The Treadmills of Northallerton

The new "retail and leisure destination" to be built on the site of the former prison in Northallerton is to be called "the Treadmills"

Along with many others, I have always thought this name showed distinctly poor taste and by chance I've just come across this, from R P Hastings' Chartism in the North Riding of Yorkshire and South Durham, 1838-1848, (Borthwick Publications, 2004)

Chartism was a nation-wide, radical, grass-roots, movement of the working classes calling for reform and, above all, for the vote.

Noting the local Chartists' tendency to exploit "every propaganda opportunity", Dr Hastings writes:

Northallerton House of Correction had an unenviable reputation.  Samuel Holberry, the young Sheffield Chartist leader, had become a martyr overnight when he died in 1842 at York Castle after imprisonment in Northallerton.  His associate, John Clayton, had died in Northallerton.  North Riding Chartists then took up the case of William Brook, a Bradford Chartist who had been 'reduced from a stout athletic man to a mere skeleton' in the 'Northallerton Hell'.  

Clayton, Brook and others, the Chartists claimed, had been subjected illegally to work on the treadmill.  Northallerton and Brompton Chartists raised a fund to enable Brook to buy his own provisions and petitioned the Home Secretary for his release.  Isaac Wilson, a Brompton weaver and Chartist leader, became treasurer and made weekly prison visits.  Donations came from as far afield as Dundee, Trowbridge, Spitalfields, Brighton and Abergavenny as well as Darlington.  

This is an excerpt from the "Proposed National Petition, to be signed throughout the country, and entrusted to the care of the "Political Prisoners' Release and Charter Petition Convention" from the Chartists' newspaper The Northern Star of 20 March 1841.  This section deals with the "Northallerton Hell" and the treadmill.  (The "silent system" had been introduced to Europe from the USA; under it, strict silence was enforced at all times.)

That in the Gaol of Northallerton, six Chartist prisoners, whose sentence was merely imprisonment, were put to hard labour, on the treadmill, contrary to law. 

That William Brook, one of the said prisoners, who had been convicted of sedition and conspiracy, at the same time as Peddie [convicted in 1840 at York], and whose sentence was three years, fell off the mill; and, though he informed the Visiting Surgeon, that he was frequently troubled with a cramp, yet he was forced, contrary to his sentence, to work upon the wheel, for nearly one calendar month, until removed by an order from the Most Honourable the Secretary of State for the Home Department. 

That your petitioners have been informed that John Clayton, a Chartist, who lately died in Northallerton House of Correction, had been sentenced to solitary confinement, upon a charge of violating the silent system. 

That your petitioners have every reason to believe, from what they have heard of the conduct of the authorities of the prison, that he came to his death in consequence of the cruel manner in which he was treated. 

That Wm Martin, who had been confined in the said House of Correction, Northallerton, was removed to Lancaster Castle, in consequence of the severity of the silent system, and of the tyranny of Wm Shepherd, the superintendent. 

That your petitioners have likewise been informed that the physical condition of the prisoners in the House of Correction, Northallerton, is deteriorated not only by the hard labour of the mill and the horrid silent system, but by the filthy manner in which they are obliged to sleep; that they have been for a fortnight at a time without a clean shirt, and their beds infested with vermin; that the only place where they are permitted to wash, is at a stone trough in the yard, and the superintendent is in the habit of coming to the yard gate and shouting to the petty officers to report the men for being too long washing themselves; that some of the prisoners have been punished for using too much soap, which is a proof that the object of the Governor is to enrich himself instead of attending to the comforts of the unfortunate convicts.

An overview of the history of imprisonment and an illustration of prisoners working on the treadmill, from Henry Mayhew's The Criminal Prisons of London (1862) can be found here.

Chapter 5. The Brighams & the Harkers

A significant figure in the village was the agent in charge of Lord Falkland's estates.  George Brigham, a man of forty [1], had taken over from his father Robert some fifteen years earlier.

Born near Slingsby, Robert Brigham had been Lady Amherst's steward and agent for many years.  His abilities had brought his family prosperity and prominence in the village, and he had held the posts of High Constable and churchwarden of Rudby.  He farmed at Rudby Farm as a tenant of his employer.  His daughters married prosperous local men:  Elizabeth was the wife of the miller at Leven Bridge, William Simpson, and her sister Mary had married his brother Robert, miller at Newport, whilst Isabella was the wife of the Stokesley saddler, Ralph Watson.  Ann had made the best match socially, when she married the Revd Richard Shepherd, vicar of Rudby. 
   
George Brigham is said to have acted as one of the surveyors of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and became Lady Amherst's agent when only in his twenties.  By 1823 he was working as a land agent and valuer, and held the offices of coroner for Cleveland and chief constable for the west division of Langbaurgh.  He farmed at Windy Hill, Rudby, paying Lady Amherst a yearly rent of £265 [2].  
   
Unfortunately George was not as capable as his father, and his rather uncertain grasp of his duties is revealed in the letters of his good friend, John Harker.  The story of the troubles that beset the Brigham and Harker families reveals a vivid glimpse of life in Georgian Stokesley – and resulted in repercussions which were to have an effect on events in Hutton Rudby.  

Radicalism in Stokesley in the 1820s

In the turbulent 1820s, Stokesley was riven by a bitter debate between radicals and traditionalists.  Admirers of the revolutionary activist Tom Paine were at loggerheads with local conservatives and clerics.  It culminated in a war of pamphlets - the Stokesley Paper War.

The opening salvo of the Paper War

On Monday 2 June 1822, the Stokesley tradesman and employer Thomas Mease gave a speech at a Wesleyan Methodist Missionary meeting in which he attacked (without naming him, but quite unmistakably) one of the town's booksellers, Robert Armstrong.

Mease was so pleased with the reception of his speech by his fellow Methodists that in spite of his "secret feelings of considerable reluctance" he gave in to their "earnest and repeated solicitations" and arranged for it to be printed; it appeared as The Substance of a Speech soon afterwards.  The "few satyrical remarks" he had made at Armstrong's expense probably appeared to even greater advantage in the published text.

"I was exceedingly amused, Sir, by the way in which the birth-day of Paine was lately kept in this Town,"

Mease declared, comparing the usual celebratory banquets of the day with Mr Armstrong's tea party.

"What abstruse and pithy subjects were discussed on the occasion, or what powers of elocution were displayed by the motley speakers, I have not been told, nor have I given myself any trouble to learn.  The principal objects embraced by their vain, but anxious wishes, it is probable, were, the subversion of Christianity and Monarchy, and the substitution of a Republican government, together with what they strangely reckon a scientific morality.  Now, to think of such a Tea-sipping assembly of pompous literati, so tenacious of the dignity of human nature, and meditating purposes so vast, is almost enough to produce a smile of contempt in pouting melancholy herself before she is aware. And are these pedantic things to be our guides instead of Priests, and our rulers instead of Kings?"

The Stokesley Paper War had begun.