Turvin’s Golden Daughters: Women and Coining in the Calder Valley

On the 16th of August 1783, at midday, Thomas Spencer was hung by the neck on Beacon Hill, near Halifax. He had been found guilty of high treason by way of his involvement in the Halifax Corn Riots of that year. Some, at the time, may have argued that this was the least interesting of all his involvements…

A sheet published just prior to his execution included the following passage: ‘Thomas Spencer was born and brought up about five miles west of Halifax, in that plot of ground that has been peculiarly famous for many years past, for producing Coiners, Night Hunters, Thieves, Robbers and Murderers.’ Where was this place? Spencer, lived at New House, Mytholmroyd and was an associate of David Hartley, a man executed at York Tyburn twelve years prior for a very different crime, a man whose reputation has become deeply embedded in this so called ‘plot of ground’, a man who, from a remote farmstead on Bell House Moor, Cragg Vale, headed an enterprise that contributed in bringing the Royal Mint to its knees, reducing the value of coinage by a whopping 9%. Coining, the practice of producing counterfeit coins had long been carried out but Hartley and his accomplices took it to a new level. Several gangs in the Upper Calder Valley, about eighty coiners in total, were involved in the production of Counterfeit coins. Of these thirty were operating in Cragg Vale alone. The arguably game changing Broadsheet published and pasted up around Halifax in September 1769 vowed to bring Turvin’s Golden Sons to justice – they did and many local names entered a kind of swaggering local folklore. Much is written of the intimidation, the brutality, Hartley himself elevated to royal status – King David, they called him so you would be forgiven for thinking that this was purely a man thing, a band of brothers out to get the better of those in power but cast your eye down a list of coiners; the names and the descriptions, the waistcoats and pock-marked faces and in amongst you will see the word ‘wife’, you will see women’s names… From the late medieval period, the forging of British coins carried the charge of high treason. In defacing the king’s head you were, essentially, committing a crime against the crown. For men, the punishment for this was death by hanging. Women didn’t get off lightly, however; they were burnt at the stake although often strangled first, supposedly an act of mercy. 46% of those tried at the Old Bailey for coining offenses were women indicating a high level of female participation in this crime; so why do we know so little about women coiners? Were they as guilty and rebellious as their male counterparts? Let’s return to Cragg Vale and see what we find… Grace Hartley She was born Grace Sutcliffe and is 23 years old when she marries David Hartley, a man ten years her senior, and comes to live with him on Bell House Moor. It’s 1764. Bell House has several other occupants at this time. There is William Hartley, David’s father, a farmer, and Isaac and William Hartley, junior, David’s younger brothers. All three sons are weavers by trade, an occupation common to the area but David, ‘King David’ is also an iron worker, a skill he learned in his time away from the valley, in Birmingham. These men are key players in the so called ‘Turvin Gang’ (Turvin being the name of the moorland between Erringden and Ripponden) and if we look beyond Bell House we find others in the surrounding farms. John Wilcock at Keelham Farm, close by, David Greenwood, hedge solicitor for the gang, at Hilltop Farm and Matthew Normanton, at Stannery End. Bell House Moor is beautiful, wild and remote. A perfect place for an illegal enterprise. What must it have been like for Grace to live up here amongst these men? Without doubt she would have been aware of their activities, but did she participate? To answer this, we need to look at the roots of coining at this time. The advent of the industrial revolution in the 1760s had quite an impact on the weaving community of Cragg Vale. Factories took business away from hand weavers. Also, due to inflation and a shortage of space at the Royal Mint, far fewer British coins were in circulation; Portuguese and Spanish currency were legal tender and many people would not have been able to spot a fake. The clipping of tiny amounts from genuine gold coins would have seemed relatively harmless – it wasn’t hurting anyone so it’s understandable that whole families might be counterfeiting to supplement their income. Was Grace Hartley a coiner? There is no evidence of her being tried for the crime, but it is hard to imagine that she wouldn’t have been involved in some way. We know that Grace had three children, David, Mary and Isaac. We know that she lived at Bell House until the death of William Hartley senior in 1789 and that after this she bought Lodge Farm, a short distance away, for the sum of £260. Grace died on the 2nd of September 1802, aged 61. As far as coining is concerned history has overlooked her in favour of her husband but not all women escaped notoriety, as we shall see. The coiner’s criminal secret is about to be rumbled. Mary Pickles By 1769 coining has escalated to the point that it is impacting on ordinary working people. Imagine taking your hard-earned lowly wage to buy food and having it turned down because the coins were counterfeits. Protests began appearing in local newspapers. This from a letter published in the Leeds Mercury, 18th July 1769: ‘At this time when all manufacturing parts of the Kingdom are loudly complaining of the decay of trade and slackness of payments, many ingenious people in this country are growing rich apace by a new kind of industry…’ And gold coin: ‘Flows in upon us with great rapidity from all parts of the island…’ In the Calder Valley, William Deighton, a supervisor of taxes is dispatched to investigate and bring the culprits to justice. It isn’t going to be easy, though. Coining gangs operate in upmost secrecy. The activities on Bell House Moor are not easy to spy on. Someone would have to be persuaded to surrender information and it isn’t long before Deighton finds his chief informer – James Broadbent, of Sowerby, variously employed as a weaver and charcoal burner. Deighton offers him money – 100 guineas, in exchange for information (money that is never paid). And not long after a broadsheet is published and widely distributed in Halifax. Dated the 16th of September 1769 and stamped with the image of a skeleton in a coffin it gives details of: ‘Coiners committed to York Castle on suspicion of chipping, filing, edging and diminishing the gold coins of our Kingdom’ Amongst those captured is Mary Pickles. The details of her arrest and coining credentials appear on the broadsheet but not her name: ‘Last night in the evening the wife of John Pickles, commonly called Jack of Matts, alias Jack of Pecketwell, was conducted through this town (Halifax) on her way to York Castle, on horseback, with her hands tied and coining tools in a bag by her side. As she passed through the bottom of town, the man who led the horse danced and the mob hooted her over the bridge.’ Mary Pickles and her husband, a hand loom weaver, arrested on suspicion of ‘diminishing’ coins a few days earlier, live at Wadsworth Banks, near Hebden Bridge. They have a large family. Given their circumstances, it isn’t hard to imagine why they became involved in the practice of coining. Although John Pickles’ deeds appear on the same broadsheet, Mary gets special commendation: ‘This woman has been the most noted vendor and procurer in these parts.’ The vending and procuring of coins was known as ‘uttering’, a practice by which the offender traded counterfeit coins for legitimate ones. More often than not it was women who were caught and tried for this crime. Possibly because they were more likely to be involved in the exchange of money on a day to day basis and possibly because, to begin with at least, they would not arouse suspicion. At the time of Mary’s arrest her husband escapes. What follows gives us an indication of Mary’s force of character and intelligent understanding of the situation. Via her captors she issues a warning: Should her husband be taken and suffer the law, she would, (through her information,) hang forty coiners. Mary knows the people she has been associating with and perhaps has the foresight to understand what is yet to come. With her declaration many people abscond from Halifax, supposedly fearful of arrest. Others, however, do not evade the consequences of their crimes… The coiners story, and the women involved are about to enter a murderous chapter. Mary Newall On the 14th of October, 1769, David Hartley is apprehended at the Old Cock Inn, Halifax, on suspicion of clipping and counterfeiting. The following day he is taken, under strong guard, to York Castle to await trial. Deighton’s blood thirsty prediction of York Tyburn being ‘honored with the weight of Royal Blood’ is looking increasingly likely. In capturing their beloved King, Deighton no doubt thinks he has broken the back of the gang. He is dangerously wrong, however, for on the 10th of November, just one month after the arrest of Hartley, he is murdered near to his home on Bull Close Lane, Halifax – shot in the head, trampled and robbed. By the end of November James Broadbent, Robert Thomas, Matthew Normanton and William Folds have been arrested on suspicion of the murder and taken to York Castle. The accused remain in custody while evidence for their trial is gathered. On the 8th of January 1770, Abraham Ingham, a farm labourer is drinking in the Cross Inn, Heptonstall. Perhaps celebrating the New Year with gusto, he becomes a little free with his words announcing that he knows who killed William Deighton and that he is prepared to give evidence. In his most terrible nightmares, Ingham could not have foreseen what would happen next; he is immediately set upon, his head thrust deep into the smouldering coals of a fire and held fixed there by the neck with red hot fire tongs. As if this isn’t barbaric enough, his attackers fill his breaches with burning coals and there he dies in great agony whilst the culprits flee the scene. Within four weeks the Leeds Intelligencer reports: ‘Mary Newall, of Heptonstall, in the Parish of Halifax, was committed to York Castle charged with being concerned in the murder of Abraham Ingham.’ In fact, she isn’t the only person arrested for the crime – James Jagger and John Greenwood accompany her to York. It is evidently shocking to learn that a woman has been involved in such a brutal murder and perhaps this is why she is singled out by the press. Although, as with Mary Pickles, we shouldn’t underestimate what a woman will do to protect those closest to her, as well as her own neck. In information given to the Crown prosecutors by Joseph Broadbent, an informant, it is stated that Robert Thomas’ wife paid John Sladdin and his wife 10 Guineas each for giving false information as to the whereabouts of her husband on the night of Deighton’s murder, and in a statement given by one of the accused, Matthew Normanton: “Thomas Clayton and his wife very often pressed upon us to commit the murder of Mr Deighton, and she said that trade would go briskly on as soon as ever that excise man was removed out of the way.” Of course, we can’t assume that all confessions are honest, but during the course of the coining trials of this period the information given paints a picture of a tight-knit community desperate to preserve their lives and livelihoods. On the 18th of March Mary Newall is acquitted together with James Jagger and John Greenwood. Presumably, there isn’t enough evidence to convict them, any witnesses, no doubt, reluctant to risk meeting the same demise as Abraham Ingham. On the 28th of April, 1770, David Hartley is executed at York Tyburn. His body is brought home and buried in Heptonstall churchyard. Having been acquitted for the murder of Deighton, Robert Thomas and Matthew Normanton are convicted and executed for highway robbery. Their bodies are hung in chains on Beacon Hill, each arranged with a finger pointing towards the place where Deighton met his end. With increased vigilance on the part of the authorities and more new coin in circulation it becomes increasingly difficult for clipping to continue as rampantly as it has. Although this is not the end of counterfeiting – literally ‘making’ money will always be irresistible to some degree, without their King, the Turvin Gang begins to fray. Over time, its key players enter the minds and imaginations of story tellers and live on from generation to generation. Author, Phyllis Bentley’s book, ‘Gold Pieces’, tells the story through the eyes of a young boy; folk/rock band Chumbawumba have given us the wayward ‘Snip, Snip, Snip’; Steve Tilston, pays homage with a ballad – ‘King of the Coiners’ and more recently, from the writer, Ben Myers, we have the highly acclaimed ‘Gallows Pole’. When we hear about the Cragg Vale Coiners we mostly hear about the men; perhaps this is to be expected – history loves its rebel anti-heroes, but if history had cared to preserve more of Grace Hartley, a woman astute enough to have the money to buy and move her family to a new property after the death of her father-in-law; or Mary Pickles, paraded on horseback past jeering onlookers, who, unrepentant, issues a warning from jail which has them running for their lives, or Mary Newall and the did-she-or-didn’t-she murder of Abraham Ingham, I bet these women would have fascinating stories to tell.