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Halifax Gibbet

January 02, 2023

Coordinates: 53°43′25″N 1°52′02″W / 53.7237°N 1.8672°W / 53.7237; -1.8672

The Halifax Gibbet /ˈhælɪfæks ˈdʒɪbɪt/ was an early guillotine used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Estimated to have been installed during the 16th century, it was used as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Halifax was once part of the Manor of Wakefield, where ancient custom and law gave the Lord of the Manor the authority to execute summarily by decapitation any thief caught with stolen goods to the value of 131⁄2d or more (equivalent to £8 in 2021), or who confessed to having stolen goods of at least that value. Decapitation was a fairly common method of execution in England, but Halifax was unusual in two respects: it employed a guillotine-like machine that appears to have been unique in the country, and it continued to decapitate petty criminals until the mid-17th century.

A replica of the Halifax Gibbet on its original site, 2008, with St Mary's Catholic church, Gibbet Street, in the background

The device consisted of an axe head fitted to the base of a heavy wooden block that ran in grooves between two 15-foot-tall (4.6 m) uprights, mounted on a stone base about 4 feet (1.2 m) high. A rope attached to the block ran over a pulley, allowing it to be raised, after which the rope was secured by attaching it to a pin in the base. The block carrying the axe was then released either by withdrawing the pin or by cutting the rope once the prisoner was in place.

Almost 100 people were beheaded in Halifax between the first recorded execution in 1286 and the last in 1650, but as the date of the gibbet's installation is uncertain, it cannot be determined with any accuracy how many individuals died via the Halifax Gibbet. By 1650, public opinion considered beheading to be an excessively severe punishment for petty theft; use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, and the structure was dismantled. The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840, and a non-working replica was erected on the site in 1974. The names of 52 people known to have been beheaded by the device are listed on a nearby plaque.

Background

What became known as the Halifax Gibbet Law gave the Lord of the Manor of Wakefield, of which the town of Halifax was a part,[a] the power to try and execute any felon for the theft of goods to the value of 131⁄2d or more (equivalent to £8 in 2021), or more:[b]

If a felon be taken within their liberty or precincts of the said forest [the Forest of Hardwick], either handhabend [caught with the stolen goods in his hand or in the act of stealing], backberand [caught carrying stolen goods on his back], or confessand [having confessed to the crime] cloth or any other commodity to the value of 13½d, that they shall after three market days or meeting days within the town of Halifax after such his apprehension, and being condemned he shall be taken to the gibbet and there have his head cut off from his body.[3]

 
17th-century engraving

The Gibbet Law may have been a last vestige of the Anglo-Saxon custom of infangtheif, which allowed landowners to enforce summary justice on thieves within the boundaries of their estates.[4] Samuel Midgley in his Halifax and its Gibbet-Law Placed in a True Light,[c] published in 1761, states that the law dates from a time "not in the memory of man to the contrary".[6] It may have been the consequence of rights granted by King Henry III to John de Warenne (1231–1304), Lord of the Manor of Wakefield.[7] Such baronial jurisdiction was by no means unusual in medieval England and was described in the 11th-century legal text entitled De Baronibus, qui suas habent curias et consuetudines (Concerning the barons who have their courts of law and customs).[8] Neither was the decapitation of convicted felons unique to Halifax; the earls of Chester amongst others also exercised the right to "behead any malefactor or thief, who was apprehended in the action, or against whom it was made apparent by sufficient witness, or confession, before four inhabitants of the place", recorded as the Custom of Cheshire.[9]

A commission appointed by King Edward I in 1278 reported that there were at that time 94 privately owned gibbets and gallows in use in Yorkshire, including one owned by the Archbishop of York.[10] What was unusual about Halifax was that the custom lingered on there for so long after it had been abandoned elsewhere.[7]

Suspected thieves were detained in the custody of the lord of the manor's bailiff, who would summon a jury of 16 local men "out of the most wealthy and best reputed", four each from four local townships.[11] The jury had only two questions to decide on: were the stolen goods found in the possession of the accused, and were they worth at least 131⁄2d.[12] The jury, the accused, and those claiming that their property had been stolen, were brought together in a room at the bailiff's house. No oaths were administered and there was no judge or defence counsel present; each side presented their case, and the jury decided on guilt or innocence.[13]

The law was applied so strictly that anyone who apprehended a thief with his property was not allowed to recover it unless the miscreant and the stolen goods were presented to the bailiff. The goods were otherwise forfeited to the lord of the manor, and their previous rightful owner was liable to find himself charged with theftbote, or conniving in the felony.[7] Halifax's reputation for strict law enforcement was noted by the antiquary William Camden and by the "Water Poet" John Taylor, who penned the Beggar's Litany: "From Hell, Hull, and Halifax, Good Lord, deliver us!"[14][d]

Before his execution a convicted felon was usually detained in custody for three market days,[e] on each of which he was publicly displayed in the stocks, accompanied by the stolen goods.[16] After the sentence had been carried out a county coroner would visit Halifax and convene a jury of 12 men, sometimes the same individuals who had found the felon guilty, and ask them to give an account under oath of the circumstances of the conviction and execution, for the official records.[11]

The punishment could only be meted out to those within the confines of the Forest of Hardwick, of which Halifax was a part. The gibbet was about 500 yards (460 m) from the boundary of the area, and if the condemned person succeeded in escaping from the forest then he could not legally be brought back to face his punishment. At least two men succeeded in cheating the executioner in that way: a man named Dinnis and another called Lacy. Dinnis was never seen in Halifax again, but Lacy rather unwisely decided to return to the town seven years after his escape; he was apprehended and finally executed in 1623.[17]

History

The earliest known record of punishment by decapitation in Halifax is the beheading of John of Dalton in 1286,[18] but official records were not maintained until the parish registers began in 1538. Between then and 1650, when the last executions took place, 56 men and women are recorded as having been decapitated. The total number of executions identified since 1286 is just short of 100.[19]

Local weavers specialised in the production of kersey, a hardwearing and inexpensive woollen fabric that was often used for military uniforms; by the 16th century Halifax and the surrounding Calder Valley was the largest producer of the material in England. In the final part of the manufacturing process the cloth was hung outdoors on large structures known as tenterframes and left to dry, after having been conditioned by a fulling mill.[20] Daniel Defoe wrote a detailed account of what he had been told of the gibbet's history during his visit to Halifax in Volume 3 of his A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, published in 1727.[14] He reports that "Modern accounts pretend to say, it [the gibbet] was for all sorts of felons; but I am well assured, it was first erected purely, or at least principally, for such thieves as were apprehended stealing cloth from the tenters; and it seems very reasonable to think it was so".[21]

Eighteenth-century historians argued that the area's prosperity attracted the "wicked and ungovernable"; the cloth, left outside and unattended, presented easy pickings, and hence justified severe punishment to protect the local economy. James Holt on the other hand, writing in 1997, sees the Halifax Gibbet Law as a practical application of the Anglo-Saxon law of infangtheof. Royal assizes were held only twice a year in the area; to bring a prosecution was "vastly expensive", and the stolen goods were forfeited to the Crown, as they were considered to be the property of the accused.[22] But the Halifax Gibbet Law allowed "the party injured, to have his goods restored to him again, with as little loss and damage, as can be contrived; to the great encouragement of the honest and industrious, and as great terror to the wicked and evil doers."[23]

The Halifax Gibbet's final victims were Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell.[24][f] Wilkinson had been found guilty of stealing 16 yards (15 m) of russet-coloured kersey cloth, 9 yards (8.2 m) of which, found in his possession, was valued at "9 shillings at the least", [27][18] and Mitchell of stealing and selling two horses, one valued at 9 shillings and the other at 48 shillings.[25] The pair were found guilty and executed on the same day,[28] 30 April 1650.[29] Writing in 1834 John William Parker, publisher of The Saturday Magazine, suggested that the gibbet might have remained in use for longer in Halifax had the bailiff not been warned that if he used it again he would be "called to public account for it".[11] Midgley comments that the final executions "were by some persons in that age, judged to be too severe; thence came it to pass, that the gibbet, and the customary law, for the forest of Hardwick, got its suspension".[30]

Oliver Cromwell finally ended the exercise of Halifax Gibbet Law. To the Puritans it was "part of ancient ritual to be jettisoned along with all the old feasts and celebrations of the medieval world and the Church of Rome". Moreover, it ran counter to the Puritan objection to imposing the death penalty for petty theft; felons were subsequently sent to the Assizes in York for trial.[22]

Mechanism

 
Print of the Halifax Gibbet in use, from Thomas Allen's A New and Complete History of the County of York (1829)

It is uncertain when the Halifax Gibbet was first introduced, but it may not have been until some time in the 16th century; before then decapitation would have been carried out by an executioner using an axe or a sword. The device, which seems to have been unique in England,[19] consisted of two 15-foot (4.6 m) tall parallel beams of wood joined at the top by a transverse beam. Running in grooves within the beams was a square wooden block 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 m) in length, into the bottom of which was fitted an axe head weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces (3.5 kg).[11] The whole structure sat on a platform of stone blocks, 9 feet (2.7 m) square and 4 feet (1.2 m) high, which was ascended by a flight of steps.[18] A rope attached to the top of the wooden block holding the axe ran over a pulley at the top of the structure, allowing the block to be raised. The rope was then fastened by a pin to the structure's stone base.[11]

The gibbet could be operated by cutting the rope supporting the blade or by pulling out the pin that held the rope. If the offender was to be executed for stealing an animal, a cord was fastened to the pin and tied to either the stolen animal or one of the same species, which was then driven off, withdrawing the pin and allowing the blade to drop.[11]

In an early contemporary account of 1586 Raphael Holinshed attests to the efficiency of the gibbet, and adds some detail about the participation of the onlookers:

In the nether end of the sliding block is an axe keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood, which being drawn up to the top of the frame is there fastened by a wooden pin ... unto the middest of which pin also there is a long rope fastened that cometh down among the people, so that when the offender hath made his confession, and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block, every man there present doth either take hold of the rope (or putteth forth his arm so near to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see true justice executed) and pulling out the pin in this manner, the head block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such violence, that if the neck of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke, and roll from the body by a huge distance.[31]

An article in the September 1832 edition of The Imperial Magazine describes the victim's final moments:

The persons who had found the verdict, and the attending clergymen, placed themselves on the scaffold with the prisoner. The fourth psalm was then played round the scaffold on the bagpipes, after which the minister prayed with the prisoner till he received the final stroke.[7][g]

In Thomas Deloney's novel Thomas of Reading (1600) the invention of the Halifax Gibbet is attributed to a friar, who proposed the device as a solution to the difficulty of finding local residents willing to act as hangmen.[33]

Although the guillotine as a method of beheading is most closely associated in the popular imagination with late 18th-century Revolutionary France, several other decapitation devices had long been in use throughout Europe. It is uncertain whether Dr Guillotin was familiar with the Halifax Gibbet. A 16th century device constructed in Edinburgh is called the Maiden. It dates from 1564, and those it executed included James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton in 1584. The story, published sixty years later, was that he had been responsible for its introduction after seeing the Halifax Gibbet, but this story is unsupported. The Maiden was stored and is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland. It is rather shorter than the Halifax Gibbet, standing only 10 feet (3.0 m) tall, the same height as the French guillotine.[34][35]

Restoration

The Halifax Gibbet was dismantled after the last executions in 1650, and the site was neglected until the platform on which the gibbet had been mounted was rediscovered in about 1840.[24] A full-size non-working replica was erected on the original stone base in August 1974; it includes a blade made from a casting of the original, which as of 2011 is displayed in the Bankfield Museum in Boothtown on the outskirts of Halifax.[20] A commemorative plaque nearby lists the names of the 52 people known to have been executed by the device.[18]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ The manor of Wakefield was one of the largest in England, stretching well beyond the boundaries of the present-day town of the same name. It occupied an area of about 30 miles (48 km) east to west and about 20 miles (32 km) north to south.[1]
  2. ^ In 1650, the year of the last executions, 13+1⁄2d would have been the purchasing power equivalent to £8 in 2021.[2]
  3. ^ Samuel Midgley died on 18 July 1695, imprisoned in Halifax Gaol for debt. While in prison he wrote Halifax and its Gibbet-Law Placed in a True Light in an effort to support himself, but he could not afford to have it published. The manuscript came into the possession of William Bentley, the Halifax parish clerk, who decided to publish it under his own name, perhaps with some additions. William's son John produced a subsequent reprint under his own name, hence many sources refer to the book as John Bentley's Halifax and its Gibbet-Law.[5]
  4. ^ Felons were not decapitated in Hull, but were tied to gibbets in the Humber estuary at low tide and left to drown as the sea returned.[15]
  5. ^ Halifax at that time held three markets each week.[16]
  6. ^ Abraham Wilkinson's brother John was also accused of involvement in the thefts, but although he admitted to being present when they were carried out he would not confess to having taken part in them, and he was consequently released.[25] Several sources claim that it was John Wilkinson who was executed rather than his brother Abraham, but Midgley attributes this to an error in the parish register.[26]
  7. ^ The fourth psalm contains the words "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep".[32]

Citations

  1. ^ Holt (1997), p. 19
  2. ^ Officer, Lawrence H. (2009), , MeasuringWorth, archived from the original on 24 November 2009, retrieved 13 May 2011
  3. ^ Carter (1986), p. 284
  4. ^ Judges (2002), p. lix
  5. ^ Turner, Joseph Horsfall (1906), Halifax Books and Authors: A Series of Articles on the Books Written by Natives and Residents, Ancient and Modern, of the Parish of Halifax (Stretching from Todmorden to Brighouse), With Notices of their Authors and of the Local Printers, Internet Archive, pp. 18–19, retrieved 14 May 2011
  6. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), p. 397
  7. ^ a b c d "Gibbet Law of Halifax, Yorkshire", The Imperial Magazine, 2, II: 407–409, September 1832
  8. ^ Copinger, W. A. (1905), The Manors of Suffolk : notes on their history and devolution, Internet Archive [T. Fisher Unwin], retrieved 17 May 2011
  9. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), p. 432
  10. ^ Pettifer (1992), pp. 83–85
  11. ^ a b c d e f Parker, John William (26 July 1834), "The Halifax Gibbet-Law", The Saturday Magazine (132): 32
  12. ^ Holt (1997), p. 22
  13. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), pp. 417–423
  14. ^ a b Lipson (1965), p. 242
  15. ^ Peach (2010), p. 74
  16. ^ a b Carter (1986), p. 285
  17. ^ Pettifer (1992), pp. 86–87
  18. ^ a b c d "Register of Ancient Monuments: Remains of Gibbet", Calderdale Council, from the original on 27 September 2011, retrieved 14 May 2011
  19. ^ a b Holt (1997), p. 20
  20. ^ a b (PDF), Calderdale Council, p. 5, archived from the original (PDF) on 19 March 2012, retrieved 18 October 2015
  21. ^ Defoe, Daniel (1727), "A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies", Letter 8, Part 3: South and West Yorkshire: A Vision of Britain Through Time, retrieved 17 May 2011{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  22. ^ a b Holt (1997), p. 23
  23. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), p. 404
  24. ^ a b Pettifer (1992), p. 87
  25. ^ a b Midgley & Bentley (1761), pp. 422–423
  26. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), p. 407
  27. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), p. 423
  28. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), p. 413
  29. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), p. 439
  30. ^ Midgley & Bentley (1761), p. 417
  31. ^ Holinshed, Raphael (1586), "An Historicall Description of the Iland of Britaine [Selections]", Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image, p. 185, retrieved 14 May 2011
  32. ^ Holt (1997), p. 21
  33. ^ Pettifer (1992), p. 86
  34. ^ Tavernor (2007), p. 90
  35. ^ Maxwell, H Edinburgh, A Historical Study, Williams and Norgate (1916), pp. 137, 299–303 .

Bibliography

  • Carter, A. T. (1986) [1902], History of English Legal Institutions, Fred B. Rothman & Co., ISBN 978-0-8377-2007-4
  • Holt, James Clarke (1997), Colonial England, 1066–1215, Hambledon Continuum, ISBN 978-1-85285-140-8
  • Judges, A. V. (2002), The Elizabethan Underworld: A Collection of Tudor and Early Stuart Tracts and Ballads, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-28676-3
  • Lipson, Ephraim (1965), The History of the Woollen and Worsted Industries, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-7146-2339-9
  • Midgley, Samuel; Bentley, William (1761), Halifax and its Gibbet-Law Placed in a True Light, J. Milner
  • Peach, Howard (2010), Curious Tales of Old East Yorkshire, Sigma Press, ISBN 978-1-85058-749-1
  • Pettifer, Ernest William (1992) [1947], Punishments of Former Days (2nd ed.), Waterside Press, ISBN 978-1-872870-05-2
  • Tavernor, Robert (2007), Smoot's Ear: The Measure of Humanity, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-12492-7

External links

  • The Guillotine Headquarters

January 02, 2023
halifax, gibbet, coordinates, 7237, 8672, 7237, 8672, early, guillotine, used, town, halifax, west, yorkshire, england, estimated, have, been, installed, during, 16th, century, used, alternative, beheading, sword, halifax, once, part, manor, wakefield, where, . Coordinates 53 43 25 N 1 52 02 W 53 7237 N 1 8672 W 53 7237 1 8672 The Halifax Gibbet ˈ h ae l ɪ f ae k s ˈ dʒ ɪ b ɪ t was an early guillotine used in the town of Halifax West Yorkshire England Estimated to have been installed during the 16th century it was used as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword Halifax was once part of the Manor of Wakefield where ancient custom and law gave the Lord of the Manor the authority to execute summarily by decapitation any thief caught with stolen goods to the value of 131 2 d or more equivalent to 8 in 2021 or who confessed to having stolen goods of at least that value Decapitation was a fairly common method of execution in England but Halifax was unusual in two respects it employed a guillotine like machine that appears to have been unique in the country and it continued to decapitate petty criminals until the mid 17th century A replica of the Halifax Gibbet on its original site 2008 with St Mary s Catholic church Gibbet Street in the background The device consisted of an axe head fitted to the base of a heavy wooden block that ran in grooves between two 15 foot tall 4 6 m uprights mounted on a stone base about 4 feet 1 2 m high A rope attached to the block ran over a pulley allowing it to be raised after which the rope was secured by attaching it to a pin in the base The block carrying the axe was then released either by withdrawing the pin or by cutting the rope once the prisoner was in place Almost 100 people were beheaded in Halifax between the first recorded execution in 1286 and the last in 1650 but as the date of the gibbet s installation is uncertain it cannot be determined with any accuracy how many individuals died via the Halifax Gibbet By 1650 public opinion considered beheading to be an excessively severe punishment for petty theft use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England and the structure was dismantled The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840 and a non working replica was erected on the site in 1974 The names of 52 people known to have been beheaded by the device are listed on a nearby plaque Contents 1 Background 2 History 3 Mechanism 4 Restoration 5 See also 6 References 6 1 Notes 6 2 Citations 6 3 Bibliography 7 External linksBackground EditWhat became known as the Halifax Gibbet Law gave the Lord of the Manor of Wakefield of which the town of Halifax was a part a the power to try and execute any felon for the theft of goods to the value of 131 2 d or more equivalent to 8 in 2021 or more b If a felon be taken within their liberty or precincts of the said forest the Forest of Hardwick either handhabend caught with the stolen goods in his hand or in the act of stealing backberand caught carrying stolen goods on his back or confessand having confessed to the crime cloth or any other commodity to the value of 13 d that they shall after three market days or meeting days within the town of Halifax after such his apprehension and being condemned he shall be taken to the gibbet and there have his head cut off from his body 3 17th century engraving The Gibbet Law may have been a last vestige of the Anglo Saxon custom of infangtheif which allowed landowners to enforce summary justice on thieves within the boundaries of their estates 4 Samuel Midgley in his Halifax and its Gibbet Law Placed in a True Light c published in 1761 states that the law dates from a time not in the memory of man to the contrary 6 It may have been the consequence of rights granted by King Henry III to John de Warenne 1231 1304 Lord of the Manor of Wakefield 7 Such baronial jurisdiction was by no means unusual in medieval England and was described in the 11th century legal text entitled De Baronibus qui suas habent curias et consuetudines Concerning the barons who have their courts of law and customs 8 Neither was the decapitation of convicted felons unique to Halifax the earls of Chester amongst others also exercised the right to behead any malefactor or thief who was apprehended in the action or against whom it was made apparent by sufficient witness or confession before four inhabitants of the place recorded as the Custom of Cheshire 9 A commission appointed by King Edward I in 1278 reported that there were at that time 94 privately owned gibbets and gallows in use in Yorkshire including one owned by the Archbishop of York 10 What was unusual about Halifax was that the custom lingered on there for so long after it had been abandoned elsewhere 7 Suspected thieves were detained in the custody of the lord of the manor s bailiff who would summon a jury of 16 local men out of the most wealthy and best reputed four each from four local townships 11 The jury had only two questions to decide on were the stolen goods found in the possession of the accused and were they worth at least 131 2 d 12 The jury the accused and those claiming that their property had been stolen were brought together in a room at the bailiff s house No oaths were administered and there was no judge or defence counsel present each side presented their case and the jury decided on guilt or innocence 13 The law was applied so strictly that anyone who apprehended a thief with his property was not allowed to recover it unless the miscreant and the stolen goods were presented to the bailiff The goods were otherwise forfeited to the lord of the manor and their previous rightful owner was liable to find himself charged with theftbote or conniving in the felony 7 Halifax s reputation for strict law enforcement was noted by the antiquary William Camden and by the Water Poet John Taylor who penned the Beggar s Litany From Hell Hull and Halifax Good Lord deliver us 14 d Before his execution a convicted felon was usually detained in custody for three market days e on each of which he was publicly displayed in the stocks accompanied by the stolen goods 16 After the sentence had been carried out a county coroner would visit Halifax and convene a jury of 12 men sometimes the same individuals who had found the felon guilty and ask them to give an account under oath of the circumstances of the conviction and execution for the official records 11 The punishment could only be meted out to those within the confines of the Forest of Hardwick of which Halifax was a part The gibbet was about 500 yards 460 m from the boundary of the area and if the condemned person succeeded in escaping from the forest then he could not legally be brought back to face his punishment At least two men succeeded in cheating the executioner in that way a man named Dinnis and another called Lacy Dinnis was never seen in Halifax again but Lacy rather unwisely decided to return to the town seven years after his escape he was apprehended and finally executed in 1623 17 History EditThe earliest known record of punishment by decapitation in Halifax is the beheading of John of Dalton in 1286 18 but official records were not maintained until the parish registers began in 1538 Between then and 1650 when the last executions took place 56 men and women are recorded as having been decapitated The total number of executions identified since 1286 is just short of 100 19 Local weavers specialised in the production of kersey a hardwearing and inexpensive woollen fabric that was often used for military uniforms by the 16th century Halifax and the surrounding Calder Valley was the largest producer of the material in England In the final part of the manufacturing process the cloth was hung outdoors on large structures known as tenterframes and left to dry after having been conditioned by a fulling mill 20 Daniel Defoe wrote a detailed account of what he had been told of the gibbet s history during his visit to Halifax in Volume 3 of his A tour thro the whole island of Great Britain published in 1727 14 He reports that Modern accounts pretend to say it the gibbet was for all sorts of felons but I am well assured it was first erected purely or at least principally for such thieves as were apprehended stealing cloth from the tenters and it seems very reasonable to think it was so 21 Eighteenth century historians argued that the area s prosperity attracted the wicked and ungovernable the cloth left outside and unattended presented easy pickings and hence justified severe punishment to protect the local economy James Holt on the other hand writing in 1997 sees the Halifax Gibbet Law as a practical application of the Anglo Saxon law of infangtheof Royal assizes were held only twice a year in the area to bring a prosecution was vastly expensive and the stolen goods were forfeited to the Crown as they were considered to be the property of the accused 22 But the Halifax Gibbet Law allowed the party injured to have his goods restored to him again with as little loss and damage as can be contrived to the great encouragement of the honest and industrious and as great terror to the wicked and evil doers 23 The Halifax Gibbet s final victims were Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell 24 f Wilkinson had been found guilty of stealing 16 yards 15 m of russet coloured kersey cloth 9 yards 8 2 m of which found in his possession was valued at 9 shillings at the least 27 18 and Mitchell of stealing and selling two horses one valued at 9 shillings and the other at 48 shillings 25 The pair were found guilty and executed on the same day 28 30 April 1650 29 Writing in 1834 John William Parker publisher of The Saturday Magazine suggested that the gibbet might have remained in use for longer in Halifax had the bailiff not been warned that if he used it again he would be called to public account for it 11 Midgley comments that the final executions were by some persons in that age judged to be too severe thence came it to pass that the gibbet and the customary law for the forest of Hardwick got its suspension 30 Oliver Cromwell finally ended the exercise of Halifax Gibbet Law To the Puritans it was part of ancient ritual to be jettisoned along with all the old feasts and celebrations of the medieval world and the Church of Rome Moreover it ran counter to the Puritan objection to imposing the death penalty for petty theft felons were subsequently sent to the Assizes in York for trial 22 Mechanism Edit Print of the Halifax Gibbet in use from Thomas Allen s A New and Complete History of the County of York 1829 It is uncertain when the Halifax Gibbet was first introduced but it may not have been until some time in the 16th century before then decapitation would have been carried out by an executioner using an axe or a sword The device which seems to have been unique in England 19 consisted of two 15 foot 4 6 m tall parallel beams of wood joined at the top by a transverse beam Running in grooves within the beams was a square wooden block 4 feet 6 inches 1 37 m in length into the bottom of which was fitted an axe head weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces 3 5 kg 11 The whole structure sat on a platform of stone blocks 9 feet 2 7 m square and 4 feet 1 2 m high which was ascended by a flight of steps 18 A rope attached to the top of the wooden block holding the axe ran over a pulley at the top of the structure allowing the block to be raised The rope was then fastened by a pin to the structure s stone base 11 The gibbet could be operated by cutting the rope supporting the blade or by pulling out the pin that held the rope If the offender was to be executed for stealing an animal a cord was fastened to the pin and tied to either the stolen animal or one of the same species which was then driven off withdrawing the pin and allowing the blade to drop 11 In an early contemporary account of 1586 Raphael Holinshed attests to the efficiency of the gibbet and adds some detail about the participation of the onlookers In the nether end of the sliding block is an axe keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood which being drawn up to the top of the frame is there fastened by a wooden pin unto the middest of which pin also there is a long rope fastened that cometh down among the people so that when the offender hath made his confession and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block every man there present doth either take hold of the rope or putteth forth his arm so near to the same as he can get in token that he is willing to see true justice executed and pulling out the pin in this manner the head block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such violence that if the neck of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull it should be cut in sunder at a stroke and roll from the body by a huge distance 31 An article in the September 1832 edition of The Imperial Magazine describes the victim s final moments The persons who had found the verdict and the attending clergymen placed themselves on the scaffold with the prisoner The fourth psalm was then played round the scaffold on the bagpipes after which the minister prayed with the prisoner till he received the final stroke 7 g In Thomas Deloney s novel Thomas of Reading 1600 the invention of the Halifax Gibbet is attributed to a friar who proposed the device as a solution to the difficulty of finding local residents willing to act as hangmen 33 Although the guillotine as a method of beheading is most closely associated in the popular imagination with late 18th century Revolutionary France several other decapitation devices had long been in use throughout Europe It is uncertain whether Dr Guillotin was familiar with the Halifax Gibbet A 16th century device constructed in Edinburgh is called the Maiden It dates from 1564 and those it executed included James Douglas 4th Earl of Morton in 1584 The story published sixty years later was that he had been responsible for its introduction after seeing the Halifax Gibbet but this story is unsupported The Maiden was stored and is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland It is rather shorter than the Halifax Gibbet standing only 10 feet 3 0 m tall the same height as the French guillotine 34 35 Restoration EditThe Halifax Gibbet was dismantled after the last executions in 1650 and the site was neglected until the platform on which the gibbet had been mounted was rediscovered in about 1840 24 A full size non working replica was erected on the original stone base in August 1974 it includes a blade made from a casting of the original which as of 2011 is displayed in the Bankfield Museum in Boothtown on the outskirts of Halifax 20 A commemorative plaque nearby lists the names of the 52 people known to have been executed by the device 18 See also EditListed buildings in Halifax West YorkshireReferences EditNotes Edit The manor of Wakefield was one of the largest in England stretching well beyond the boundaries of the present day town of the same name It occupied an area of about 30 miles 48 km east to west and about 20 miles 32 km north to south 1 In 1650 the year of the last executions 13 1 2 d would have been the purchasing power equivalent to 8 in 2021 2 Samuel Midgley died on 18 July 1695 imprisoned in Halifax Gaol for debt While in prison he wrote Halifax and its Gibbet Law Placed in a True Light in an effort to support himself but he could not afford to have it published The manuscript came into the possession of William Bentley the Halifax parish clerk who decided to publish it under his own name perhaps with some additions William s son John produced a subsequent reprint under his own name hence many sources refer to the book as John Bentley s Halifax and its Gibbet Law 5 Felons were not decapitated in Hull but were tied to gibbets in the Humber estuary at low tide and left to drown as the sea returned 15 Halifax at that time held three markets each week 16 Abraham Wilkinson s brother John was also accused of involvement in the thefts but although he admitted to being present when they were carried out he would not confess to having taken part in them and he was consequently released 25 Several sources claim that it was John Wilkinson who was executed rather than his brother Abraham but Midgley attributes this to an error in the parish register 26 The fourth psalm contains the words I will both lay me down in peace and sleep 32 Citations Edit Holt 1997 p 19 Officer Lawrence H 2009 Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1264 to Present MeasuringWorth archived from the original on 24 November 2009 retrieved 13 May 2011 Carter 1986 p 284 Judges 2002 p lix Turner Joseph Horsfall 1906 Halifax Books and Authors A Series of Articles on the Books Written by Natives and Residents Ancient and Modern of the Parish of Halifax Stretching from Todmorden to Brighouse With Notices of their Authors and of the Local Printers Internet Archive pp 18 19 retrieved 14 May 2011 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 p 397 a b c d Gibbet Law of Halifax Yorkshire The Imperial Magazine 2 II 407 409 September 1832 Copinger W A 1905 The Manors of Suffolk notes on their history and devolution Internet Archive T Fisher Unwin retrieved 17 May 2011 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 p 432 Pettifer 1992 pp 83 85 a b c d e f Parker John William 26 July 1834 The Halifax Gibbet Law The Saturday Magazine 132 32 Holt 1997 p 22 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 pp 417 423 a b Lipson 1965 p 242 Peach 2010 p 74 a b Carter 1986 p 285 Pettifer 1992 pp 86 87 a b c d Register of Ancient Monuments Remains of Gibbet Calderdale Council archived from the original on 27 September 2011 retrieved 14 May 2011 a b Holt 1997 p 20 a b The Piece Hall Halifax PDF Calderdale Council p 5 archived from the original PDF on 19 March 2012 retrieved 18 October 2015 Defoe Daniel 1727 A tour thro the whole island of Great Britain divided into circuits or journies Letter 8 Part 3 South and West Yorkshire A Vision of Britain Through Time retrieved 17 May 2011 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint location link a b Holt 1997 p 23 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 p 404 a b Pettifer 1992 p 87 a b Midgley amp Bentley 1761 pp 422 423 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 p 407 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 p 423 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 p 413 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 p 439 Midgley amp Bentley 1761 p 417 Holinshed Raphael 1586 An Historicall Description of the Iland of Britaine Selections Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text amp Image p 185 retrieved 14 May 2011 Holt 1997 p 21 Pettifer 1992 p 86 Tavernor 2007 p 90 Maxwell H Edinburgh A Historical Study Williams and Norgate 1916 pp 137 299 303 Bibliography Edit Carter A T 1986 1902 History of English Legal Institutions Fred B Rothman amp Co ISBN 978 0 8377 2007 4 Holt James Clarke 1997 Colonial England 1066 1215 Hambledon Continuum ISBN 978 1 85285 140 8 Judges A V 2002 The Elizabethan Underworld A Collection of Tudor and Early Stuart Tracts and Ballads Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 28676 3 Lipson Ephraim 1965 The History of the Woollen and Worsted Industries Routledge ISBN 978 0 7146 2339 9 Midgley Samuel Bentley William 1761 Halifax and its Gibbet Law Placed in a True Light J Milner Peach Howard 2010 Curious Tales of Old East Yorkshire Sigma Press ISBN 978 1 85058 749 1 Pettifer Ernest William 1992 1947 Punishments of Former Days 2nd ed Waterside Press ISBN 978 1 872870 05 2 Tavernor Robert 2007 Smoot s Ear The Measure of Humanity Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 12492 7External links EditThe Guillotine Headquarters Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Halifax Gibbet amp oldid 1102106971, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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