300
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. OCT. 12, 1901.
The record of bloodshed is not finished
with the death of Mr. Deighton. The
coiners were far from daunted, and wreaked
their revenge upon a Heptonstall man who
had given information against the murderers
of the excise officer. It is said that some of
the gang thrust this poor fellow's head into
the fire, burned his neck with a pair of red-
hot tongs, and put him to other frightful
agonies, until he succumbed under their
hands. That the man was murdered, and
murdered barbarously, there is no doubt.
But I am inclined to think that terrified
imaginations over-coloured the picture, and
that the story in passing from one to another
was greatly exaggerated.
The headquarters of the coiners were in the township of Erringden, in those times a locality sparsely inhabited, and wild and wooded enough to shelter men engaged in such clandestine occupation. Sowerby comes in for an equal share of notoriety and guilt. Indeed, half a dozen neighbouring townships were more or less participants in both the risk and the profits. As for the head- quarters, I am disposed to conjecture that tney were frequently shifted between Erring- den and Sowerby in order to escape detection, such policy being part of the tactics of these criminals. This unquestionably they did after the Government had so completely broken into the band. It is even said that when they were caught in the very act of coining they had skill and coolness to deceive or mislead the officers of the law. There is a tradition that the officers on one occasion came un- expectedly on the gang and found them busily at work making guineas. "Now then," said an exciseman, "what are you doing here ? " The reply was as clever as the action that followed : " We are making gold earrings"; and forthwith these ready-witted, dexterous-fingered men twisted these woulcl- have-beeri coins into ladies' ornaments, which little bit of neat handiwork nonplussed the authorities. This tradition has come down among the descendants of the very men implicated. Sowerby has the reputation of having furnished the largest contingent of the fraternity. I have been informed, when making inquiries on this subject, that so recently as seventy years ago some coiners were apprehended at Straight-hey, in Lang- field, and that about twenty years previously others had been taken at Lodge, in Erring- den. According to tradition, Elphaborough Hall, at the entrance of Cragg Vale, was a haunt or residence of some of the fraternity.
T S me ^ di ij iona ! P arfcic ulars respecting James Oldfield, who paid the penalty of
death with David Hartley, may not be
uninteresting to the reader. James Oldfield,
executed at Tyburn, near York, 28 April,
1770, was formerly clerk at Booth Chapel,
in the valley of Luddenden. He was pro-
bably a man of some little importance, and
his name appears second (next to the
minister's) on a list of signatures in a petition
the Congregationalists of that district drew
up when they appealed to the public for
funds to build a new place of worship. That
he was one of the first to be apprehended
and undergo execution with the leader seems
to point to the probability that he had taken
a prominent part in the proceedings of the
clipping and coining confederacy. The Rev.
James Crossley, of Saltonstall, preached a
sermon on the occasion of the execution of
Oldfield. This sermon was afterwards pub-
lished under the title of ' God's Indignation
against Sin, manifested in the Chastisement
of His People.' Whether Oldfield was a
secret accomplice of the gang, and managed
to hold his clerkship up to the time of his
apprehension, I do not know. Probably he
left the chapel years before.
One other incident may be mentioned. The coiners used to hold an annual supper at Michaelmas, which was known as the coiners' feast. They met in an inn at the hamlet of Mytholmroyd.
Few chapters of local history are more extraordinary and tragic than this of the Turvin coiners, and did we not possess well- authenticated accounts, we should be almost inclined to question some of the details. The story is only too true, as printed docu- ments prove beyond doubt. The coiners the leaders at least were clever and deftly skilled in their craft, the tradition of their ingenuity in that particular art being still a wonder and astonishment. The reader will very likely ask, How could all this take place in times so recent as the middle of the eighteenth century, when the arm of the law was strong to grapple with national calamities much more serious than this comparatively trivial affair on these hills? In reviewing the circum- stances and the times we must bear in mind that Halifax, the nearest town, was ten miles distant, and that Turvin was far from the cultivated and inhabited country, having Blackstone-edge and Withens Glen on the west, a wide, bleak, and desolate barrier. Those were not the days of police and detective activity, and there was only here and there an excise officer to watch and expose illegal transactions. How could a few excise officers cope with this reckless
