaol twice, and on his second attempt absconded with twenty-one other felons. In the wanted notice that was issued after his first, ultimately unsuccessful escape in November 1731, Willas was described as ‘A Felon, late of Doncaster, a broad well-set Man, black down-looking Complexion, middle-siz’d, pock-ared [sic], wears a black Wig’. Of the eighteen felons who were recaptured after the second escape, ten were subsequently hanged, Willas among them.

  Another ambitious but failed escape attempt was made by George Harger in September 1761. Committed for murder, Harger sought to dig his way out of the castle with a knife and a shoemaker’s hammer – he was discovered several yards underground and afterwards was chained to the wall with his three accomplices, John Wilson, William Andrews and George Cox.

  Presumably the long inadequate holding facilities were the catalyst for the decision in 1701 to build a new prison in the bailey area of York Castle. Though the chronology above attests that the castle still functioned as a gaol, the old buildings were swept away (apart from Clifford’s Tower) and the new County Gaol was open by 1705. Known as the Debtors’ Prison and described by Daniel Defoe as ‘The most stately and complete prison of any in the Kingdom, if not in Europe, kept as neat within side as it is noble without’, the prison actually became a visitor attraction in its own right; the gentry classes would come to view the prisoners through the railings of the exercise yard. All classes and classification of criminal were visible; murderers and malcontents, bigamists and burglars, poisoners and prostitutes. For example, murderer William Meyer, a native of York, was held here. He had been found guilty of shooting dead Joseph Spink, assistant to the Sheriff’s office. Meyer murdered Spink in his own home in Micklegate on 18 October 1780. At his trial held at York Lent Assizes, Meyer’s wife Mary was acquitted of involvement with the murder; Meyer was hanged on 6 April 1781.