York

by Summer Strevens

  Being found guilty for burglary also carried the death penalty. In 1579, ringleader Charles de Pascal and four accomplices (Thomas de Warltire, aged twenty-nine; George de Priestly, aged forty; Hannah Fourcroy, aged twenty-five and Charlotte Morrett, aged twenty-seven) were all executed on July 30 for breaking into the warehouse of Mr Robert Kirwan and stealing silks and drapery goods to the value of 100 guineas – in today’s money, the value of the stolen goods amounted to just shy of £20,000.

  In 1783, John Riley, native of York, under the cover of darkness broke into Peter Pollard’s house in St Helen’s, Stonegate and made off with 380 yards of linen, worth an estimated 17 guineas – Riley was found guilty at Summer Assizes and hanged on Saturday, 23 August 1783.

  A pistol contemporary to the early 1780s.

  Although not as well known as Dick Turpin, fellow highwayman William Brown still suffered the ultimate penalty of the law when found guilty of robbery on York’s fashionable New Walk. He was charged for the savage and aggravated theft from John Armstrong, who was in fact a neighbour of Brown’s. The presiding judge, Mr Raine, passed sentence without ‘a shadow of mercy’, and the jury took only three minutes to return with a verdict of ‘guilty’. Brown was executed at the New Drop on 20 August 1809.

  For a while, the new prison served its purpose well. In the early years of the eighteenth century, records indicate that the prison buildings were kept clean and that a chaplain and surgeon were employed there, even before the introduction of compulsory legislation to do so. However, John Howard, ‘the Great Prison Reformer of the eighteenth century’, visited York Prison in the early 1780s and found it, ‘A noisesome place with cells that were little more than unlighted dungeons, and, thanks to those who inhabited them, filth and fever-haunted dens of iniquity in which hundreds of people in festering masses were confined.’

  * * *

  ‘savage and aggravated theft’

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  The prisoners were given a 3lb 2oz loaf every Tuesday and Friday, and this was all they would have to eat unless they had friends or relatives who brought them food. The tiny cells were 7ft by 6ft, with only straw on the floor for bedding. There was an open sewer running along the passages, but no water in the cells. Each cell usually held up to three prisoners, but not everyone convicted of a capital offence made it to the gallows. Prisoners were often tightly packed into the cells and on the night of 27 October 1737 nine prisoners confined in the same cell actually suffocated to death. Prisoners were, however, allowed to exercise daily in the prison courtyard and while doing so they were afforded the opportunity of talking to their friends and relations on the outside.

  Yet in spite of these conditions, one man actually pleaded for a cell in the prison over being kept at the York Asylum. The sorry case of Frank Parker who had been committed to the asylum in April 1837 highlights the unhappy situation for some of those suffering mental illness in the eighteenth century. In spite of having his hands fastened to his side to prevent him from harming himself, Parker still managed to kick fellow ‘lunatic’ Thomas Ward to death, who Parker was convinced had been sent to the asylum specifically to kill him, and as he stated at his trial he ‘got in first’. He also maintained that he had been unlawfully detained, while stating ‘I should prefer the castle to this place.’ Having been found guilty of murder, Parker repeated his request for a cell in York Gaol, and as the law would not allow an insane person to suffer the death sentence, he got his wish, ending his days locked up and forgotten in a tiny cell.

  The prison courtyard, where felons would exercise daily.

  In this new prison, separate areas were designated for men and women, the debtors were segregated and housed upstairs, while the other prisoners were detained on the ground floor below. Imprisonment for debt was very common. Before 1869, any debtor who did not qualify for bankruptcy proceedings could be imprisoned indefinitely by his or her creditor. They would only be released if they or a third party could pay off their debt, or in the unlikely event that their creditor relented or the debtor’s insolvency could be proved to the court. Some debtors were released by acts of charity, but many died in custody.

  In 1780, in a bid to ease overcrowding, the Female Prison was built adjacent to the Debtors’ Prison. Though it was, as the name suggests, a designated female gaol, it also housed some male prisoners, as well as the new infirmary and chapel. The impressive façade of the Female Prison mirrored the architecture of the newly appointed County Court opposite, which had been designed by John Carr and completed three years earlier, in 1777.

  The Female Prison at York.

  Mary Bateman, known as the ‘Yorkshire Witch’, was probably the most famous female to be executed at York. A criminal since childhood, Mary was forty-one years old when she was convicted of poisoning Rebecca Perigo in May 1808. Rebecca and her husband William, like many before them, had been duped by Bateman, who ran a fraudulent fortune-telling business under the name of ‘Mrs Moore’. Thinking they had been put under a spell, the Perigos approached ‘Moore’ for assistance, and in the process of working her magic, Bateman used the opportunity to alleviate the Perigos of a great deal of money, before taking steps to silence them when they became suspicious of her credibility. After successfully murdering Mrs Perigo by feeding her pudding laced with poison, Bateman continued to leach money from her susceptible, grieving husband. However, once William Perigo’s gullibility finally evaporated, Mary’s time was up. In a sensational trial, during which her attempt to ‘plead her belly’ resulted in the judge ordering the courtroom doors to be barred, lest the co-opted jury of matrons tried to escape their duty, Mary was found guilty. Just three days after being convicted, Mary was hanged before a crowd of thousands, disappointing many who believed to the last that she would use her supernatural powers to escape the noose. The aura of her alleged mystic abilities must have lingered, however, as many of those paying to view her corpse parted with a further fee to purchase cured cuts of Mary’s skin to use as a magic charm.

  * * *

  ‘pudding laced with poison’

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  The Victorian Prison, the final chapter in York’s gaols, is now lost to sight beneath the York Castle car park. One of the city’s largest and most remarkable buildings, this new prison stood for less than a century before being entirely demolished. The Debtors’ Prison and the Female Prison were closed toward the end of the nineteenth century, and the new Victorian Prison was built with the intention of coping with the rising number of felons. The build was of such a scale that it took ten years to complete, between 1825 and 1835. With four prison blocks radiating out from the central hub of the Governor’s residence, like the spokes of an enormous wheel, it was surrounded by a huge, dark millstone perimeter wall, which encircled the entire castle site and cut the complex off from the rest of the city. The ancient North Gate was demolished and replaced with a new single gate to the north-west corner. The Victorian Prison only functioned as such until 1900, after which it was utilised as a military detention centre for a further thirty years or so, before finally being closed and demolished by the City Council in 1934.

  The Victorian Prison building with radiating wings, adjacent to Clifford’s Tower, top left corner, and Debtors’ Prison, centre bottom. (Courtesy of York Museums Trust)

  Today, the former Debtors’ Prison and the Female Prison, along with York Crown Court, complete three sides of the square facing Clifford’s Tower in the former bailey of York Castle. Both the Debtors’ Prison and the Female Prison were restored and converted into the York Castle Museum in 1938, and now the story of the prisons and the prisoners’ pasts form part of an exhibition aptly housed within the former cells of the Debtors’ Prison itself.

  Policing York

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  York is one of only seven cities in the world whose cathedral boasts its own constabulary, and though the Minster Police may not be as well known as the Swiss Guard – the small force maintained by the Holy See at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, who are
responsible for the safety of the Pope – St Peter’s force has served the Minster and the Liberty for many hundreds of years.

  Between 1285 and 1839, York Minster controlled its own Liberty – the walled area enclosing Minster Close, which grew to cover an area equating to about one third of the medieval city. Within the Liberty, the Dean and Chapter of York Minster held jurisdiction and appointed constables to maintain law and order. In fact, the Minster Police could well claim to be the oldest continuing police service in the county, possibly the world. Sir Robert Peel, acknowledged founder of the modern day police force, supposedly reviewed two policing bodies before he formed the Metropolitan Police Service in 1829; one being the Thames River Police and the other the Liberty of St Peter and Peter Prison constables, the latter being the Minster Police.

  In 1839, control of the Liberty passed to the Corporation of York, with the Minster Police remaining closely linked with York City Police, who took over responsibility of policing the Liberty. Today, the small specialised constabulary consists of ten Minster Police officers, and while they are no longer attested (sworn in as constables), they instead utilise the ‘any person’ power of citizen’s arrest, their modern day role to act as custodians of the Minster, as well as directing tourists and diligently holding 380 sets of keys!

  With the rapid population growth in the nineteenth century (partly due to the influx of Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine in the 1840s) the city authorities realised that the out-dated medieval system of constables was no longer effective in the face of the rising crime rate, and, in 1836, the first ‘modern’ police force was formed in York, replacing what had been termed as the ‘Old Police’, which was comprised of amateur/semi-professional parish constables and nightwatchmen.

  As the need for policing grew, so did the need for police stations, and it was mooted that the police station at St Andrewgate, shared with the city’s coal inspector, was no longer suitable, and new premises were acquired in May 1837. Cottages on Silver Street were leased from the City Commissioners at an annual rent of £22 and converted into York’s new police station. Following this, Fulford Road station (now Copper’s Lodge, a comfortable guest house) in Alma Grove, was acquired. Built in 1880 for the East Riding Constabulary, this solid red-brick building originally included a charge room and three cells, with the shed to the rear serving as the police stable.

  Today, the Fulford Road police station, purpose-built in 1980, with twenty-two holding cells, provides the base for the city’s police.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TRIAL & PUNISHMENT IN YORK

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  Justice for the City

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  As well as functioning as a gaol, York Castle was also the original seat of justice for the city. From the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Assize Courts for Yorkshire were based in the castle, and the prisoners who were awaiting trial were held in the castle’s dungeons. Depending on the severity of the accusation, prisoners could spend some considerable time awaiting trial as the Assize Courts were normally held only twice a year, during Lent and summer. Judges rode on horseback from one county town to the next, trying all those charged with criminal offences too serious to be dealt with by the magistrates at the quarter sessions. Capital offences were heard at the Assize Courts – crimes ranging from murder, manslaughter and rape, as well as treason, major fraud or theft, arson, riot and rebellion. Guilt on any of these counts carried the death penalty prior to 1836, the year in which capital punishment was abolished for crimes other than murder and attempted murder.

  The quarter sessions, as the name suggests, were county courts held by magistrates four times a year – Epiphany (January-March), Easter (April-June), Midsummer (July-September) and Michaelmas (October-December). These courts dealt with criminal matters from petty theft to rape, along with administrative matters such as licensing. Ranking lower still in the judicial system were the petty sessions; courts that met daily and formed the lowest tier in the English court system (known today as the Magistrates’ Court). At the petty sessions, cases involving minor crimes were heard, such as charges of assault, petty theft and public drunkenness, along with licensing and civil matters such as claims of bastardy, child maintenance and adoption.

  By 1777, however, cases could be heard in the newly appointed Assize Court building, the County Courthouse. Designed by John Carr to replace the old Grand Jury House, the courthouse still houses York Crown Court today. With the addition of the Female Prison built in 1780 (positioned to the left of, and originally intended as an extension to, the new County Prison) these judicial edifices form three sides of the square facing Clifford’s Tower in the former bailey of York Castle. Positioned around a circular lawn, this became known as the ‘Eye of the Ridings’, or the ‘Eye of York’, and continues the tradition of York Castle as a site of justice and incarceration for nearly 1,000 years.

  York’s Guildhall.

  Carr’s County Courthouse, now York Crown Court.

  Public Punishments in York

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  Those convicted of crimes that carried the death penalty were invariably hanged at the gallows, and in high profile cases the body was often gibbeted. A common punishment, gibbeting could be imposed by a judge in addition to the sentence of execution, and was most often reserved for murderers, highwaymen, traitors, pirates and sheep stealers. Gibbets were often sited close to the place where the crime had been committed or next to a public highway (usually at a crossroads) and intended to discourage others from committing a similar offence. In some instances, the gibbeted bodies were displayed for years, as was the case of Francis Fearn, who was executed on the York Knavesmire gallows on Tuesday, 23 July 1782 for murdering a ‘respectable watchmaker’. His body was hung in chains on Loxley Common, only being taken down by Mr Payne of Loxley, ‘On whose land it stood, in the year 1807, having remained there twenty-five years.’

  Another gruesome gibbeting legacy was uncovered some fifty years after the event, when a quantity of human bones, the ‘shattered fragments’ of three condemned murderers hanged at the York Tyburn on 28 July 1623, were unearthed from under the site of the gibbet, where their bodies had been displayed for ‘a considerable time’. The bodies of the two executed men had been hung up at the roadside, close to where the guilty party had drowned their victim between Easingwold and Raskelf (and still marked on Ordnance Survey maps to this day as ‘Gibbet Hill’), the third, perhaps by virtue of her sex, was buried beneath the gibbet.

  Gibbet Hill, between Easingwold and Raskelf.

  In 1677, John Webster, a well-known puritan writer, who was eyewitness to the confessions of the Easingwold trio and their resulting execution, recounted the events:

  About the year of our Lord 1623 or 24 one Fletcher of Rascal, a Town in the North Riding of Yorkshire near unto the Forest of Gantress, a Yeoman of good Estate, did marry a young lusty Woman of Thornton Brigs, who had been formerly kind with one Ralph Raynard, who kept an Inn within half a mile from Rascall in the high road way betwixt York and Thuske, his Sister living with him.

  This Raynard continued in unlawful lust with the said Fletchers Wife, who not content therewith conspired the death of Fletcher, one Mark Dunn being made privy and hired to assist in the murder. Which Raynard and Dunn accomplished upon the May-day by drowning Fletcher, as they came all three together from a Town called Huby, and acquainting the wife with the deed she gave them a Sack therein to convey his body, which they did and buried it in Raynards backyard or Croft where an old Oak-root had been stubbed up, and sowed Mustard-seed upon the place thereby to hide it. So they continued their wicked course of lust and drunkenness, and the neighbours did much wonder at Fletchers absence, but his wife did excuse it, and said that he was but gone aside for fear of some Writs being served upon him.

  And so it continued until about the seventh day of July, when Raynard going to Toplifife Fair, and setting up his Horse in the Stable, the spirit of Fletcher in his usual shape and habit did appear unto him Oh R
alph repent repent for my revenge is at hand; and ever after until he was put in the Goal [sic] it seemed to stand before him, whereby he became sad and restless: And his own Sister overhearing his confession and relation of it to another person did through fear of losing her own life, immediately reveal it to Sir William Sheffield who lived at Rascall and was a Justice of Peace Whereupon they were all three apprehended and sent to the Gaol at York, where they were all three condemned and so executed accordingly near to the place where Raynard lived and where Fletcher was buried, the two men being hung up in irons, and the woman buried underneath the gallows.