Brown leather binding with red title plate and gilt title on the spine. embossed cambridge panel on both boards.

Halifax and its Gibbet Law,” by John Bentley

First Edition of the enclosed Gibbet Law.

The Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine, or decapitating machine, used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was probably installed during the 16th century as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Halifax was once part of the Manor of Wakefield, where ancient custom and law gave the Lord of the Manor the authority to execute summarily by decapitation any thief caught with stolen goods to the value of 13½d or more, or who confessed to having stolen goods of at least that value. Decapitation was a fairly common method of execution in England, but Halifax was unusual in two respects: it employed a guillotine-like machine that appears to have been unique in the country, and it continued to decapitate petty criminals until the mid-17th century.

The device consisted of an axe head fitted to the base of a heavy wooden block that ran in grooves between two 15-foot (4.6 m) tall uprights, mounted on a stone base about 4 feet (1.2 m) high. A rope attached to the block ran over a pulley, allowing it to be raised, after which the rope was secured by attaching it to a pin in the base. The block carrying the axe was then released either by withdrawing the pin or by cutting the rope once the prisoner was in place.

Almost 100 people were beheaded in Halifax between the first recorded execution in 1286 and the last in 1650, but as the date of its installation is uncertain, it cannot be determined with any accuracy how many were dealt with by the Halifax Gibbet. By 1650 public opinion considered beheading to be an excessively severe punishment for petty theft; use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, and the structure was dismantled. The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840, and a non-working replica was erected on the site in 1974. The names of 52 people known to have been beheaded by the device are listed on a nearby plaque.

What became known as the Halifax Gibbet Law gave the Lord of the Manor of Wakefield, of which the town of Halifax was a part, the power to try and execute any felon for the theft of goods to the value of 13½d or more:

If a felon be taken within their liberty or precincts of the said forest [the Forest of Hardwick], either handhabend [caught with the stolen goods in his hand or in the act of stealing], backberand [caught carrying stolen goods on his back], or confessand [having confessed to the crime] cloth or any other commodity to the value of 13½d, that they shall after three market days or meeting days within the town of Halifax after such his apprehension, and being condemned he shall be taken to the gibbet and there have his head cut off from his body.

The Gibbet Law may have been a last vestige of the Anglo-Saxon custom of infangtheof, which allowed landowners to enforce summary justice on thieves within the boundaries of their estates. Samuel Midgley in his Halifax and its Gibbet-Law Placed in a True Light, published in 1761, states that the law dates from a time “not in the memory of man to the contrary”. It may have been the consequence of rights granted by King Henry III to John de Warenne (1231–1304), Lord of the Manor of Wakefield. Such baronial jurisdiction was by no means unusual in medieval England and was described in the 11th-century legal text entitled De Baronibus, qui suas habent curias et consuetudines (Concerning the barons who have their courts of law and customs). Neither was the decapitation of convicted felons unique to Halifax; the earls of Chester among others also exercised the right to “behead any malefactor or thief, who was apprehended in the action, or against whom it was made apparent by sufficient witness, or confession, before four inhabitants of the place”, recorded as the Custom of Cheshire.

A commission appointed by King Edward I in 1278 reported that there were at that time 94 privately owned gibbets and gallows in use in Yorkshire, including one owned by the Archbishop of York. What was unusual about Halifax was that the custom lingered on there for so long after it had been abandoned elsewhere.

Suspected thieves were detained in the custody of the lord of the manor’s bailiff, who would summon a jury of 16 local men “out of the most wealthy and best reputed”, four each from four local townships. The jury had only two questions to decide on: were the stolen goods found in the possession of the accused, and were they worth at least 13½d. The jury, the accused, and those claiming that their property had been stolen, were brought together in a room at the bailiff’s house. No oaths were administered and there was no judge or defence counsel present; each side presented their case, and the jury decided on guilt or innocence.

The law was applied so strictly that anyone who apprehended a thief with his property was not allowed to recover it unless the miscreant and the stolen goods were presented to the bailiff. The goods were otherwise forfeited to the lord of the manor, and their previous rightful owner was liable to find himself charged with theftbote or conniving in the felony. Halifax’s reputation for strict law enforcement was noted by the antiquarian William Camden and by the “Water Poet” John Taylor, the author of the Beggar’s Litany: “From Hell, Hull, and Halifax, Good Lord, deliver us!”

Before his execution a convicted felon was usually detained in custody for three market days, on each of which he was publicly displayed in the stocks, accompanied by the stolen goods. After the sentence had been carried out a county coroner would visit Halifax and convene a jury of 12 men, sometimes the same individuals who had found the felon guilty, and ask them to give an account under oath of the circumstances of the conviction and execution, for the official records.

The punishment could only be meted out to those within the confines of the Forest of Hardwick, of which Halifax was a part. The gibbet was about 500 yards (457 m) from the boundary of the area, and if the condemned person succeeded in escaping from the forest, then he could not legally be brought back to face his punishment. At least two men succeeded in cheating the executioner in that way: a man named Dinnis and another called Lacy. Dinnis was never seen in Halifax again, but Lacy rather unwisely decided to return to the town seven years after his escape; he was apprehended and finally executed in 1623.

The earliest known record of punishment by decapitation in Halifax is the beheading of John of Dalton in 1286, but official records were not maintained until the parish registers began in 1538. Between then and 1650, when the last executions took place, 56 men and women are recorded as having been decapitated. The total number of executions identified since 1286 is just short of 100.

Local weavers specialised in the production of kersey, a hardwearing and inexpensive woollen fabric that was often used for military uniforms; by the 16th century Halifax and the surrounding Calder Valley was the largest producer of the material in England. In the final part of the manufacturing process the cloth was hung outdoors on large structures known as tenterframes and left to dry, after having been conditioned by a fulling mill. Daniel Defoe wrote a detailed account of what he had been told of the gibbet’s history during his visit to Halifax in Volume 3 of his A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain, published in 1727.^] He reports that “Modern accounts pretend to say, it [the gibbet] was for all sorts of felons; but I am well assured, it was first erected purely, or at least principally, for such thieves as were apprehended stealing cloth from the tenters; and it seems very reasonable to think it was so”.

Eighteenth-century historians argued that the area’s prosperity attracted the “wicked and ungovernable”; the cloth, left outside and unattended, presented easy pickings, and hence justified severe punishment to protect the local economy. James Holt on the other hand, writing in 1997, sees the Halifax Gibbet Law as a practical application of the Anglo-Saxon law of infangtheof. Royal assizes were held only twice a year in the area; to bring a prosecution was “vastly expensive”, and the stolen goods were forfeited to the Crown, as they were considered to be the property of the accused. But the Halifax Gibbet Law allowed “the party injured, to have his goods restored to him again, with as little loss and damage, as can be contrived; to the great encouragement of the honest and industrious, and as great terror to the wicked and evil doers.”

The Halifax Gibbet’s final victims were Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell. Wilkinson had been found guilty of stealing 16 yards (15 m) of russet-coloured kersey cloth, 9 yards (8.2 m) of which, found in his possession, was valued at “9 shillings at the least”,  and Mitchell of stealing and selling two horses, one valued at 9 shillings and the other at 48 shillings. The pair were found guilty and executed on the same day, 30 April 1650. Writing in 1834 John William Parker, publisher of The Saturday Magazine, suggested that the gibbet might have remained in use for longer in Halifax had the bailiff not been warned that if he used it again he would be “called to public account for it”. Midgley comments that the final executions “were by some persons in that age, judged to be too severe; thence came it to pass, that the gibbet, and the customary law, for the forest of Hardwick, got its suspension”.

Oliver Cromwell finally ended the exercise of Halifax Gibbet Law. To the Puritans it was “part of ancient ritual to be jettisoned along with all the old feasts and celebrations of the medieval world and the Church of Rome”. Moreover, it ran counter to the Puritan objection to imposing the death penalty for petty theft; felons were subsequently sent to the Assizes in York for trial.

It is uncertain when the Halifax Gibbet was first introduced, but it may not have been until sometime in the 16th century; before then decapitation would have been carried out by an executioner using an axe or a sword. The device, which seems to have been unique in England, consisted of two 15-foot (4.6 m) tall parallel beams of wood joined at the top by a transverse beam. Running in grooves within the beams was a square wooden block 4 feet 6 inches (1.37 m) in length, into the bottom of which was fitted an axe head weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces (3.5 kg). The whole structure sat on a platform of stone blocks, 9 feet (2.7 m) square and 4 feet (1.2 m) high, which was ascended by a flight of steps. A rope attached to the top of the wooden block holding the axe ran over a pulley at the top of the structure, allowing the block to be raised. The rope was then fastened by a pin to the structure’s stone base.

The gibbet could be operated by cutting the rope supporting the blade or by pulling out the pin that held the rope. If the offender was to be executed for stealing an animal, a cord was fastened to the pin and tied to either the stolen animal or one of the same species, which was then driven off, withdrawing the pin and allowing the blade to drop.

In an early contemporary account of 1586 Raphael Holinshed attests to the efficiency of the gibbet, and adds some detail about the participation of the onlookers:

In the nether end of the sliding block is an axe keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood, which being drawn up to the top of the frame is there fastened by a wooden pin … unto the middest of which pin also there is a long rope fastened that cometh down among the people, so that when the offender hath made his confession, and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block, every man there present doth either take hold of the rope (or putteth forth his arm so near to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see true justice executed) and pulling out the pin in this manner, the head block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such violence, that if the neck of the transgressor were so big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke, and roll from the body by an huge distance.

  An article in the September 1832 edition of The Imperial Magazine describes the victim’s final moments:

 The persons who had found the verdict, and the attending clergymen, placed themselves on the scaffold with the prisoner. The fourth psalm was then played round the scaffold on the bagpipes, after which the minister prayed with the prisoner till he received the final stroke. In Thomas Deloney’s novel Thomas of Reading (1600) the invention of the Halifax Gibbet is attributed to a friar, who proposed the device as a solution to the difficulty of finding local residents willing to act as hangmen.

Although the guillotine as a method of beheading is most closely associated in the popular imagination with late 18th-century Revolutionary France, several other decapitation devices had long been in use throughout Europe. It is uncertain whether Dr Guillotin was familiar with the Halifax Gibbet, but its design was reported to have been copied by James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, in the production of a similar device that became known as the Scottish Maiden, now on display in the National Museum of Scotland. The Maiden was rather shorter than the Halifax Gibbet, standing only 10 feet (3 m) tall, the same height as the French guillotine.

 The Halifax Gibbet was dismantled after the last executions in 1650, and the site was neglected until the platform on which the gibbet had been mounted was rediscovered in about 1840. A full-size non-working replica was erected on the original stone base in August 1974; it includes a blade made from a casting of the original, which as of 2011 was displayed in the Bankfield Museum in Boothtown on the outskirts of Halifax. A commemorative plaque nearby lists the names of the 52 people known to have been executed by the device.

An Old History of the Parish Town of Halifax

‘HALIFAX, a market and parish-town, in Morley-division of Agbrigg and Morley, liberty of Wakefield; 8 miles from Bradford and Huddersfield, 10 from Dewsbury, 12 from Keighley and Todmorden, 16.5 from Rochdale, (Lanc.) 18 from Leeds, 42 from York, 197 from London. –Market, Saturday, for woollen cloth, provisions, &c. –Fairs, June 24 and the first Saturday in November, for horses, horned cattle, &c. –Bankers, Messrs. John Rawson, William Rawson, John Rhodes, and Rawden Briggs, draw on Messrs. Jones, Lloyd, and Co. 48, Lothbury. –Principal Inns, Talbot, White Swan, and White Lion. –Pop. 12,628. There are two Churches here, the one is a vicarage, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, in the deanry of Pontefract, value, 84L. 13s. 6.5d. Patron, the King. –The other is called the Holy Trinity Church, a perpetual curacy, value, p.r. +100L. in the patronage of the Vicar of Halifax. The latter was built under the sanction of an act of parliament by Dr. Coulthurst, the late Vicar; the masonry of which, like all modern masonry about the town, is excellent and elaborate.

The parish of Halifax is the largest in the County, being in extent not less than seventeen miles from east to west, and about eleven miles on an average from north to south. It contains twenty-three Townships; and, besides the Vicarage Church, there are in the parish twelve Chapels to which the Vicar appoints the Curates, independent of the New Church of Halifax, and the Chapel at Marshaw-bridge. The Church is a large Gothic structure, and is supposed to have been built by the Earl of Warren and Surrey, in the reign of Henry I. It appears to have been re-edified at different periods, as part of the north side seems older than the rest. –Within the Church are two Chapels, the one called Rokeby’s Chapel, was erected in consequence of the Will of Dr. William Rokeby, Vicar of Halifax, and afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, who died November 29, 1521, and ordered that his bowels and heart should be buried in the choir of this church, and his body in the chapel at Sandal.

In 1453 there were but thirteen houses in this town, which, in 120 years, increased to 520; and, in the year 1802, there were 1973 houses, 8,886 inhabitants. Camden, when he travelled in these Parts, about the year 1580, was informed that the number of inhabitants in this parish was about 12,000. Archbishop Grindall, in his letter to Queen Elizabeth, during the northern rebellion also says; that the parish of Halifax was ready to bring into the field, for her service, 3 or 4000 able men.

The course of Justice formerly made use of here, called the “Gibbet Law,” by which all criminals found guilty of theft, to the value of thirteen pence half penny, were to suffer death, hath long been discontinued. The platform, four feet high, and thirteen feet square, faced on every side with stone, was ascended by a flight of steps; in the middle of this platform were placed two upright pieces of timber, five yards high, joined by a cross beam of timber at the top; within these was a square block of wood, four feet and a half long, which moved in grooves, and had an iron axe fastened in its lower edge, the weight of which was seven pounds eleven ounces; it was ten inches and a half long, seven inches over at the top, and nine at the bottom, and towards the top had two holes to fasten it to the block. The axe is still to be seen at the gaol, in Halifax: the platform remains, but has been hid, for many years past, under a mountain of rubbish.

The Guillotine erected in France, soon after the breaking out of the Revolution, and so fatal to thousands, seems to have been copied from this machine.

The Earl of Morton, Regent of Scotland, passing through Halifax, and happening to see one of these executions, caused a model to be taken, and carried it to his own country, where it remained many years before it was made use of, and obtained the name of “the Maiden”, till that Nobleman suffered by it himself, June 2, 1581. The remains of this singular machine, may yet be seen, in the Parliament house at Edinburgh. The origin of this custom cannot be traced, but it was by no means peculiar to this place. –See Gent. Mag. for April 1793.

The Town of Halifax cannot boast of great Antiquity; its name is not found in Domesday Book, nor is it mentioned in any ancient record, before a grant of its Church was made by Earl Warrein to the Priory of Lewes, in Sussex. The origin of its name has been variously given: Dr. Whitaker supposes it to be half Saxon, half Norman: and that formerly, in the deep valley where the church now stands, was a Hermitage, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, the imagined sanctity of which attracted a great concourse of persons in every direction. There were four roads by which the Pilgrims entered, and hence the name Halifax, or Holyways, for fax in Norman French, is an old plural noun, denoting highways.

In the civil wars it was garrisoned by the Parliamentarians; and to this place, Sir Thomas Fairfax retreated, after the battle of Adwalton-Moor. After these wars were over, Halifax was represented in Parliament, during the time of the Commonwealth and under the Protectorate.

The woollen manufacture, for which this town and neighbourhood have been long famous, was first introduced between 1443 and 1540, during which period, the houses had increased from thirteen to five hundred and twenty. A detailed account of which may be seen in Watson’s History of Halifax. –In the beginning of the 18th Century, the manufacture, of Woollen Stuffs was introduced; Shalloons, Everlastings, Moreens, Shags, &c. have been made to great perfection; and within these few years, the cotton-trade has extended in to this neighbourhood. For the convenience of trade, the manufacturers erected, at the expence of 12,000L. a handsome structure, in the lower part of the town, for the sale of their goods, called the Piece Hall, which was first opened for sale in 1779, where the goods of the manufacturers, in an unfinished state, are deposited, and exhibited for sale, every Saturday. The building contains 300 separate cells, and is proof against fire and thieves.

In 1642, Nathaniel Waterhouse, by Will, founded an Alms-House, in this town for twelve poor Widows, and a Blue Coat Hospital for twenty poor Children. He also bequeathed 60L. per ann. to the Curates of the twelve Chapels within the Vicarage; a legacy to the Free School at Skircoats, founded by Queen Elizabeth, &c. –These bequests, according to returns published by order of Parliament, made in 1786, amounted to 475L. 16s. 6d., per annum –a copy of Mr. Waterhouse’s will is inserted in Mr. Watson’s History of Halifax. In 1610, (according to Mr. Watson) Ellen Hopkinson, and Jane Crowther, built in their life-times, Alms-Houses, containing eighteen rooms, for as many poor Widows, and two rooms for a Schoolmaster, which they endowed with Money and Tenements; the annual produce, in 1787, was 13L. These alms-houses being rebuilt, were made to contain twenty-four rooms, twenty of which are for twenty Widows, and three for the Master. In Halifax there are Chapels for almost every class of Dissenters; two National Schools, on the plans of Dr. Bell and Mr. Lancaster; Public Baths, Assembly Rooms, Theatre, &c. Here is also a Benevolent Society for clothing the Sick and Destitute; and to the Public Foundations already noticed, we may add that beneficent Establishment, the Dispensary, which is supported by voluntary Subscriptions.

The Lord of the Manor has here a Gaol for the imprisonment of debtors, within the Manor of Wakefield, and in this gaol is the Gibbet-axe of the well-known” Halifax Gibbet Law,”

Of the eminent men born in Halifax, whose names are on record, find the following:- Henry Briggs, an eminent mathematician, was born in 1556, and educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he was Fellow in 1588. In 1596, he was chosen Gresham Professor of Geometry, which place he resigned in 1620, on being appointed Savilian Professor at Oxford, where he died in 1630. He was the first improver of Logarithms after Napier, the original inventor, whom he visited in Scotland, and published in 1624, a work of stupendous labour, entitled “Arithmetica Logarithmica,” containing logarithms of 30,000 natural numbers. He also wrote some other valuable books on mathematical subjects. –Biog. Dict.

Joseph Brookbank, born in 1612, son of George Brookbank, of Halifax, was entered at Brazen-Nose College, in 1632, took a degree in Arts, went into orders, and had a curacy. At length removing to London, he taught school in Fleet-Street, and preached there. The time of his death is not known. He published, “Breviate of Lilly’s Latin Gram. 8vo. &c.” London, 1660, Sermons, &c. He, by indenture, bearing date Oct. 4, 1712, conveyed to trustees, certain lands and tenements, for the founding of the school at Elland. –Watson’s Halifax.

That excellent Optician and Mechanist, Mr. Jesse Ramsden, was born here in 1735. He greatly improved Hadley’s Quadrant. In 1786, he was chosen Fellow of the Royal Society. He died at Brighton in 1800.

The celebrated Daniel De Foe, although not a native, was for some time resident at Halifax. Here be employed himself in writing his books, “De Jure Divino,” the famous romance of “Robinson Crusoe,” and other literary works. –Whitaker.

William Edwards, bookseller, Halifax, a character of very great eminence In his profession, died Jan. 10, 1808, aged 86. The catalogues which he occasionally published, were astonishingly rich in scarce and valuable books, of which the ornamental bindings were peculiarly elegant. –Nichols’ Lit. Anec.

Of Halifax and the parish, there are no less than three separate histories, viz. “Halifax and its Gibbet Law,” by John Bentley, 12mo. published in 1761. “Antiquities of the town of Halifax,” by Thomas Wright, 12mo. Leeds, 1738; and the “History and Antiquities of the parish of Halifax,” by the Rev. John Watson, M.A. and F.S.A. 4to. London, 1775; besides an edition in 8vo. entitled the “History of the town and parish of Halifax,” &c. published in numbers, by E. Jacobs, in 1789. This last appears to be an abridgement of Watson’s.

John Bentley – author of Halifax and its Gibbet Law,” & parish clerk of Halifax.