Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Every one in the crowd was talking at once, vowing vengeance on their false countrymen who had come to intimidate them, and swearing that in the face of all the troops in England, headed by King George himself, they would not abate one jot in their demands. Monstrous sticks, clubs, and quarterstaffs were freely brandished by the excited rioters, and the most insulting and irritating taunts and epithets addressed to the militia, who alone of all present were standing silent, calm, and unmoved, apparently almost heedless of the confusion which raged around. At last one of the maddened populace, rushing forward, snatched a firelock from the hands of a soldier, and turning it upon its unfortunate owner, shot him dead; at the same moment, one of the ringleaders fired a pistol at an officer of the militia, and inflicted upon him a mortal wound. These outrages were the signal for the commencement of an immediate conflict, at once brief and terrible. In a moment, the hitherto passive soldiery, obeying fatal but necessary word of command, levelled their muskets on the mob, and firing into their midst, shot them down like dogs. Against such an attack from a well-armed body of regular soldiers, any efforts of the unfortunate and misguided people could avail little; and almost before the smoke from the firing had cleared away, all resistance had ceased, and the rioters, or at least such of them as were able to do so, were in full flight. Many, however, were unable to move. The slaughter had been frightful; fifty of the unhappy people were killed, and three hundred desperately wounded. As is nearly always the case in such occurrences, the innocent suffered even more than the guilty. Women and children, aged men and harmless imbeciles, attracted by the noise and tumult to the fatal spot, were among those slain. The market-place was filled with the dead and dying; and many a hearth in the unfortunate town was rendered desolate by the sad events of that hapless day.

Comment

Comment

D.W. Smith says that this was the work of the North Yorkshire Militia (rather than the East Yorkshire Militia, the “Beverley Buffs,” under Digby Legard, who also seem to have been at Newcastle) (Smith 1980). He also gives more background:

The story of the riot can be followed in Ridley’s Hexham Chronicle, and something of the immediacy of the feeling at the time can be gleaned from John Dawson’s Diary (Surtees Society, Vol. 124, North Country Diaries). During the rounding up of hidden rioters which went on for many weeks, much suspicion of having ordered the soldiers’ volley fell upon Lancelot Allgood, the Deputy Lieutenant. Together with his comrade Christopher Reed of Chipchase, he was popularly supposed to have escaped the wrath of the rioters by hiding in a hay loft on the Hexham road. Four years later an ‘anonymous’ Will of a Certain Northern Vicar poured bitter scorn upon these two:

I give the corpulent Kit Reed
My lecture upon gingerbread.
And leave him too – though not for fun
For fear of harm – a wooden gun;
At the same time – in case of riot
A cockloft for to keep him quiet.
A ladder too, fame do not tattle
To aid him in the day of battle.
And to his worthy comorade
Who with ‘im such a figure made
A large birch rod that he may be
Tickled most exceedingly!

John Dawson provides a great deal of hearsay from the viewpoint of the militia (et seq.) (Dawson 1915).

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Original

Although by [1761] the panic with reference to the French invasion had greatly subsided, the government did not relax its efforts to create a large force of militia, as an auxiliary to the regular army, and the ballot was employed to obtain sufficient numbers for the various regiments which formed throughout the country. As a consequence of this latter measure, great discontent began to prevail among the lower classes, with whom the militia service was very unpopular, and nowhere was the discontent so great as in Northumberland and Durham. This feeling growing stronger, was not long in producing visible results. Towards the close of February 1761, a large number of men from the county of Durham assembled at Gateshead; and by a printed proclamation, which they delivered to the deputy lieutenants who were there at the time employed in balloting, stated that they were resolved not to submit to the ballot themselves, nor to allow any of their neighbours to do so either. In order to avoid a disturbance, the officers of the lord-lieutenant agreed to excuse those present from serving for that time, and the mob departed to their homes. This was on a Saturday afternoon; and by the Monday following, news having spread through Northumberland of the affair and its successful issue, an immense body of pitmen [miners] and Tyne keelmen [bargemen], both of which classes have ever been celebrated for their reckless daring, had marched to Morpeth, and demanded their exemption from the hateful service. Here, however, the officers of the crown were firmer, and refused to give way to their menaces; but not being supported by any armed force, the deputy-lieutenants and others were obliged to flee for safety, and the mob seized and destroyed all the lists and books having reference to the militia ballot, and then hurried to Hexham, to see what they could accomplish there.

By this time, however, the authorities had received intimation of their proceedings, and two battalions of Yorkshire militia were sent to intercept them. This force – long after known for its share in the events which followed as the Hexham Butchers – went thither on the 8th of March, and on the next day were drawn up under arms in the market-place, in front of the town-hall. In the meantime, bands of excited country-people, pitmen, lead-miners, and husbandmen were thronging into Hexham, each little company bearing flaunting colours, and vowing not to leave the town until they had obtained complete immunity from the requirements of the detested act, while the inhabitants of Hexham themselves, encouraged by the success that had already attended the rioters, and spurred on by the memory of past events, were only too eager to assist in the disturbance. Hour by hour, the crowd facing the troops in the market place grew larger, until by one o’clock not less than five thousand persons were assembled; and a scene was taking place which baffles description. Every reinforcement of the popular party that arrived was hailed with deafening cheers. Petitions of the most treasonable description were constantly being brought in from the country, and laid before the assembled justices in the town-hall, while their demands were supported by the surging angry sea of people beneath, with groans and yells, perfectly appalling. Every one in the crowd was talking at once, vowing vengeance on their false countrymen who had come to intimidate them, and swearing that in the face of all the troops in England, headed by King George himself, they would not abate one jot in their demands. Monstrous sticks, clubs, and quarterstaffs were freely brandished by the excited rioters, and the most insulting and irritating taunts and epithets addressed to the militia, who alone of all present were standing silent, calm, and unmoved, apparently almost heedless of the confusion which raged around.

At last one of the maddened populace, rushing forward, snatched a firelock from the hands of a soldier, and turning it upon its unfortunate owner, shot him dead; at the same moment, one of the ringleaders fired a pistol at an officer of the militia, and inflicted upon him a mortal wound. These outrages were the signal for the commencement of an immediate conflict, at once brief and terrible. In a moment, the hitherto passive soldiery, obeying fatal but necessary word of command, levelled their muskets on the mob, and firing into their midst, shot them down like dogs. Against such an attack from a well-armed body of regular soldiers, any efforts of the unfortunate and misguided people could avail little; and almost before the smoke from the firing had cleared away, all resistance had ceased, and the rioters, or at least such of them as were able to do so, were in full flight. Many, however, were unable to move. The slaughter had been frightful; fifty of the unhappy people were killed, and three hundred desperately wounded. As is nearly always the case in such occurrences, the innocent suffered even more than the guilty. Women and children, aged men and harmless imbeciles, attracted by the noise and tumult to the fatal spot, were among those slain. The market-place was filled with the dead and dying; and many a hearth in the unfortunate town was rendered desolate by the sad events of that hapless day.

Very quickly was Hexham deserted by those who had brought such misery upon it; and when, at four o’clock on the same afternoon, the troops were marched into the great hall of the old abbey, only those who were seeking the killed and wounded were to be seen in the now almost empty streets. Early the next morning, Ensign Hart, the officer who had been shot at the commencement of the fray, died, and was buried the same evening with military honours. This was a very wet day, ‘which,’ says one of the militia captains in his account of the affair, ‘was of service, as it washed away the remains of yesterday out of the market place.’

This sad tragedy, which, although almost unknown in history, has scarcely been paralleled in any English town in modern times, and which was felt with double force in a place so small as Hexham, did not end here. The district was placed, as of yore, under the charge of the military, and large bodies of dragoons, stationed at Hexham, kept the whole neighbourhood in a state of terror for many months. At the assizes for the county of Northumberland, held in the following August, two persons implicated in the riot, named Peter Patterson and William Elder, were tried for high treason, and were sentenced to be hanged, to be cut down alive, to have their entrails taken out and burned before their eyes, and then to be beheaded and quartered. Happily, for the sake of humanity and England, this brutal sentence – the provisions of which the ’15 had made too well known at Hexham – was not carried out. Elder received a reprieve, and Patterson was simply hanged and quartered. After he had been hanged a short time, and before life was extinct, the rope gave way, and he fell down, when it is said he exclaimed: ‘Innocent blood is ill to shed.’ A new halter was soon procured, and the sentence executed on the wretched man; but his last words were well remembered by the spectators, and are still used as a proverb by the natives of Tynedale.

For many long years, relics of this bloody business were to be found at Hexham in the persons of decrepit men and women, who had been maimed and wounded in the conflict. We ourselves distinctly remember two of these victims, one of whom had had his leg broken, and was lame ever after, while the other had received a shot in his mouth; indeed, it is only about two years since an actual witness of the scene died, at the patriarchal age of 108 years.

People now-a-days can scarcely conceive the occurrence of events such as are here described. It is well, however, that they should be reminded of them, not to stir up any of the old feelings of animosity which once prevailed so strongly, but which have now happily died out; but to warn them against the errors and evils of popular excesses of every kind, and to lead them to be thankful that they live in these better days, when it seems hardly possible to realise that which actually occurred at Hexham exactly one hundred years ago.

1426 words.

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