Bulletin Vol 50 No 2

Saddleworth Historical Society Bulletin Volume 50 Number 2 2020 Bulletin of the Saddleworth Historical Society Volume 50 Number 2 2020 Locating the “Far Famed Bill’s o’ Jack’s” 35 Terry Wyke The Schofields of Hollingreave (Part 3 - A Postscript) 46 Phil Wild The Kernel - A recently discovered morale boosting pamphlet from a First World War troop ship 56 Obituary, James Colin Carr (1928-2020) 61 Obituary, Barbara Booth (1932-2020) 63 Cover Illustration: Edwardian ladies on an outing to Bill’s o’ Jack’s Edited by Mike Buckley Printed by Taylor & Clifton, Uppermill © 2020 Saddleworth Historical Society and individual contributors and creators of images. i ii SHSB. VOL. 50. NO. 2, 2020 LOCATING THE “FAR-FAMED BILL’S O’ JACK’S” Terry Wyke Historians have long recognised the differences between national and local narratives of the past, and their importance in defining and reinforcing meanings of identity in communities.1 This is especially evident in Saddleworth when considering the year 1832 where the narrative is dominated by the murders of William and Thomas Bradbury rather than the reactions to the passage of the Reform Bill, the Asiatic cholera epidemic or the campaign to reduce working hours in textile mills. It is Bill’s o’ Jack’s that has fixed 1832 as a noteworthy year in the local chronology. That a crime committed nearly two centuries ago has continued to occupy such a prominent place in the history of the community can be partly explained by the fact that it had the defining features of a ‘sensational murder’. First, the double murder in a remote location was extremely brutal - the grisly details of the attack being widely reported in the Yorkshire and Lancashire newspapers, and then in other newspapers whose editors were aware, long before the establishment of a popular press, that news of a savage murder would be widely read. Thus the reports of the ‘frightful murders in Saddleworth’ read by metropolitan readers in the Observer were copied from the Leeds Mercury, whose own reports had likewise been taken from other newspapers. Original reports of the murder and inquest were few, the most detailed of which appear to have been provided by the Oldham-born journalist Edwin Butterworth.2 Second, the limited investigative powers of the local officials, even when buttressed by a substantial £100 reward, were unable to solve the crime.3 Relying principally on the evidence presented at the inquest, two lines of explanation came to dominate the public discourse about the perpetrators and their motives: namely that the murders had been carried out by a local person or persons who may have had a dispute with the family, or that it was an anonymous random act committed by strangers passing through the district. This latter explanation focused on Irish itinerant workers, reflecting anti-Irish prejudices widespread at the time. These suspicions were to result in a number of individuals being detained, including Charles Mullins in Delph and William Stephenson - ‘who looked like an Irishman’ - in Rotherham.4 Interest in the murders continued in the following years. This was the case in 1845 when John Priestley, a navvy, talking in a beershop in Birkby, Huddersfield, provided such details about the murders that he was detained by the police before eventually being freed.5 Other suspects could not be interrogated. There were reports in the Huddersfield press in 1853 that a man, James Hill, who had been transported to Australia had confessed to the murders of the Bradburys before being executed for another murder.6 Writers, especially those with local connections, also responded to the public fascination with the crime. What became one of the most influential accounts of the murders was to be found in Joseph Bradbury’s Saddleworth Sketches (1871). This had originally appeared in the Oldham Chronicle but when it was republished, the editor of the paper, Jonathan Hirst, no doubt aware of its commercial potential, provided a more detailed account of the crime and suspects, drawing in particular on contemporary newspaper reports. This essay was given added significance when it became one of the main sources informing Joseph Burgess’s novel Bill’s o’ Jack’s (1902). 1 J.D. Marshall, The Tyranny of the Discrete: A Discussion of the Problems of Local History in England, (Routledge, 1997). 2 M. Winstanley, ‘News from Oldham: Edwin Butterworth and the Manchester Press, 1829-1848’, Manchester Region History Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, (1990), pp. 3-10. 3 R.W. England, Jnr, ‘Investigating Homicides in Northern England, 1800-1824’, Criminal Justice History, Vol. 6, (1985), pp. 203-214. 4 Manchester Courier, 14 April 1832. 5 Manchester Guardian, 30 April 1845. 6 N. Barrow and T. Wyke, ‘Savagely Murdered in an Unusually Horrid Manner’, Saddleworth Historical Society Bulletin (SHSB), Vol. 17, No. 1-2 (1987), pp. 1-24. 35 LOCATING THE FAR-FAMED “BILL’S O’ JACK’S” Burgess is now rightly remembered as one of the key figures in the founding of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, before going on to spend some years as an active organiser. Journalism provided him with an income.7 His career in journalism began in 1881 when he joined the staff of the Oldham Evening Express. He was later to serve as editor of the Cotton Factory Times, having also been editor of the short-lived Workman’s Times. Burgess’s writings included fiction, serialised novels having become a staple feature in many local newspapers.8 Among these novels was The Master of the Moat, or Oliver the Spy, A Tale of the Luddites, a work mixing historical fact with routine fiction to tell the story of the Luddites in the West Riding, including the attack on William Cartwright’s mill at Rawfolds.9 Bill’s o’ Jack’s was published in 16 instalments in the Cotton Factory Times between February and July 1902. Burgess was aware that the mystery of the unsolved murders would provide a strong subject for a novel, more particularly as the crime and place would be known to many of his readers. The novel revealed his own extensive knowledge of the crime and included a lengthy examination of the various suspects: was it committed by a local person who knew the Bradbury’s (Reuben Platt was one of the principal suspects) or was it simply a burglary gone wrong, committed by a person or persons passing through Greenfield? Burgess concluded that the murders were probably committed by Jamie and Joe Bradbury (‘Red Tom Bradburys’) of Hoowood. Importantly, the crime was not the only theme in the novel. Burgess constructed a plot that discussed other key social issues of the early 1830s, including the early factory reform movement that was to lead to the passing of legislation that limited the number of hours that women and children could work in textile factories. Obviously written at speed and quoting extensively from parliamentary reports, Burgess’s intention was to inform his readers about these pioneer reforms, aware, as most socialists recognised, that the working class were often ignorant of their own history. But central to any explanation of why the murders continued to be a living memory was the fact that the scene of the crime was publicly accessible and that the keepers of the Moorcock inn used its notoriety to encourage visitors. It is important to recall that Bill’s o’ Jack’s was already an established destination before 1832, people journeying there to enjoy ‘scenery picturesque and beautiful beyond description’.10 Indeed it was probably because of the growing numbers of visitors in the summer months that the decision was taken to open a public house in this isolated location. At what date Greenfield began to attract its first tourists is unknown but by the late eighteenth century John Aikin in his well-known account of the Manchester region was referring to ‘the much frequented and celebrated rocks of Greenfield, as well several Druidical remains, a rocking stone, &c’.11 Antiquarians were attracted by the various ‘Druidical remains’ and the local legends associated with them. The Alderman, a short-distance from the inn, was among the most prominent of these ancient stones. The scenery also inspired poetry.12 Thus when, more than thirty years later, James Butterworth published the first detailed account of the landscape and history of Saddleworth, it acknowledged the long established interest in the land and its associated myths. He also provided one of the earliest references to the existence of the inn, pointing out that in keeping with the cultural usages in this part of Yorkshire, it was known by the patronym of its landlord: 7 Kevin McPhillips, Joseph Burgess (1853-1934) and the founding of the Independent Labour Party, (Edwin Mellen Press, 2005), ch. 4. 8 Eddie Cass, ‘Factory fiction in the Cotton Factory Times’, Manchester Region History Review, 8, (1994), pp. 32-43; Graham Law, Serializing Fiction in the Victorian Press, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000). 9 In this it followed the plot of another socialist novel, D.F.E. Sykes, Ben o’ Bills The Luddite, (Huddersfield, ‘The Workers’ Press, c.1898). 10 Pigot and Co.'s National Commercial Directory for 1828-9, (1829), p.1058. 11 John Aikin, A description of the country from thirty to forty miles around Manchester, (1795), p. 559. 12 Aikin refers to Samuel Bottomley, Greenfield. A poem. Victor Khadem argues for a publication date of c.1780-2. See Appendix 1 in V. Khadem, ‘Landscape, history and folklore in Samuel Bottomley’s Greenfield’ in Nigel Smith (ed.), History in the South Pennines - The legacy of Alan Petford, (Hebden Bridge Local History Society, 2017). Oldham Local Studies and Archives holds a copy of the first edition and Chetham’s Library a copy of the second (1817) edition.

Load more