The Yorkshire Witch Read online

  The Yorkshire Witch

  The Yorkshire Witch

  The Life and Trial of Mary Bateman

  Summer Strevens

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  Pen & Sword History

  an imprint of

  Pen & Sword Books Ltd

  47 Church Street

  Barnsley

  South Yorkshire

  S70 2AS

  Copyright © Summer Strevens 2017

  ISBN 978 1 47386 387 3

  eISBN 978 1 47386 389 7

  Mobi ISBN 978 1 47386 388 0

  The right of Summer Strevens to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 ‘A knavish and vicious disposition’

  Chapter 2 Mrs Moore’s Screws

  Chapter 3 From The Hand Of Miss Blythe

  Chapter 4 ‘Crist is coming’

  Chapter 5 A Long Distance Dupe

  Chapter 6 ‘My dear Friend…’

  Chapter 7 The End of a Crooked Road

  Chapter 8 The Gates Of Mercy Are Closed

  Chapter 9 ‘Quick’ with Child?

  Chapter 10 ‘Damn her name to everlasting fame’

  Bibliography and Sources

  Acknowledgements

  At the risk of opening these acknowledgements after the fashion of a scant bibliography, I would firstly like to express my particular indebtedness to the anonymous author (whom I have tentatively identified in the last chapter of this book) who first undertook to set down the only contemporary account of Mary Bateman’s life and exploits, shortly after her execution, now over two hundred years ago. Understandably, I have drawn heavily from the volubly titled The Extraordinary life and character of Mary Bateman The Yorkshire Witch traced from the earliest thefts of her infancy through a most awful course of crimes and murders till her execution at the castle of York, on the 20th March, 1809 – though this must be considered as something of a sensationalised and indeed unsubstantiated account in parts. Necessarily circumnavigating the moralising tone so typical of the age, the book nevertheless proved an invaluable source, as did William Knipe’s Criminal Chronology of York Castle, the full title of which is as tumescent as the former publication, and though censorious in damningly equivalent measure, nonetheless provided many valuable insights in the research of this book.

  In addition, though largely borrowing from The Extraordinary Life, the second volume of The Criminal Recorder: or, Biographical sketches of Notorious Public Characters, again anonymously written in 1815 by a ‘Student of the Inner Temple’ provided some further pertinent particulars, as did the colourful, albeit brief, account of Mary’s life and crimes as reported by The Newgate Calendar, (the hugely popular monthly bulletin, yet a supposedly moralising publication that gave vivid accounts of notorious criminals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and which did not disappoint in the report of Mary’s case, the culmination of the opening line running thus, that: ‘she richly deserved that fate which eventually befell her’.

  My acknowledgments to the living however must include my effusive thanks to Lauren Ryall-Stockton and Catherine Robins, Curator and Assistant Curator respectively of the Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds, who were unreserved in their assistance with regards to my enquiries concerning one of the Thackray’s most iconic (and possibly most controversial) exhibits, namely the display of Mary Bateman’s partial skeleton. I am also deeply indebted to Dr Dave Roberts, Senior Lecturer in Anatomy, University of Leeds School of Medicine, who was kind enough to indulge my scant anatomical knowledge, in addition to clarifying for me the University’s policy concerning the display and indeed future destiny of Mary Bateman’s remains, still the property of the University. Grateful thanks are also due to Fiona Munroe Blyth, former director of the United Kingdom Association for Transactional Analysis, who assisted in providing an invaluable insight into theories of modern psychology.

  With regards to archival documentary research, further thanks are due for the research support kindly provided by Rose Gibson, Central Library Manager of Leeds Library, and the Leeds Library Information Service who manage the ‘Leodis’ online archive which as well as containing over 59,000 images of Leeds, old and new, is a wonderful repository of historical information pertinent to the city’s past. I would also like to thank Robert Wake, Collections Facilitator for York Museums Trust, for providing access to and permission for use of material held in the York Castle Museum archives, as well as Fiona Marshall and Malcolm Mathieson, Archivists for the West Yorkshire Archive Service. I should also like to extend my gratitude to Simon Craddock, Library Assistant with the Yorkshire Archaeological Society and to George P Landow, Founder and Editor-in-chief of The Victorian Web, an invaluable source for historical images of Leeds. Mention must also be made of Andrew Currie, Deputy Director of Press and Public Relations for Bonhams of London in securing the rare image of one of Joanna Southcott’s ‘seals’. I would also like to thank the Reverend Susanne Jukes, Vicar of St Columba, Topcliffe, for her assistance in tracking down Mary Bateman’s baptismal record, now in the care of the North Yorkshire County Records Office, and to Jan Reed for her unstinting efforts in obtaining a copy of the same.

  Special commendation is also due to my publishers, and in particular I also wish to acknowledge the support, advice and infinite forbearance of my editor, Carol Trow. Finally, I am indebted to my partner, Jack Gritton, without whose enduring patience and support in the face of my woeful IT abilities I would have been lost.

  To all those mentioned above, and everyone else who has given of their time, guided and shared in their professional knowledge and insights, Thank You.

  Summer Strevens

  2017

  Introduction

  On the morning of 20 March 1809, a Monday, the usual day designated for the execution of murderers, the woman who had earned herself the title of ‘The Yorkshire Witch’ was executed upon York’s New Drop gallows, hanged before a crowd variously estimated at between five and twenty thousand people. Among the multitude who came to see Mary Bateman die were some who had travelled all the way from her home town of Leeds, many of them on foot, and doubtless many of them the victims of her hoaxes and extortions.

  I first came across Mary while researching another book on the criminal history of York. Though not a witch in the traditional sense, Mary Bateman was what we would term today a consummate con-artist – a charlatan of the first order, a compulsive liar, confidence trickster, thief and fraudster, who, through her ‘artifice and deleterious skill’, deceived many victims by instilling in them the belief that she had supernatural powers. According to contemporary accounts, Mary was charismatic and ostensibly charming a
nd above all extremely adept at identifying the psychological weaknesses of the gullible. Easily gaining the simple trust placed in the her by the desperate and poor who populated the growing industrial metropolis of Leeds at the turn of the nineteenth century, she was a supreme exponent of the art of exploiting their fears and ancient folk memory of witchcraft to rob them of all their worldly goods. Mary however, did much more than cause misery and penury, adding murder to the list of her diabolical deeds.

  Along with the theft of money and goods, Mary increasingly turned to fortune-telling as her main source of income – it was said that through exposure to gypsies in her early life, she had learnt many of their arts – and embellished her prophesies with the wisdom she sought from a Mrs Moore whom Mary always consulted on behalf of her clients. Incidentally, the lady was pure invention on Mary’s part, but this didn’t stop her from taking payment on Mrs Moore’s behalf. While the mystical and mythical Mrs Moore, whose supernatural powers apparently stemmed from her being the seventh child of a seventh child, proved a profitable invention, Mary was also to employ the services of the equally fictitious Miss Blythe. Adept at seeing into the future and an exponent in the removal of evil spells and the provision of magical cures, of course, through the agency of Mary, Miss Blythe charged exorbitantly for her expertise.

  While Mary Bateman was tried and convicted on a single murder charge, we can say with a measure of certainty that she killed at least three others, and in all probability was responsible for many more deaths that escaped detection. The labelling of Mary Bateman as a serial killer, the term and concept first coined by German criminologist Ernst Gennat in 1930, certainly fits with the definition – someone who murders more than three victims, one at a time in a relatively short interval. Gennat was Director of the Berlin Criminal Police in the early Nazi years. His work on notorious murderers Fritz Haarmann and Peter Kurten led to the serienmorder phrase, although both men’s crimes had a sexual element totally missing from Mary’s. Research has shown that the predominant impetus for serial killers is based on psychological gratification. Motives including thrill, attention seeking and financial gain, the latter of which certainly drove Mary. She resorted to theft and fraud on an impressive scale, later escalating to the elimination of her victims, a necessary and expedient measure against their discovery and exposure of the ruthless pact into which they had entered with the Yorkshire Witch. The hypothesis that Mary suffered from a psychological condition which drove her criminal behaviour is discussed in the last chapter of this book.

  Murder aside, Mary’s most audacious and far reaching deception centred on a phenomenon that became known as ‘The Prophet Hen of Leeds’, a doomsday scam engineered to play on the fears of those persuaded to believe that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was imminent. While there have been countless examples of people who have proclaimed that the return of Jesus Christ is at hand (most recently, in October 2014 the image of Christ appearing on a slice of wholemeal toast in Manchester was hailed as such a sign), possibly there has never been a stranger messenger than the chicken that laid eggs on which the phrase ‘Crist is coming’ was indelibly written. As news of this miracle spread, many people became convinced that the End Days were looming – and paid hard cash to see Mary’s miracle hen. Until, that is, a curious local doctor discovered that Mary herself was responsible for literally ‘hatching a hoax’, but not before she had managed to turn a healthy profit. The reputation of Joanna Southcott, whose flourishing following by those spiritually devoted to her ideals was also adversely affected by Mary’s exploitative association with the self-proclaimed prophetess.

  It is a testament to Mary’s contemporary notoriety that the book published in 1811, two years after her execution, and detailing her life and crimes ran to a twelfth edition. As the inordinately lengthy title suggests The Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire Witch; Traced from the Earliest thefts of Her Infancy, Through a Most Awful Course of Crimes and Murders, Till Her Execution at the New Drop, Near the Castle of York, on Monday the Twentieth Of March, 1809, the book detailed how her ‘knavish and vicious disposition’ began to show at the tender age of five, and developed into the many frauds, deceptions and ultimately murder which marked her later life as that of a career criminal. Yet, through remarkable luck and cunning, Mary managed to evade the grasp of the authorities for over twenty years, during which time she ruined many lives, as well as taking them, lacing her charms and cures with arsenic.

  Amongst those who fell victim to Mary’s malign ministrations were the Misses Kitchin, two Quaker sisters who kept a draper’s shop in Leeds and who fell for Mary’s ingratiating ways. In the space of ten days, both sisters died mysteriously, along with their mother, after taking medicines prescribed by Mary, all three ending up in a shared grave. And as a practising abortionist, Mary must invariably have been responsible for any number of unrecorded fatalities of those young women who sought her assistance in terminating an unwanted pregnancy. However, it was for the murder of Rebecca Perigo for which Mary was tried, convicted and hanged. At the time of her arrest, Mary was poised to poison again, and may very well have succeeded had it not been for the timely account in a Leeds newspaper, exposing and alerting her next potential victims to the danger they were in.

  While Mary Bateman’s status as a ‘witch’ gave cause to sensationalise her death, over two hundred years after her execution, the macabre display of her (partial) skeleton still proved a great draw for visitors to the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds. The bones were on long-term loan from Leeds University Anatomy Department where Mary’s body was dissected. Some would say that this barbaric treatment of her corpse was an apt punishment for her crimes. Described by the Museum as one of their iconic exhibits, the continuous display of Mary’s skeleton since the Thackray first opened in 1997 until the recent decision to remove her remains in July 2015 was, and still is, a bone of contention – literally you might say – with regards to the ethical and moral position of her remains still being denied Christian burial.

  Despite the notoriety attached to the name of the Yorkshire Witch and the continuing controversy surrounding her post-mortem fate, Mary Bateman remains something of an ethereal character. After two centuries, it is difficult to be accurate about her motivation. In some ways she is a shadow, blurred still further by the passage of time. The fact that Mary’s crimes are catalogued in various sensational accounts of infamous villainesses proves the public’s fascination, still as potent today as in her own time. It is all the more extraordinary then that this is the first biography exclusively dedicated to Mary Bateman since the aforementioned anonymously written and heavily moralising account which appeared in print two years after her execution on York’s gallows.

  Certainly, in the words of The Extraordinary Life, her character was evil enough to ‘Damn her name to everlasting fame’. This book in no way seeks to vindicate the actions of a convicted murderess, but we must weigh the moralising strictures and harsh sentiment that were the hallmarks of her time, and look at her upbringing, background and the social milieu in which she existed. In turn we must examine the effects of a burgeoning industrial revolution on her and everyone else’s environment. That way a more complete picture of Mary will emerge, engendering an appreciation that people in the past were not just ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but motivated by personal and societal complexities and conflicts, just as we are today.

  Author’s note: In view of the overly lengthy title of the ‘The Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire Witch; Traced from the Earliest thefts of Her Infancy, Through a Most Awful Course of Crimes and Murders, Till Her Execution at the New Drop, Near the Castle of York, on Monday the Twentieth Of March, 1809’, henceforth where referred to throughout the text, the title of this publication will be abbreviated to The Extraordinary Life.

  Summer Strevens

  2017

  Chapter 1

  ‘A knavish and vicious disposition’

  When Mary
Bateman was born, she was of so little importance that the date of her birth went unrecorded. When it came to her final moments on the gallows however, thousands of spectators witnessed her execution upon York’s ‘New Drop’ on the morning of Monday 20 March 1809, some of whom, packed shoulder to shoulder in the crowd, were convinced to the very end that the Yorkshire Witch would save herself from death at the last moment by employing her supernatural powers to vanish into thin air as the noose tightened. Needless to say, she didn’t.

  Mary was forty-one at the time of her execution, and while her exact birth date is not known, the parish records of St Columba, Topcliffe, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, show her as being baptised on 15 January 1768. English parish registers as a general rule recorded baptisms rather than births, so we can assume that she was born late in 1767 or early 1768, as the average age at baptism increased from one week old in the middle of the seventeenth century to one month by the middle of the nineteenth century. The church itself, with its fourteenth century interior fittings, was extensively rebuilt in the 1880s. Born Mary Harker in Asenby, a town in the parish of Topcliffe on the south bank of the River Swale, a few miles south of the larger market town of Thirsk, she was the third of six children born to Benjamin Harker and his wife Ann, née Dunning. Benjamin and Ann had married at Brompton by Northallerton on 10 July 1754, before moving to Asenby, a little less than fifteen miles away, to take up small scale farming. Asenby today remains a small village with less than 300 inhabitants, with the majority of the surrounding land still given over to farming. However, when the Harkers took up residence, every cottage and farmstead would have been entirely familiar and every face known; any stranger passing through would have caused a stir, the odd pedlar, or a sailor making his way home from sea across country exciting comment.