In the days when people were nervous of witches, and called on the wake-wailer to come each evening before a funeral to sing the lyke wake that would keep their loved one's body safe from demons, they also had another resource – the Wise Man. The wise man could be consulted for many problems – illnesses, lost and stolen goods, help in time of need, and to turn away witches' charms.
The most famous in Cleveland is undoubtedly John Wrightson, the Wise Man of Stokesley. He was at the height of his fame at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, at the time of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This was a time when nobody was left unaffected by the huge demands of the war. The wartime economy, the press gang, the militia and the army, the disruption of trade and manufacturing and the effect on people's livelihoods gave rise to uncertainty and many great hardships [1].
So it is hardly surprising that John Wrightson should have a fertile field in which to work. As to what he actually did and how he did it – writers over the years had various opinions on this, while there has always been an audience for the stories of his amazing feats.
Opinions on John Wrightson
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| Richard Blakeborough |
Richard Blakeborough (1850-1918) was a writer, publisher, actor, playwright, recitalist and entertainer, in great demand at concerts and at house parties, where he was a favourite of fashionable audiences. Born in Ripon, his passion was for the folklore and dialect of his native Yorkshire. He began collecting during the time he worked in Bedale as a jeweller and watchmaker between the early 1870s and 1882 when he recorded many stories and dialect words which would otherwise be lost to us [2]. Born a couple of years after the railways reached Ripon, in the year that ironstone was discovered in the Eston Hills, he lived in the age of empire, of Disraeli and Gladstone and the might of industrial Britain. He wrote with affection and enthusiasm of the world before industrialisation and compulsory education and he had a love of the mysterious and magical. For him John Wrightson was "undoubtedly a man endowed with marvellous psychic power, and with the smallest amount of charlatanry possible" [3].
He relates in Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire a couple of the stories that he was told.
The first was a tale told him by William Scorer, who came from Baysdale and was landlord of the Fleece in Bedale during Blakeborough's time there. The buyer of some cattle at Northallerton fair had engaged an old drover to drive them to Stokesley with the beasts he was taking for another buyer. In the morning two of his cows were missing from the field near Stokesley in which the drover declared they had been gated the night before. The buyers decided to consult the Wise Man, but also to test him by saying that it was a horse that was missing. As they entered Wrightson's house, before a word had been said, Wrightson called from the scullery where he was washing himself
Noo then, if you chaps is sharp eneaaf, an' ez that mich off [ie. know that much] 'at ya can manish ti to'n tweea coos intiv a hoss, it's neea ewse cumin' ti me, foor Ah can't to'n a hoss back inti tweea coos, an' seea ya'd better mak yersens scarce. Ah've nowt ti saay ti ya.
In the end he was persuaded to answer, and he told them that the cows were in the beck – where, indeed, they found them. The cows had missed the bridge as they were driven over the Leven late at night and fallen into the swollen river.
Blakeborough also tells of one Nathan Agar, a man of nearly sixty who had married a girl of eighteen, who had discovered that the stocking filled with guineas that he had hidden under the thatch of his house had disappeared. Wrightson told him that where to find the money, which was hidden in a pigsty, and that to discover the culprits he should lift the stone flag in front of his doorstep, put a certain page of the Bible underneath it, and wait to see who stumbled as they crossed the threshold. His wife and the young lodger both stumbled and Nathan Agar turned them out.
His third tale was of a lady in South Durham who was likely to die from a lump in her throat. Her family in despair sent a rider to the Wise Man, who told the man as he rode up that he could bait his horse and go back "t'bleb's brussen; sha's all reet now" – that is, the lump has burst and she is alright now.
His last tale was a story given to him by Old Willie Bradley of Great Ayton. His father was a quarryman who had some tools stolen. He went to the Wise Man, who told him as he came into the house that the tools had been taken across water. He put Bradley in front of a seeing glass in a darkened room, telling him to keep his eyes on the glass otherwise some dreadful thing (forgotten by the teller) would happen. After a while the terrified Mr Bradley could see his tools quite clearly, lying in the bracken in a place he recognised. The Wise Man warned him not to touch them on any account, but to bring him a live magpie. This proved impossible. Wrightson declared that "Ah can't wark him onny harm" and he'd have to count the tools as lost.
In 1866, some 25 years before Richard Blakeborough's Wit, Character, Folklore was published, the first edition of William Henderson's Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England came out. (An enlarged second edition was published in 1879).
William Henderson (1813-91) was the son of a carpet manufacturer. Born at Church Merrington near Ferryhill, he grew up in Durham from babyhood when his father moved the manufactury there. He was educated at the old Grammar School on Palace Green and became a partner in the carpet manufactury with his brother John, who was MP for Durham 1864-74. William retired from the partnership in 1872 and was active in charitable and civic life. He was Mayor of Durham and he originated the idea that Durham should have a Town Hall. He was Chief magistrate of Durham, Freeman of the City, Freemason, friend of the Marquess of Londonderry, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. A keen angler and author of My Life as an Angler (1879), he retired to Worthing where he died in 1891[4].
In his Notes on the Folk-lore, he recounted stories that had been told to Canon Atkinson and that appear in his well-known Forty Years in a Moorland Parish, which was published some decades after Henderson's book first appeared.
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| Canon Atkinson |
Canon John Christopher Atkinson (1814-1900) was born in Essex [5]. The son of a clergyman and from a family which included botanists, lepidopterists, bird watchers and bird illustrators, he attended St John's College Cambridge and came to the perpetual curateship of the parish of Danby in 1848. A letter had been shown him describing the living of Danby, with all the disadvantages of this remote parish. A friend exclaimed on hearing his idea of visiting the place with a view to taking the living
Going to see yon place! Why, Danby was not found out when they sent Bonaparte to St Helena; or else they never would have taken the trouble to send him all the way there!
He came from the south almost as a foreign missionary to an unfamiliar land, to a moorland parish which called for hard work and dedication, and he regarded the inhabitants as he came to know them with great affection and what could be described as the eye of an anthropologist. There he spent his life.
He was an antiquarian, naturalist and ornithologist, best remembered today for his interest in the archaeology, folklore and dialect of the North York Moors and Cleveland and for his books Forty Years in a Moorland Parish and his histories of Cleveland and Whitby.
Among the stories recounted by Canon Atkinson were two which he had heard from old John Unthank, "a good, sensible, simple-minded old man, who had up to quite recently held an office of trust and much responsibility", and who had consulted John Wrightson himself.
Unthank was sent as a very young man by his uncle, gamekeeper to Viscount Downe at Danby, to consult the Wise Man about a sick beast. John Wrightson had known, without John Unthank saying a word, what his uncle's parting words had been and the exact symptoms shown by the beast. Wrightson told young John that nothing could be done, but opening the beast up after it died would show them the abnormal growth that had caused the trouble [6].
A second story was told in great detail by John Unthank with the names and families of the men concerned and where they lived. Two men were on their way to Stokesley, possibly for the Hirings, when they had the idea as they went down the bank above the lonely farm of West House on the road from Castleton to Stokesley that they would call on "Au'd Wreeghtson" and have a bit of fun with him. They would ask him his advice on some imaginary matter.
They found him sitting comfortably by his fire and smoking his pipe, and he made them welcome, urging them to draw their chairs up to the fire as it was raw, cold day. He heaped on the fuel and heaped it on more and soon they found themselves growing hotter and hotter, but when they tried to move their chairs back from the blaze, they couldn't! As their discomfort reached its pitch, Wrightson said quietly,
Ay, ye cam' to ha'e a bit o' spoort wiv Au'd Wreeghtson. Au'd Wreeghtson aims it's a spoort 'at differs fra what ye considered coming down West House bank. Anither tahm, mebbe, ye'll think tweea tahms afore making spoort wive Au'd Wreeghtson. And noo, Gude deea tive ye!
and they were released.
Canon Atkinson thought that, "setting aside the inevitable circumstance that, like others of his class, [Wrightson] was, up to a given degree, a charlatan and an impostor" but had the impression
of a man of a not unkindly nature, with a pungent flavour of rough humour about him, shrewd and observant, and with wonderfully well-devised and well-employed means of information at his command.
From the accounts he was given of cures – Wrightson was a cow-doctor – Atkinson thought that he had a
wide and deep acquaintance with herbs and simples, and he used his knowledge with skill and judgment
and that he possessed
the power of influencing men's minds and imaginations, and knew it right well, and used it of set purpose and intention; and heightened it, moreover, by the mystic means he had at his command
Canon Atkinson in fact suspected that John Wrightson was adept at what is now called "cold reading", the technique used by stage magicians and mentalists, and that he supplemented this with inside information. Canon Atkinson was told that he had two in his own household – "an elderly housekeeper-servant and an odd man about the house" – and that an ostler at one of the Stokesley inns was an ally, and that there was a code of signals. The ostler, for example, would be the man to send to him details of every word spoken by the naïve folk who had come from out of town and stabled their horse before going to find the Wise Man.
Canon Atkinson thought that some stories show "we have a good deal of embellishment, addition, exaggeration, perhaps even fiction". He noted that the recovery of stolen and lost goods formed a large part of John Wrightson's practice and he debated whether, if thieves knew the much-feared Wise Man was being consulted, they might put the stolen goods back – or if, on the other hand, the recovery stories were put-up jobs.
William Henderson cautiously said in his introduction to Canon Atkinson's tales that
the following stories, if true, go towards proving him to have been a natural clairvoyant.
As for the story of the two men beside the fire, he thought that it
suggests a notion that, consciously or unconsciously, these worthies [ie wise men] practised something like electro-biology.
Richard Blakeborough believed entirely in the Wise Man, but he had to admit that George Markham Tweddell (1823-1903)
holds quite contrary views. His idea is that Wrightson was little better than a huge swindler[7]
Tweddell was a radical printer, publisher, author, poet and historian, born in Stokesley only a few years after Wrightson was at the height of his power there [8].
The earliest first person account of John Wrightson that I can find in the digitised newpapers is in the Yorkshire Gazette of 9 November 1850. It is in the lengthy report of the opening of the Mechanics' Institute in Stokesley. One of the men who gave a speech was Henry Heavisides, and he was in no doubt that John Wrightson was an impostor.
Henry Heavisides (1791-1870) was born in Darlington. He was a printer and worked as a young man as a journeyman printer with William Pratt of Stokesley where he married a Stokesley girl, Jane Bradley on 8 June 1812. He would go on to work for newspapers such as the Hull Packet and the Leeds Mercury, before returning in 1814 to Stockton-on-Tees where, after 42 years as a foreman printer, he set up business on his own account in 1857 at No 4 Finkle Street. He was a supporter of radical reform, poet, engraver, musician, historian, and author of The Annals of Stockton [9].
The Yorkshire Gazette reported Henry Heavisides' response to the toast "The Strangers". He was an ardent supporter of Mechanics' Institutes and it gave him great pleasure that "dear Stokesley" had now an institute
He had long, for various reasons, been attached to her, and now, when she had become so musical, and evinced so ardent, so laudable a desire to elevate herself in the scale of mental excellence, he was certain his attachment could not abate.He believed that the moral and intellectual character of the inhabitants had been much improved since he first resided amongst them, which was about thirty-four years ago [10]. The wise man of Stokesley as he was called, and who was famed all the country round, was then in the very height of his power and popularity.He (Mr H) knew him well. He was a sad tyke, a kind of Caliban in appearance, and as arrant an impostor as ever contrived to fatten on the credulity of the uninformed.The common people in that district looked upon him as an agent of Beelzebub – a second Dr Faustus – one who could cure all things thought to be bewitched (and a great many things were thought so in those days), and who not only could do this, but when any property was stolen he could tell where it was secreted, and even who was the villain who stole it, for neither the hidden mysteries of the past, nor the dark secrets of the future, were thought to be a sealed book to him.In fact he was considered to possess more than mortal powers – he was the Delphic oracle of Stokesley – the high priest of the credulous; and numerous were the offerings yearly presented at his temple, and which were always most acceptable when they came in the shape of a flitch of bacon, or any other substantial good thing likely to suit his epicurean palate.But he (Mr H) was happy to say the days of fortune telling had passed away; the age of witchcraft had departed; the wise man of Stokesley once so famous had long since been gathered to his fathers.
Henry Heavisides' comments come a few years after the appearance of the Wise Man in national print. In 1842 two books were published which both featured John Wrightson. One of them quoted what is probably the earliest description of Wrightson – it dates from 1819.
It appears in the 1842 edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities [11] (Volume III), "revised and greatly enlarged for this edition, by Sir Henry Ellis, principal Librarian of the British Museum". Sir Henry Ellis wrote
The following was communicated to the editor of the present work by a Yorkshire gentleman, in the year 1819:"Impostors who feed and live on the superstitions of the lower orders are still to be found in Yorkshire. These are called 'Wise Men,' and are believed to possess the most extraordinary power in remedying all diseases incidental to the brute creation, as well as the human race, to discover lost or stolen property, and to foretell future events.One of these wretches was a few years ago living at Stokesley, in the North Riding of Yorkshire; his name was John Wrightson, and he called himself 'the seventh son of a seventh son,' and professed ostensibly the trade of a cow-doctor.To this fellow, people, whose education it might have been expected would have raised them above such weakness, flocked; many to ascertain the thief, when they had lost any property; others for him to cure themselves or their cattle of some indescribable complaint. Another class visited him to know their future fortunes; and some to get him to save them from being balloted into the militia; all of which he professed himself able to accomplish.All the diseases which he was sought to remedy he invariably imputed to witchcraft, and although he gave drugs which have been known to do good, yet he always enjoined some incantation to be observed, without which he declared they could never be cured; this was sometimes an act of the most wanton barbarity, as that of roasting a game cock alive &c. The charges of this man were always extravagant; and such was the confidence in his skill and knowledge that he had only to name any person as a witch, and the public indignation was sure to be directed against the poor unoffending creature for the remainder of her life.
Sir Henry's correspondent cited to him the "fatal consequences of this superstition" which happened in about 1800. A farmer named Hodgson had been robbed of some money and went to a wise man to learn the thief. His servant "of the name of Simpson" had stolen the money and now forged a letter purporting to be from the wise man to Mr Hodgson
enclosing a quantity of arsenic, which he was directed to take on going to bed, and assuring him that in the morning he would find his money in the pantry under a wooden bowl. Hodgson took the powder, which killed him. Simpson was taken up, tried at York assizes, and convicted on strong circumstantial evidence. He received sentence of death, and when on the scaffold confessed his crime.
The Bishop's Transcripts of the Burneston registers for 5 September 1799 show that Thomas Hodgson of Leeming Street was buried on that day with the note "Coroner's Inquest". The crime was reported in the account of the York Assizes carried by the Hull Packet of 18 March 1800.
A Michael Simpson of Burneston, about 4 miles from Bedale, had once been employed by Mr Hodgson. He appeared at the house and tricked Mrs Hodgson into going out to look for some cattle that he said had fallen into a ditch and, while pretending to follow her, had gone quickly upstairs and found about £100 hidden under the mattress. He turned up at the house later and told Mr Hodgson he had been to the Wise Man who had given him two pills for Mr Hodgson to take. In the morning he would see who had stolen the money and would get his money back. The old man took the pills and died soon afterwards. The thief was caught because
among the bills and cash there happened to be a two pound Bank of England bill, with some writing upon the back of it; this bill he had paid to a neighbour, who recollected to have seen it before, and through this means the diabolical business was brought to light.This unfortunate man was born at Craikehill, near Bedale, brought up in the husbandry line, and thirty-two years of age. He has left a widow and one child.
John Wrightson is not mentioned by name in the Hull Packet account but David Kirby [12] notes that he was taken before an inquiry in Bedale on the death of Thomas Hodgson in 1799 – it would seem that he was the wise man that Simpson pretended to have consulted.
Canon Atkinson very much doubted the 1819 correspondent's allegation about the "wanton barbarity" of the Wise Man's cures. He had never heard such stories. On the other hand, a reader of David Kirby's book on Bedale [13] cannot help but notice that it would fit very well with the often bawdy, violent and actively cruel pastimes of Bedale in the late 18th century. By the time Canon Atkinson reached Danby, attitudes and expectations had been changing radically [14]. I wonder whether parishioners, as they told stories of the past to the highly educated, South Country gentleman who was their vicar, could bring themselves to tell him the unvarnished truth about their young days and the admired and respected Wise Man.
And it is worth noting that, in spite of Canon Atkinson's approval of Wrightson's character, he tells a story that supports the final comment of the 1819 correspondent that Wrightson
had only to name any person as a witch, and the public indignation was sure to be directed against the poor unoffending creature for the remainder of her life.
It can be found in the story of the miner whose shirt went missing. The man lived at Danby End and worked in the Fryup Head (or Fryup Trough) coal mine some 4 miles from his house. This was in wild country and the mine yielded very poor quality coal, the men often working naked in the very narrow seams. This man had left his clothes on the surface, but when he came back up he missed his shirt. He went straight to the Wise Man, who told him it was made by a left-handed woman, that it would be home in his wife's hands before he got there himself, and
when you get home, you tell your wife not to give salt out of the house to anybody, unless she wishes the witches about to get sair ho'd on her.
When he reached home, his wife did indeed have the shirt, which had been given to her by a strange man who said he'd been given it by a man to take to her – and that Elsie Green had been in, asking to borrow a bit of salt. Canon Atkinson's conclusion, with sinister implications for the way Elsie Green would be treated by the neighbours in future, was
We can imagine the rest, and one might venture to conclude that the wife, on hearing the husband's story, would not be too easy in her mind at thinking of what she had unwittingly done, and the possible consequences of the gift so unwisely bestowed.
The second book published in 1842 was in no doubt that John Wrightson was a fraud. That year's edition of Henry Wilson's Wonderful Characters [15] opened with the story of the Wise Man of Stokesley and it is the earliest source I can find of the descriptions of his appearance and his death. This is the text, which includes details which suggest it was written by a local (where he lived in Stokesley, for example), but does not mention his Christian name and misspells his surname:
The subject of this memoir, whose name was Rightson, spent the early part of his life at or near Sedgefield in the county Durham. He removed to Stokesley, in Yorkshire, about the year 1807, and occupied a thatched cottage at the west end of that town, professing for a short time, the Veterinary Art, and keeping a small shop for the sale of gingerbread, &c.At this period, he was about 45 years old, equipped in the garb, and had the appearance described in the portrait attached. Although conscious of his ignorance as a farrier, rumours of the wonderful cures he performed spread far and wide, and in course of time discovering the gullibility of the country people, he thought he could turn his attention to something more profitable.In the year 1808, on the "Trinity Fair" held at Stokesley the Saturday before Trinity term, the Wise Man, for by that term he was afterwards designated, appeared in the market place in a red coat, white waistcoat, black small clothes, white stockings, a drab hat, his face highly coloured with vermilion, and his long brown hair streaming over his face, which he ever and anon kept rubbing down with his hands, looking much more like a maniac than the term applied to him.From this time his impositions were practised on the public.He now assumed the character of Fortune-teller, and recoverer of stolen property, for which purpose he kept in his cottage a dark room, where he held secret conference with his victims, muttering some unintelligible jargon from an ancient folio volume in black letter, and directing them how to proceed in the matter, concerning which they sought his advice.Many unaccountable tales are told of this extraordinary individual, as for instance, telling persons whom he had never before seen, what particular marks were on their bodies, charming fevers and other diseases from men and cattle by the most ridiculous means, and restoring property that had been lost for years.One instance of his sapient sagacity out of many, we will relate – A love-sick girl who had her basket well stored with groceries, &c. wishing to hold converse sweet with the object of her affections, on her way from the market, deposited her basket behind a fence until she breathed a prayer into the ear of her paramour, on returning to the place, found the basket and contents had taken wing and flown away. The girl immediately returned to consult the wise man, who on hearing the articles described, agreed for a certain fee, to restore all the lost treasure, except a bottle of spirits. The poor girl paid him the money and went home with a light heart. It need scarcely be added that he himself conveyed away the basket, and was witness to the happy meeting of the girl and her lover.This odd character was found dead in a post chaise, by an officer who had him in charge to convey him to the House of Correction, at Northallerton, whither he had been committed for an assault.
The Wise Man's showmanship
John Wrightson's appearance, as described in Henry Brand's Wonderful Characters, was an integral part of the impression he made on his clients.
We have seen that Henry Heavisides described him as "a sad tyke, a kind of Caliban in appearance".
William Henderson wrote that he was consulted "not by the lower orders alone" and that
His private character appears to have been very bad; still his influence in Stokesley was so great that he was constantly in request as godfather to the children of the place; and on these occasions he used to attend church in a scarlet coat, a long white waistcoat and full-starched shirt-frill, crimson knee-breeches, and white stockings.
Canon Atkinson wrote [p 115] that when John Unthank was at last allowed to go into the Wise Man's consulting room, he found him
dressed in some sort of long robe or gown, girded round him with a noticeable girdle, and with a strange-looking head-covering on. There were some of the accustomed paraphernalia of the character assumed and its pretensions – a skull, a globe, some mysterious-looking preparations etc. etc.
John Unthank, a young man from a remote dale, was naturally deeply impressed.
from talking to "one or two Goathland families, members of which say plainly that they believe, as their parents did, in the power of witching and the like". They described him as "A darkish leukin' little chap wiv a deal ov black hair aboot his face. He crouched as he walked, and spoke but little, a'most iv' a whisper. But he seemed tiv' kneaw iverything,or a'must iverything"
He was described by these writers as claiming his powers came from the fact that he was the seventh son of a seventh son – or, alternatively, the seventh son of a seventh daughter – and Peter Walker, writing as Nicholas Rhea in the Countryman's Diary in the Northern Echo of 20 October 2000, gave the text of the business card that Wrightson had printed for him in Whitby in 1808:
The seventh son John Wrightson begs leave to acquaint the public that those who are afflicted with any kind of inward disorder, white swellings, scurvy, or any kind of shortness of breath, may be relieved by sending him their water (likewise cattle that do not thrive). He can then be of service to them.
This, I think, must be the same card that is in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford [16]
The Wise Man's death
All these writers, from Sir Henry Ellis's informant in 1819 onwards, refer to John Wrightson in the past and his death, when it is described, always involves a post chaise.
The writer of the chapter in Wilson's Wonderful Characters reckoned his age to be about 45 in 1807, and wrote – but without giving a date – that he
was found dead in a post chaise, by an officer who had him in charge to convey him to the House of Correction, at Northallerton, whither he had been committed for an assault.
Hugh W Cook of Redcar, who was a member of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society and wrote for the local papers (he had come to the North East from Suffolk and in his working life was a clerk), wrote that
Apparently one of his clients, who evidently had more common sense than the others, suspected the fraud of Wrightson, and after a "consultation" refused to pay him for the advice of his so-called supernatural powers. The wise man thereupon became wrathful, and "fell upon the client, and smote him" so severely that a summons was taken out for assault.
The Stokesley magistrates committed Wrightson to Northallerton Prison for a term, and as he was proceeding there in a postchaise he suddenly fell back out of the cart, and immediately expired.
Nicholas Rhea wrote that he fled Stokesley for Malton when his tricks were discovered, and that
About 1818, he found himself in trouble with the law, being charged with assault. For his trial, he had to travel to Northallerton quarter sessions but, while en route in a horse-drawn vehicle, he realised he had been exposed and when passing through Hovingham, he committed suicide with poison.
A John Wrightson of New Malton was certainly in trouble with the law in 1815 – he was due to appear at the Midsummer Quarter Sessions in Northallerton that year and had to enter into a recognizance for his appearance:
Recognizance made by John Wrightson of New Malton cow doctor and Robert Nightingale of Barton le Willows yeoman for the appearance of Wrightson at the next Quarter Sessions to answer the indictment against him. 3 July 1815 [17]
Unfortunately I have not been able to find so far any report of the Sessions that summer – stories from the victory at Waterloo on 18 June were coming in, and the four-page Yorkshire Herald was taken up with reports on Napoleon.
The local histories of Stokesley generally say that John Wrightson died in 1818 and Nicholas Rhea follows them, but I haven't been able to discover the source and, so far, I have not been able to find the burial in Yorkshire of a John Wrightson corresponding to the Wise Man.
But Nicholas Rhea comments that
There is just a possibility that more than one "John Wrightson" was operating around this time; it might have been someone making a fraudulent use of his name, or there might have been one or more men with that genuine name.
Canon Atkinson wrote that John Wrightson had a successor called Dawson, who was said to have been his nephew and to have inherited his books. Dawson failed
by reason of his utter incompetency to fill the post; and no long time elapsed before he died a wretched death, that of a drunken, miserable, beggarly outcast "like a dog by the roadside," as the man who told me about him expressed it.
Uncertainties about Au'd Wreeghtson
There are many uncertainties in the stories about John Wrightson, the Wise Man of Stokesley.
Where was he born and when? If he was the wise man involved in the murder case in Burneston in 1799, where was he living at the time? Did he make his first appearance in Stokesley in 1807? How long was he there? Did he have to leave for Malton? Was he the John Wrightson, cow doctor of New Malton, who was to appear at the Quarter Sessions in 1815? Or was he still in the Stokesley area when he got into trouble and was it the Stokesley magistrates who ordered him to Northallerton gaol? When and how did he die?
And, of course, the question to which everyone will have their own answer: did he have supernatural powers?
Notes
1. Jenny Uglow, In These Times: Living in Britain through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815
2. David Kirby, Marvels, magic and witchcraft in the North Riding of Yorkshire: David Naitby's Bedale Treasury (2005)
3. Richard Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire (1898) p 187
4. From William Henderson's lengthy obituary in the Durham County Advertiser, 20 Nov 1891
5. See the biography of Canon Atkinson and details of holdings at the museum on the Pitt Rivers Museum website, England: The Other Within
6. Canon Atkinson, Forty Years in a Moorland Parish, (1891), p.112
7. Richard Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire (1898) p 189, footnote
8. For George Markham Tweddell, see the George Markham Tweddell blogspot and the Tweddell History website
9. George Markham Tweddell devoted a chapter to him in The Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham (1872)
10. This may, of course, be an error in the report – 34 years before 1850 would be 1816, but Henry Heavisides had by then left Stokesley, returning to Stockton in 1814 according to George Markham Tweddell
11. Popular Antiquities: chiefly illustrating the origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies and Superstitions, by John Brand (1744-1806) M.A., Fellow and Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London. This first appeared in 1777 and continued to be published with new content after Brand's death
12. Davide Kirby, Marvels, magic and witchcraft in the North Riding of Yorkshire: David Naitby's Bedale Treasury (2005)
13. Ibid
15. Wonderful Characters; comprising Memoirs and Anecdotes of the most Remarkable Persons, of every age and nation, compiled from the most authentic sources by G H Wilson: to which are added, many original biographies never before published.
16. Pitt Rivers Museum online database
17. Northallerton Archives, ref QSB 1815 3/7/8
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