Skip to main content

The Yorkshire witch: A story of murder and witchcraft

The Yorkshire witch: A story of murder and witchcraft.



 In 1809 Mary Bateman, aged 40 years, was hanged in front of thousands of people. Her body was put on public display with over 2500 people going to see it. Strips of her skin were made into leather and sold as magic charms to ward off evil spirits.

Some people believe that the spirit of Mary Bateman still haunts the halls of Thackray Medical Museum, where her skeleton was on display for many years.

But why was her skeleton on display there?
What did she do to gain the name ‘the Yorkshire witch’?
And why was she executed?

Mary Bateman started her criminal life early. She was born in 1768 on a farm in North Yorkshire and became a servant girl but was sacked because she was caught stealing. In the 1780s she became a minor thief and con artist.

She convinced lots of people that she had supernatural powers. She became a fortune teller in Leeds and sold potions that she said would ward off evil spirits.

In the late 1700s Mary was responsible for many frauds, petty thefts, poisonings and deaths but she managed to avoid being caught.

In 1806 William and Rebecca Perigo came to see Mary because they thought that Rebecca had been cursed. 

She had been having chest pains and asked Mary to help lift the curse. Over several months Mary tricked the couple into giving her more and more money. 

She prescribed a pudding secretly laced with poison. But it was only Rebecca that ate the pudding. Her condition got worse as the poison took effect and she died in May 1806. 

William Perigo continued to pay Mary for more than 2 years until he discovered that one of the “charms” he had bought from her was worthless. He went to the police who arrested Bateman the next day. 

Mary claimed that she was innocent but during a search of her home poison was found along with many of her victim’s personal items. In March 1809 she was tried and found guilty of fraud and murder. 

She was sentenced to death and tried to avoid execution by falsely claiming she was pregnant. She was hanged at York Castle.

After she was hanged her body was put on display and then given to Leeds Infirmary for dissection. 

Her skeleton was loaned to Thackray Medical Museum to be part of an exhibition there. Her skeleton is now at Leeds University.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A great story about a little bit of 'humanity' during a terrible war.

A great story about a little bit of 'humanity' during a terrible war.                                                                                      In April 1945, 2nd Lt. Peter During was a South African fighter pilot (N.7 Squadron) running missions over Italy when his Spitfire was shot down by German AA fire. He managed to crash land his plane behind enemy lines where he was immediately captured.   Whilst been escorted to a German Lufwaffe Prisoner of War (POW) camp (he was a pilot and thus his interrogation and imprisonment was the responsibility of the German airforce), he opened a conversation with his captors. He was quickly able to establish that they could already see the writing on the wall, that the war was at an end and Germany would lose it. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

French woman accused of sleeping with Germans during the occupation has her head shaved by vindictive neighbors in village near Marseilles.

French woman accused of sleeping with Germans during the occupation has her head shaved by vindictive neighbors in village near Marseilles.  Antony Beevor wrote: "... In Paris, there were cases of prostitutes kicked to death for having accepted German soldiers as clients. (...) A large number of the victims were prostitutes who had simply plied their trade with Germans as well as Frenchmen, although in some areas it was accepted that their conduct was professional rather than political, others were silly teenagers who had associated with German soldiers out of bravado or boredom.  In a number of cases, female schoolteachers who, living alone, had German soldiers billeted on them, were falsely denounced for having been a "mattress for the boches. (...) Women accused of having had an abortion were also assumed to have consorted with Germans.  Many victims were young mothers, whose husbands were in German prisoner-of-war camps. During the war, they often had no means of supp...
Post a Comment
Read more

US executes first woman Lisa Montgomery on federal death row in nearly 70 years.

US executes first woman Lisa Montgomery on federal death row in nearly 70 years. Montgomery was the first female prisoner to be executed in by the US government since 1953. Montgomery, 52, was put to death by lethal injection of pentobarbital. The US government executed convicted murderer Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, on Wednesday, after the Supreme Court cleared the last hurdle by overturning a stay. Challenges were fought across multiple federal courts on whether to allow the execution of Montgomery, 52, who was put to death by lethal injection of pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate in the Justice Department`s execution chamber at its prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The U.S. Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, cleared the way for her execution after overturning a stay by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Kelley Henry, Montgomery`s lawyer, called the execution "vicious, unlawful, and unnecessary exercise of authoritarian power." ...
Post a Comment
Read more