Yorkshire Almanac James Benson (19) and his little sister, Irish strikebreakers, are set upon by a mob between Farsley and Stanningley

5 December 1832: James Benson (19) and his little sister, Irish strikebreakers, are set upon by a mob between Farsley and Stanningley

Leeds Mercury. 1832/12/08. Atrocious Murder. Leeds. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

ATROCIOUS MURDER. On Wednesday night last, a murder, attended with circumstances of a most aggravated nature, was committed in the neighbourhood of Farsley, a manufacturing village about six miles from this town. It appears that difference had existed for some time between Mr. Abimelech Hainsworth, cloth manufacturer, of Farsley, and his work-people, respecting an advance of wages, and with whose demands he had complied, only requiring them to sign an agreement stating that they were willing to work for him upon these terms; intimating, at the same time, that those who refused to sign this paper would be discharged from his service, when they had completed the work they had in hand. This stipulation it seems was offensive to the Trades’ Union, and he, Mr. Hainsworth, received a notice from their Secretary, John Powlett, stating that if he did not continue to employ the whole of his workmen, a strike would take place. Mr. Hainsworth not complying with this requisition, many of his workmen, both weavers and slubbers, quitted his service. Some, however, who were not members of the Trades’ Union, remained in his employ; among whom were James Benson, a native of Ireland, a young man about 19 years of age, and his sister, a young woman apparently some years younger, by which they became, in the slang of the Union, Black-sheep. On Wednesday night last, about a quarter past eight o’clock, this young man, accompanied by his sister, left Mr. Hainsworth’s house, where they had been working, and set out on their return home to Stanningley, about a mile and a half distance. When they had proceeded rather more than half a mile, a number of men to the amount of thirty or forty, who appeared to be lying in ambush, suddenly started up, or came in different directions, and instantly surrounded them. The young man, who appeared to be the principal object of attack, received his death-blow, but the sister fortunately effected her escape, not, however, without receiving several severe blows on the arm from a ruffian who followed her a considerable distance. When she arrived at her master’s house, two persons were instantly dispatched to the spot, who found the young man lying near the foot path, apparently in a dying state and perfectly insensible. He was immediately conveyed to his master’s house, when surgical assistance was instantly sent for, and in the course, of the night he was attended by Mr. Johnson, of Bramley, and Mr. Cooper, of Bradford, surgeons, but the injury he had received was of too fatal a nature to render medical skill of any avail, and he expired about five o’clock on the following morning. On a post mortem examination of the body, it appeared that there was an extensive fracture on the posterior part of the left side of the skull, and which both the medical men stated to be the cause of his death.

Yesterday, an inquest was held upon the deceased by Christr, Jewison, Esq. Coroner for the Honour of Pontefract, at the house of Mr. John Cockshott, Fleece Inn, Farsley, when the preceding facts were stated in considerable detail, by several witnesses, but there being no evidence satisfactorily to identify the perpetrators of this murderous outrage, the further proceedings were adjourned to Wednesday next, to allow time for further inquiry.

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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.

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That all four were Methodists is from Sydney Smith (Holland 1855): “Conceive the horror of fourteen men hung yesterday! And yet it is difficult to blame the Judges for it, though it would be some relief to be able to blame them.”

Modern accounts generally follow the colourful but substantially fabricated version by (George) Walter Thornbury, first published by Dickens (Thornbury 1867/05/11) and then under his own name (Thornbury 1870). First among them was local lad Frank Peel – frequently given as a source for Thornbury’s attribution to Horsfall of a probably fictitious “desire to ride up to the saddle girths in Luddite blood” (Peel 1888) – but see also e.g. Georgina Hutchinson’s Under the Canopy of Heaven, Geoffrey Bindman in The New Law Journal, and Wessyman. (Susanna Berger is good on Thornbury’s ground-breaking but misleading biography of J.M.W. Turner (Berger 2013).)

Kevin Binfield quotes from a letter to Huddersfield magistrate Joseph Radcliffe from Colonel Thomas Norton describing the behaviour of Luddites hanged at York Castle during the first
two weeks of 1812:

You know how the three Murderers died, and the five Men for Rawfold’s Mill died precisely the same. The Chaplain told them it was his Duty to entreat them to confess. They were silent. He then told them he should take their Silence as confessions. They were still Silent on that Subject, but spoke Generally of their Sins. Thus in Fact tacitly allowing their Guilt as to the Offence they died for, but not doing so in Words…. Nor was one Word said by their People. (Binfield 2004)

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