Now! Then! Two horsemen attack the house of Mr Goodwin, rector of Tankersley (Barnsley)

9 October 1726: Two horsemen attack the house of Mr Goodwin, rector of Tankersley (Barnsley)

John Hobson. 1877. The Journal of Mr. John Hobson, Late of Dodworth Green. Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ed. Charles Jackson. Durham: Surtees Society. A (morbid) compendium of everyday England. It is sometimes unclear whether the date given is that of an occurrence or that on which news reached his capacious ears. Get it:

Excerpt

About 11 o’clock in the forenoon, two horsemen came to Mr Goodwin’s, the minister of Tankersley, and asked for him. There was only in the house a maid and his two children. She told them he was at church. They desire to be let in: she says her master had the key in his pocket: then they begun to give ill language, and told her she lied, and attempted to break in: she put the two children in a closet, got a spit and run it at them; flung hot broth in one of their faces; they discharged a pistol at her, and missed her: then they went to a door, broke it open; she barricaded the indoor with chairs and stools, and made a great noise. They, being afraid the people in the church should hear her, went off, taking only a foul shirt along with them. When service was done Mr. Goodwin’s man pursued them as far as Ringston Hill: his horse tired, so they got away.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Ringstone Hill is 10 miles.

Who were they, and what did they hope to achieve? Most probably they were simple thieves, who had recently got wind of the immense wealth of (some of) the Goodwins – £54,000 was roughly £7.5 million in 2021. Hobson for 31 August 1726:

Came that morning to Barnsley, dined with Mr. Goodwin, minister of Medley[?], who had lost £40,000 in the South Sea, and married his daughter to a Russian merchant, and had given her £14,000 to her portion, as his cousin, Mr. Goodwin of Tankersley, told us.

What was the source of such wealth?

However, I suppose it is possible that they were thugs hired by the Wortley dynasty to intimidate, injure or kill Goodwin in ongoing disputes regarding the tithes for Wharncliffe – see e.g. Goodwin vs Wortley on 6 December 1732 (Wood 1798).

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Original

October 9th, Sunday.—About 11 a clock in the forenoon, two horsemen came to Mr. Goodwin’s, the minister of Tankersly, and asked for him. There was only in the house a maid and his two children. She told them he was at church. They desire to be let in: she says her master had the key in his pocket: then they begun to give ill language, and told her she lied, and attempted to break in: she put the 2 children in a closet, got a spit and run it at them; flung hot broth in one of their faces; they discharged a pistol at her, and missed her: then they went to a door, broke it open; she barricaded the indoor with chairs and stools, and made a great noise. They, being afraid the people in the church should hear her, went off, taking only a foul shirt along with them. When service was done Mr. Goodwin’s man pursued them as far as Ringston Hill: his horse tired, so they got away.

175 words.