Yorkshire Luddism:  Fiction and commentary 9: Assassination and Alienation

The view from Crosland Moor over Linthwaite and the upper Colne Valley on Horsfall's route back to Marsden.

He was killed before he reached this vantage point. 

At this distance of time it is hard to tell if the killing of Horsfall and the other attempted shootings rallied or diminished the support of the labouring classes for the Luddites.    Certainly it increased the military presence in the district, a presence that was becoming more effective through increased intelligence and targeting of suspects.    Looking at William Horsfall’s killing in more detail shows how difficult it is to ascertain what impact his death had on public opinion, for he is an ambiguous figure. 

Though other mill-owners, like Frank Vickerman, were hated and targeted by the Luddites, William Horsfall rapidly became notorious as their most bellicose opponent.   How this affected his relations with the general public is unclear.  Where Cartwright had difficulty finding workmen and militia to defend his mill, Horsfall turned his mill into a small fort protected by cannon and redoubt and maintained a garrison of workers inside it.   Reid claims ‘he had armed all his workmen, many of whom admired his forthright style,’ (Reid, p 106) without giving a source for this latter assertion.   Possibly it came from testimonials at Horsfall’s murder trial, when power had shifted back to the authorities and it was useful for workers to try to prove they never had any Luddite sympathies.     At the time they may have simply seen themselves as protecting their jobs rather than Horsfall’s life and property.     

Brooke and Kipling question Horsfall’s popularity by quoting from a report from a Colonel Campbell that, as the killers escaped, a crowd gathered that accused him of being an ‘oppressor of the poor’  (Brooke, Kipling, p 45). 

 'As soon as he fell after being wounded the inhuman populace surrounding him reproached him with having been the oppressor of the poor — they did not offer assistance — nor did any one attempt to pursue or secure the assassins who were seen to retire to an adjoining wood.'

http://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/28th-april-1812-assassination-of.html

How this fits in with the sequence of events told by Parr is unclear.  If a crowd gathered as Horsfall was lying wounded by the wall supported by Parr then their hatred was indeed intense.     Not only would they have been accusing the dying man but refusing to help take him to a place where he was treated.    However a contemporary report from the Leeds Mercury does not mention a crowd.  The newspaper does not name Parr, though possibly he is the witness they claim to quote, but simply records:

'A number of passengers, both horse and foot rushed almost instantly to the spot, and, after disentangling his foot from the stirrup, he [William Horsfall] was with some difficulty got to the Inn.'

http://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/28th-april-1812-assassination-of.html

The distance from the attack to the inn is a few hundred yards and the newspaper reports ‘some difficulty’ not a significant delay.  This newspaper report goes on to state ‘the arrival of a troop of the Queen’s Bays,’ was  ‘about three quarters of an hour afterwards’.  Even if Horsfall was left in the road for three quarters of an hour it is unlikely the assassins would have remained at the scene, so Campbell’s report becomes ambiguous.   The assassins ‘were seen to retire to an adjoining wood’.   By whom?  The military?  Parr?  When?  As the military approached or immediately after the shooting?   It sounds unlikely that Campbell witnessed what his story recounts, so his story is either hearsay, based on confused rumours when the military reached the scene or a story meant to symbolise the hostility of the lower orders to manufacturers and the military. 

The trial, that generally confuses the timings of events (see Kipling/Hall, p 43-4), quotes witnesses who react to the murder at ‘about seven o’clock’. 

'About seven o'clock, witness heard that Mr. Horsfall had been shot. Witness and the two persons whom the deceased had been treating went out together, and found Mr. Horsfall about twenty or thirty yards below the plantation, sitting on the roadside, bleeding very much. They got him down to Warren House as soon as they could. Mr. Horsfall died there.' http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng760.htm

This does not mention a hostile crowd or Parr but still leaves Horsfall in the road for at least three quarters of an hour and reverses the newspaper account that has men on the road bringing Horsfall to the inn, not vice-versa.  This brief account goes on to quote Parr’s testimony without attempting to reconcile the differences between the two versions.   Part of the problem about timings at this stage of the century is that there were few reliable timepieces available to the public; even town clocks, before the comings of the railways, were set at local rather than national time.  One person’s ‘about seven o’clock’ might have been another person’s ‘about six thirty’.  

Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for 1813  (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PrZCAAAAcAAJ)

produces a synthesised version gathered from several witnesses but there are time discrepancies that might be expected in the absence of reliable watches.   A Mr Joseph Bannister says it was ‘at nearly half past six’ that he met Parr and was told of Horsfall’s injuries and helped take him to the Warrener Inn.  Bannister mentions no crowd.

Perhaps it was after Horsfall was returned to The Warren and the story of the shooting spread that a hostile crowd gathered.   A similar crowd assembled outside the Yew Tree Inn after Booth and Hartley, the wounded attackers of Rawfolds Mill, had been brought there.   The incident might have been more like a demonstration than a confrontation and would have occurred long after the assassination squad had fled into the woods.

         The east end of Dungeon Wood was transformed into                             Delves Wood, to the south of Beaumont Park,   

               the picturesque Beaumont Park in 1879.                                           gives more idea of what Dungeon Wood might 

           http://www.fobp.co.uk/index.php/history-heritage                                              have looked like  in April 1812.                             

Further confusion is added by the reports of surgeons who did not agree as to how many times Horsfall was shot.

http://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/30th-april-1812-death-of-william.html

This site suggests that Horsfall may have been shot as he was on the ground, possibly by the man Parr saw leap onto the wall.   The total number of wounds (4-5) is surprising if the trial account is to be believed.   At the moment of ambush there would have been four guns pointing at Horsfall.  Only Mellor and Thorpe are said to have fired, whilst Smith and Walker merely watched.    Bearing in mind the difficulties of reloading contemporary pistols, this would suggest that the only musket balls that hit Horsfall came from two weapons fired once.  It is not surprising that Reid talks of Mellor loading with ‘two or three pistol balls’ to account for the many wounds (Reid, p 134).  Possibly some of the wounds on Horsfall’s right side, the side facing away from the wall were caused by Horsfall’s fall from his horse.  What is certain is that contemporary pictures of the shooting, including the famous representation by Phiz are inaccurate; none show a wall and both show the killers in full view.   Either because he did not know the locality or because the process of engraving reversed the drawing, Phiz shows Horsfall riding the wrong way. If the assassins escaped through Dungeon Wood and the plantation abutted Dungeon Wood, it was to the east of Blackmoorfoot Road .  Horsfall, riding south would have presented his left side to the killers.  The anonymous engraving shows no wall and has four men standing in plain sight of Horsfall, though he is at least riding in the right direction

http://ludditebicentenary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/28th-april-1812-assassination-of.html

This recreation attempts to show the moment of shooting.  

The assassins remain concealed behind the wall until there is no chance of forewarning or missing their target. 

With characteristic confidence Ben O’ Bills presents an account which further confuses the incident.    The shooting of Horsfall is reported by Martha who identifies a man called ‘Edmund Eastwood’ as the one who fetched the doctor (Chp X, pps 227-229).  Later Ben takes Mary on a ‘disaster tourism’ expedition over Crosland Moor pointing out ‘the marks of the bullets on the road side opposite the little wood,’ (Chp XI, p 263).  This may be based on a folk-tradition but it is unlikely to be true because the bullets that struck Horsfall stayed in his body and no account of the attack mentions missed shots. 

Ben O Bills and Bond Slaves follow the trial account of what happened next.   The four men fled into Dungeon Wood, hid their pistols and dispersed.    Ben Walker and Thomas Smith ended up in the Coach and Horses Inn, Honley.  (Kipling/Hall, p 44)   Here they became accidently memorable when Smith whistled tunes for a drunken collier to step-dance to (Reid, p 242).

Like many local pubs The Coach and Horses survives as an Indian Restaurant.

Neither Banks nor Bentley include a crowd hostile to Horsfall but both include the fight and the whistling in the pub.    In each case this incident is made to act as an indicator of the killer’s state of mind.  

In Banks version the Honley pub is called ‘The Red Cow’ and when the news comes in of Horsfall’s death ‘Walker looked down and was observed’ but Thomas Smith tried to distract attention by ‘whistling a lively air and drumming on the table with his fingers to the tune’.  In this version the collier is ‘sleepy’ not drunk as he ‘struck up a dance on the sanded floor,’ (Bk III, Chp 8, p 336).   However this tactic backfires: ‘It served to fix the guilty look of Walker on the memory of the landlady,’ (Bk III, Chp 8, p 336).     Banks treats the incident as ironic because it leads to the establishment of guilt, not alibi.  

Step Dancer.

Based on a photograph of Eli Durrant stepping at the Blaxhall Ship, East Anglia, 1953 

Meanwhile Mellor and Thorpe run to the house of ‘the former’s married cousin Joseph,’ (Bk III, Chp 8, p 336).   Kipling and Hall point out that Joseph’s wife gave the time of their arrival at 6.15pm.  If this time was accurate it would mean it was unlikely they could have been involved in a murder that took place about 6.00pm at least half a mile away, hidden their weapons and then reached a house somewhere on the Metham Road at the foot of Dungeon Wood (Kipling, Hall, p43).   They suggest their readers attempt the same route and time it.  Their proposal is it would take ‘a good twenty minutes,’ (Kipling, Hall, p43).   However, given the confusion of times mentioned in the accounts of the murder and the lack of reliable time-pieces, the time given by Joseph’s wife cannot be as accurate as it could be today.    Banks casually authorises the time of 6.15: ‘With a glance at the clock, which indicated a quarter past six,’ (Bk III, Chp 8, p 336), without pursing the implications Kipling and Hall point out,  though their estimate only differs by 5 minutes from the ‘official’ time.  The visit is used to establish imaginative details of what the post-murder pair might have looked like: ‘grimy from gunpowder smoke’ and George’s complacency: ‘They sallied forth two differently dressed men, having left behind them all incriminating evidence,’ (Bk III, Chp 8, p 337).  ‘Be sure your sin will find you out’ (Num 32.23) is the biblical message Banks implies throughout the aftermath.

Bentley changes the pub back to ‘The Coach and Horse’ but the whistler is a guilt-wracked Joe, who has been part of the killing squad but has not fired a gun.  As he whistles and the drunken collier dances, he experiences a cinematic-style flashback of the wood and ‘the brass rings of Mellor’s pistol’.  Though he calls ‘for more ale and again more’ it cannot quiet his conscience:  ‘he rose, and tossing his arms despairingly, went out into the night,’ (Bk I, Chp III .6, p 101).   

The former Coach and Horses, side view.