A Pint of Yorkshire

I always like a story about a Yorkshireman because in most cases being a son of that great English county has served to shape his character and given him a unique determination, fortitude and outlook on life. 

Of course there are other qualities, perhaps less worthy of advertisement those of being cantankerous, miserly and often dour in personality. 

Above all a Yorkshireman never knows when to pull up the stumps and give in. 

One such man is the rather commonly named John Smith, born in the Yorkshire Wolds town of Malton in the 17^th Century. 

Although from a farming family it is likely that there will not have been enough fat in the land to support more than the first born son and so John sought an apprenticeship with a packer. He appears to have found this not to his liking as he opted for the very perilous and uncertain life in the Royal Navy serving in a merchantman vessel and then in a full man of war vessel. 

After the 1702 Battle of Vigo Bay in the War of the Spanish Succession he was discharged and then became a soldier, by now residing in London, some 250 miles south of his native Yorkshire. 

It is not clear what then brought about his dubious profession as a housebreaker in the Capital, whether having struck lean times or just falling into bad company. 

In December 1705 John Smith found himself under arrest and facing trial on four counts of theft and although convicted on only two of these the sentence was one of death by hanging. 

In true Yorkshire spirit he was quite dismissive of the fate that lay ahead of him and seemed totally unrepentant even when hauled up to Tyburn Gallows for the execution.

Smith's family and friends were present at his hanging. Some attempted to tug at his legs to shorten his suffering, while others held them up for the mere possibility that Smith would not die. Others fought over the body with anatomists.

 After hanging for a quarter of an hour, the people cried out 'A reprieve'! The reprieve was granted, and Smith was cut down. He was taken to a house in the neighbourhood, where he recovered.

When asked what his feelings were during the execution, Smith is reputed to have said;

I remember a great pain caused by the weight of my body. My spirits were in a great uproar, pushing upwards; when they got into my head I saw a great blaze of glaring light that seemed to go out of my head in a flash. Then the pain went. When I was cut down I got such pins-and-needles pains in my head that I could have hanged the people who set me free.

Smith was granted freedom a few months later, on 20 February 1706. 

There was no attempt to go straight and seek gainful employment even after the momentously unsuccessful hanging after which he assumed the nickname of some notoriety of "Half Hung Smith".

He returned to housebreaking soon after his release but was quickly apprehended whereby he was tried at the London law Courts at The Old Bailey. Due to some fortunate complications of his case or what we would today call “on a technicality” the jury left the verdict to the twelve judges. For some reason and in spite of his criminal persistence they decided to set him free.

By now Smith was a serial offender and evidently not a very good one as by the time of his third prosecution he had certainly used up any luck and any chance to again exploit a legal loophole. 

It seemed as if the judge would certainly sentence him to an execution once and for all. 

However, the prosecutor died on the day before the trial was to commence, and Smith was once again set free.

On 17 May 1727, now aged 66-year-old Smith (using the name John Wilson) was found stealing a padlock. Two watchmen had seen him and another man trying to steal the padlock, so they went up to investigate. The other man escaped, but Smith was found with eight picklock keys in his possession. He also attempted to get rid of the padlock, but it was later found in a nearby watercourse.

Although it was agreed that Smith had intended to burgle the warehouse, he was only found guilty of theft.

Sentence was to be transportation to the American Colony of Virginia . 

In the eighteenth century around 20,000 convicts were landed and settled along the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. Although many were unskilled and put to work in agriculture, mainly in tobacco growing, those with skills were sold to tradesmen, shipbuilders and iron manufacturers and other hard labour type occupations. Convict transportees could be bought at a lower price than indentured white or enslaved African workers and were open to exploitation because of their existence beyond the rules and conventions of society. 

Faced with this bleak prospect of a very extreme and exhausting fate Smith then lodged an appeal to the then Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Eyles Knight requesting physical punishment in lieu of transportation. He anticipated that to be the lesser of two evils- but not by much.

In spite of his suffering a number of physical disabilities and his role as a father of two children, the court took no pity on him and with his good fortune over the previous decades now exhausted he was taken to Virginia on the convict/slave ship Susannah. 

His life of criminality had not been violent but in a social structure in England when even what would be regarded as petty crime today carried the sanction of the death penalty he was eventually held to account for his petty thefts and housebreaking. 

There is no record of what became of the man, by now in a strange country and of very senior age and ill health. 

I would like to think that he might have made it back to Yorkshire and to rest in peace amongst his people. His story has been told and retold over the ages and John Smith has attained something of a cult status in social and legal history.

An 1820 rendition of the tale of Half Hung Smith