Jeremy Bamber Forum
OTHER HIGH PROFILE CASES => Other cases => Topic started by: Roch on June 03, 2012, 02:27:PM
-
The case of William Jobling...
http://class-warfare.blogspot.co.uk/2007/11/commemorating-william-jobling-last-man.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbeting
http://thebard.hubpages.com/hub/William-Jobling
-
That looks like XXXX
Edited: Sorry Jackie but the person you referenced is not linked to any of these issues.
-
Hi Rochy, thank you for posting this, what unbelievably cruel things we humans have done to each other at times in our history. Makes me want to cry when I see this.
SLAUGHTER PIT
"A While ago, down Jarrow’s Slaughter Pit, (1)
Though nothing nowadays remains of it,
A hundred hardened miners set their sights
On such a thing as basic human rights,
And thinking if they only formed a band
Of honest, daring men, they’d make a stand
Against atrocities way down a mine
Whose seams ran deep beneath the River Tyne.
For many years, on Binding Day, they’d signed
A bond, which stated that they were inclined
To bide by all the owners’ rules and laws,
And frequently some new oppressive clause,
As in the Binding Strike of eighteen-ten,
When those who could not read nor work a pen
Had realised they’d work a longer day,
Wherein the keeker fixed the rate of pay; (2)
But miners found that strike to no avail
Once rotting in an episcopal jail. (3)
Again, above their heads the binding loomed
Like blackened clouds. Again the men felt domed
And shuddered at the all too chilling choice –
To work like rats or rise in common voice,
Defying all the threats the owners made:
The sackings and the burly bailiff raid,
The stays in jail, the tread mill and huge fines.
The miners wanted standards in the mines!
Take once! The owners thought the miners daft:
“Of all the nerve; a ventilation shaft?
Why, Humphrey Davy has discovered laws
Which prove that gas can’t pass through metal gauze.
In fact, he’s made for you a safety lamp
To help combat that treach’rous fire damp.”
To put their selfish theory to the test,
The owners of the gassy pits thought best,
The Davy’s debut should be Hebburn Pit. (4)
“Just think – the money we will save with it.
We’ll never need a ventilation shaft.
Why pay so high a price for just a draft?”
Enough! With courage born of facing death
And Tommy Hepburn’s all-inspiring breath, (5)
In eighteen-thirty-one, on Binding Day,
Some twenty-thousand miners made their way
To North Tyne Moor, to talk and reason how
To lead a peaceful strike, and make a vow
That in their struggle non would raise a hand;
That this would be a non-aggressive stand.
But those who owned the pits had other thoughts.
They sought to crush the strike in local courts.
They brought in yeomanry to guard the mines,
Evicted thousands crippled them with fines.
Then turned their furniture to firewood
And mocked as children died for want of food,
Because the Tommy Shops had stopped all sales.
They even tried to bring in scab from Wales,
But sighed to find the Welsh were just as proud
And obstinate as Tyneside’s silent crowd.
The strike of thirty-one is strewn with tales
Of hardened men who’d sooner rot in jails
Than sign a bond which bound them for a spell
Deep down inside the gaping wounds of hell.
If, friend, you’re e fired by these foul crimes, then read
Some more about a further ghastly deed.
In June, next year, two striking miners walked (6)
South Shields road. Halfway, they stopped and talked
With Fairless, sat astride his gallant steed. (7)
What Fairless said, the two had not agreed,
For Armstrong, with new courage found
Knocked Fairless from his horse and to the ground,
And left him there, eyes closed with gaping head.
The trembling miners, fearing Fairless dead,
Made off. Armstrong was never seen again,
But Jobling, never fearing mortal pain,
Returned to find that just before he died
The falling Fairless had in fact denied
That Jobling struck a blow. Instead his fault
Was that he had not helped prevent assault.
With Jobling seized, a trail began on August first.
The foreman of the Jury with a thirst (8)
For sweet revenge, within a hour saw fit (9)
That as a grim example to a pit
On strike, in days to come the man should swing.
Then, smiling, Justice Parke thought up a sting: (10)
To re-enact some medieval mode,
Just passed in some new legislative code,
They’d pitch and gibbet Jobling and, to make
Their case, exhibit him on Jarrow slake.
On August, third, before Will Jobling died,
Amidst his audience somebody cried
A last “farewell”, and turning to that well-
Acquainted voice, unlucky Jobling fell. (11)
Poor Jobling, now deprived of sacred ground,
And blackened in a metal gibbet, found
His empty shell was guarded night and day,
In case his comrades carried him away
With martyrs songs to keep alive the cause.
Weeks past and when no soldier dared to pause
By rotting Jobling, fearing some disease,
They left. One night, as silent as a breeze
Some came and stole the grizzly sight away,
And there ends Jobling’s tale unto this day.
That tale is only one that illustrates
The fury of the local magistrates
At their own inability to end
A costly strike, and consequently send
The miners back to work and thus restore
The status quo. But there again, there’s more!
Think of the seventeen that Parke had tried
Before the Jobling case, and three who cried
On hearing that they’d hang because they’d dared
To hit a scab! And those a jury spared – (12)
The “Seven Lads” they sent across the sea (13)
On jumped up charges of conspiracy!
At length, the hardened Jarrow men, who’d swore
They’d fight until the end, could take no more.
With sickness sweeping through their weakened rank
And file the saddened miners spirits sank
To lower depths. For want of warmth and food,
The men of Slaughter pit, who’d boldly stood
A long defiant year, began to yearn
For life’s necessities. The right to earn
A decent wage, to arbitrate their pay,
The right to choose the hours they worked each day,
In slaughter-free and ventilated seams,
Became the fragments of their shattered dreams
In August, eighteen-thirty-two, the cage
At Slaughter Pit once more began to gauge
The gaping wounds of hell. The strike was crushed.
Why, even Tommy Hepburn’s voice was hushed! (14) "
Notes:
1) Slaughter Pit was the name given to Jarrow Colliery after explosions in 1826 and
-
The case of William Jobling...
the gibbet shown here was the one used to slowly execute Jobling.
Isn't a whole life tariff a form of slow execution too?
-
Here is an article with opposing views underneath:
Over the next three columns I’m going to reveal the truth about William Jobling, the murder of magistrate Nicholas Fairles and the making of an urban legend.
Some will find my conclusions controversial, but I want those who think that erecting a memorial to Jobling is a good idea to understand exactly what they’re committing themselves to.
On Monday, June 11, 1832, Jobling and his pal Ralph Armstrong were drinking in Turner’s bar at the bottom of Hudson Street, South Shields.
At 5pm, Jobling went outside and espied the magistrate Nicholas Fairles riding upon his horse.
Jobling asked Fairles for beer money, but his efforts were rebuffed.
By this time Jobling had been joined by Armstrong, who attacked Fairles with a stout length of wood and a stone.
The magistrate was seriously injured, and the two pitmen ran off as fast as their inebriated legs would carry them. The victim died ten days later. Or at least, that’s the generally accepted story. Some argue that Jobling was no criminal, but rather a folk hero, a man to be sympathised with and even admired, if not exactly revered.
The facts paint a somewhat different picture.
It is universally accepted that Jobling was present when Fairles was attacked, but his supporters often argue that he neither encouraged the assault nor took part in it.
Ralph Armstrong was the murderer, they say, while Jobling was essentially an innocent bystander.
However, even Jobling’s admirers acknowledge that by begging from Fairles he did play a role in the events that led to the murder.
The primary defence used in relation to Jobling is the poverty that he, his family and his working-class colleagues were forced to endure.
Now while it is true that the miners were treated very harshly and subjected to grinding poverty, Jobling’s impoverishment was seemingly not so great that he couldn’t afford to spend his days drinking in public houses.
Money that could have been spent putting food on the table of his family was frittered away, instead, on ale.
Whatever one may think of Jobling, he was hardly a model of sobriety.
The above version of the story, revered almost as holy writ by Jobling’s supporters, was essentially propagated by Jobling himself.
In fact it is nothing more than a tissue of lies, as we shall see.
What many people are unaware of is that approximately one hour before Fairles approached the vicinity of Turner’s bar, an almost identical incident had taken place, but without such tragic consequences.
John Archer Foster, employed as a viewer at Jarrow Colliery, related his own experience at Jobling’s trial: “ ... about four o’clock in the afternoon, I saw ...William Jobling ... and he came up to me from Turner’s public house. He asked me for some money to drink.
“I at first refused to give him any. I then saw a man called Ralph Armstrong, who came running towards me from the public house: When I saw Armstrong, I gave Jobling a shilling. Jobling then let go his hold on my bridle and went away towards Turner’s public house.”
This was clearly not a case of begging, but rather obtaining money by menaces.
Jobling had seized the bridle of Foster’s mount, and asked for money.
Foster’s refusal precipitated the rapid approach of Armstrong, whose demeanour obviously unnerved Foster so much that he had a rapid change of mind and coughed up the money.
Only when the men had obtained Foster’s money did Jobling release his hold and allow the man to continue.
Jobling and Armstrong did not beg from Foster; they intimidated him, and the rider clearly felt that if he did not accede to the demand, physical violence may have been a distinct possibility.
Next week we’ll see how the pair’s next victim paid the ultimate price for standing up to them.
WILLIAM Jobling, a drunkard, approached magistrate Nicholas Fairles and asked him for drinking money.
Before his death, the Magistrate testified that he would have been happy to give Jobling money, but for the fact that he’d already had enough to drink.
Hence, he tactfully refused. Jobling, according to Esther Doran and other witnesses, cockily told the magistrate that he “knew better”.
Esther later described how, “ ... another man (Ralph Armstrong) passed after them ... his hands behind him under his coat, and as he went along, he said ... ‘Let’s kill him’. He followed in the direction of Jobling and Mr Fairles.”
Jobling then reached for Fairles’s arm, while Armstrong grabbed him from behind and shouted, “Damn you, you old bugger, we’ll do for you!”
They then pulled him to the ground. From the victim’s own account it becomes clear that it was not only Armstrong who unseated the Magistrate from his mount, but Jobling also.
Armstrong’s words, “Let’s kill him” and “We’ll do for you” are as clear an indication as one can get that the pair not only intended to beat the Magistrate but also likely kill him.
Jobling’s statement in court that he watched from afar, in shock, as Armstrong attacked Fairless is also a lie.
Mary Taylor, Margaret Hardy and others described how Jobling held the old man down and shouted, “Kill him! Kill him!” while Armstrong pummelled him with a stone and a length of wood.
Mary Taylor described how, when she arrived at the scene with her aunt, they saw the horrific attack in full flight.
Mary’s aunt screamed: “You murdering villains, you have murdered the man!” Three more blows were struck before the men ran off.
Armstrong was never found, and was rumoured to have fled to Australia. Jobling was arrested by a police officer at the Shields Races later that day.
Fairless, who is so often demonised by Jobling’s supporters, actually displayed an astonishing degree of fairness. Despite the horrific nature of the attack, he was at pains to point out that Jobling had not actually struck him, not wanting the man to be accused of something he hadn’t done.
It is clear that the attack upon Fairless was not, as some of Jobling’s defenders would have it, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act.
The accosting of John Archer Foster just an hour earlier had mirrored exactly the same pattern.
In fact, the only difference between the attack upon John Archer Foster and the attack upon Nicholas Fairles was that Foster, realising the danger he was in, hastily paid up.
Had he not, it is entirely possible that he might have suffered the same fate as the Magistrate. Armstrong and Jobling had obviously developed a successful technique for intimidating their chosen targets into handing over money.
Were the miners impoverished? Yes, and cruelly so. Were they justified in going on strike? Undoubtedly.
However, the harsh conditions that were forced upon them cannot be used to justify murder, particularly when the villains concerned had spent the entire day getting inebriated on the little money they possessed. Jobling was not forced to beg money from Fairles.
Truth be told, Jobling wasn’t begging at all. Begging is what the starving do, not the drunk. Jobling was soliciting the Magistrate for drinking money, not pleading with him for sustenance.
Nicholas Fairles is sometimes painted not as the victim in the event, but almost as the perpetrator.
He has occasionally been caricatured as haughty, proud, possessing a callous disregard for his employees.
It is this alleged aloofness, coupled with a perceived stinginess when he refused to give the men some “charity”, that is said to have precipitated the attack.
In other words, to use the excuse of many a villain, “He was asking for it.”
As we’ll see next week, the truth was far different
“WHEN I was talking to Fairles,” said the murderer William Jobling, “Ralph Armstrong pulled him off the horse, and I ran several yards from him, and shouted to him ‘Behave!’
“I ran away then as far as the turnpike gate, and looked back, and saw him (Armstrong) striddle-legs upon him, and I saw another man that I don’t know, like, standing beside him.
“As I went back through the turnpike gate, Armstrong overtook me and said, ‘Run!’, and I made the best of my way, and I saw him no more.”
According to Jobling, then, he had not, as the other witnesses had stated, taken an active part in the assault by holding Nicholas Fairles down.
Of course, he had to say this, for he knew full well what the penalty for murder was.
Jobling’s only chance of escaping the noose was to invent a story that would get him off the hook. And this is exactly what he tried to do.
Jobling, supposedly standing by the turnpike gate and watching events from afar, claimed in his testimony that he then espied, “another man, that I don’t know, like, standing beside him (Armstrong).”
Not a single witness claimed to have seen this “other man”, for he never existed. The “other man”, of course, was Jobling himself. Jobling claimed that he was standing some distance away so that he could argue he had nothing to do with the assault.
His problem? Multiple witnesses would testify unequivocally that Jobling was right alongside Armstrong when the beating had taken place, and had actively participated in it by holding the Magistrate down.
Worse, he had egged Armstrong on as he pummelled the Magistrate’s skull with a rock by feverishly yelling, “Kill him!” Kill him!”
Jobling, then, was forced to argue that the person they had seen next to Armstrong was not himself, but the mysterious “other man” who subsequently disappeared.
But it was never going to work. Not having the spine to confess his guilt he lied, and the evidence was so overwhelming the jury took only fifteen minutes to ratify that conclusion.
Judge Parke (or Parkes) had no option under the law but to sentence Jobling to death.
He was also compelled by law (The Murder Act of 1751) to declare that Jobling’s body should be tarred and hung in a gibbet on public display as a warning to others.
Jobling, superficially religious, was a coward who helped beat and kick a 71 year-old man senseless.
Jobling and Armstrong murdered in cold blood an innocent man going about his lawful business and there is absolutely nothing that dilutes either his responsibility or his guilt.
A thug and a drunkard of the first order, the jury saw through both him and his pathetic attempt to avoid the noose.
Has our society really reached such a state of moral degeneracy that memorialising murderers is seen as preferable to remembering their victims?
What happened to the old magistrate had nothing to do with the striking miners, their fat-cat employers or the suppression of the working classes.
These were simply red herrings cast about by Jobling’s supporters, who cynically used his execution as a tool to advance their own political struggle.
What happened to Fairles was simply the cold-blooded murder of an elderly gentleman by two drunken thugs who were enraged at his refusal to give in to intimidation.
Were a similar incident to take place today, can you imagine the furore that would erupt if someone suggested memorialising the murderers with a plaque, venerating the pub where one of their bodies was hidden and yet completely ignoring the victim of the brutality?
But the passage of time has a way of smoothing off the rough edges of history.
Villains become martyrs and victims become villains.
The truth is that William Jobling was a despicable, low-life drunkard who thoroughly deserved to have his neck stretched.
To those who want to memorialise this liquor-soaked, nasty little scumbag, I have only one question: Can you name one good thing he ever did to deserve it?
William Jobling:
-
Here is an article with opposing views underneath:
William Jobling:
Interesting. Do you suppose people will still be arguing about JB in a couple of hundred years time?
-
Interesting. Do you suppose people will still be arguing about JB in a couple of hundred years time?
Who knows Bridget? Perhaps in time people will become better informed than us, with regards to the police raid, the silencer and the prosecution testimonies.
-
Interesting. Do you suppose people will still be arguing about JB in a couple of hundred years time?
I believe his case will be used as a text book example of the failures of the British justice system.
I don't care what William Jobling did, he did not deserve to be gibbeted. As you will gather, I am totally opposed to capital punishment. I am equally opposed to full life tariffs, except in respect of those who are so dangerous or dangerously deranged that it would never be safe to free them.
-
Hi Guys am I getting confused again over Willy Gage. Help Bridget.
-
Hi Guys am I getting confused again over Willy Gage. Help Bridget.
Chok means William jobling, willie Gage has not been gibbeted!
-
Chok means William jobling, willie Gage has not been gibbeted!
thank you, Bridget, I did indeed mean Willie Jobling! Sorry, FWG.
I have a problem with my dratted keyboard, for some reason the capitals button will not operate in respect of the letter 't'. I must have worn it out and need a new keyboard. Apologies for this, it's as annoying to me as it must be for those who read my posts.
-
Hi Bridget so nice when I get it right for a change I will have to celebrate with an extra biscuit :)
-
Hi Guys am I getting confused again over Willy Gage. Help Bridget.
Apologies, Susan, I'd just done a post to Free Willie Gage and posted his name again when I typed the post on Willie Jobling.
-
Hi Bridget so nice when I get it right for a change I will have to celebrate with an extra biscuit :)
You did, well done, Susan.
-
Hi chochok eira thought I was having one of my funny turns again ;)
-
Hi Bridget so nice when I get it right for a change I will have to celebrate with an extra biscuit :)
make it 2
-
Hi Roach
That was really interesting to read, it had me hooked straight away. :) :) :)
But, Lol....... ;D ;D ;D
Look what I found....
Despite the magistrate's dying pleas that Jobling had not been responsible for the attack, the authorities desperately needed a scapegoat to serve as an example, so on August 1, 1832, Jobling, who was illiterate, was tried at Durham Assizes - without any legal representation - and was found guilty of murder. :-\
-
Hi Roach
That was really interesting to read, it had me hooked straight away. :) :) :)
But, Lol....... ;D ;D ;D
Look what I found....
Despite the magistrate's dying pleas that Jobling had not been responsible for the attack, the authorities desperately needed a scapegoat to serve as an example, so on August 1, 1832, Jobling, who was illiterate, was tried at Durham Assizes - without any legal representation - and was found guilty of murder. :-\
Well found, Patti!
-
Hi Keira
The internet is wilderness of information......I doubt all we read is true??????
Isabella, Williams Joblings wife died in 1891 in a workhouse....she outlived him for nearly 60 years after his death. ;) ;) ;)
-
Well found, Patti!
they dont call her miss marple for nothing ....
-
they dont call her miss marple for nothing ....
Lol...........Mertol my initials are PW and AE....hahahahah
-
Hi Roach
That was really interesting to read, it had me hooked straight away. :) :) :)
But, Lol....... ;D ;D ;D
Look what I found....
Despite the magistrate's dying pleas that Jobling had not been responsible for the attack, the authorities desperately needed a scapegoat to serve as an example, so on August 1, 1832, Jobling, who was illiterate, was tried at Durham Assizes - without any legal representation - and was found guilty of murder. :-\
Thanks Patti. Perhaps it was an 1832 conspiracy theory? I mean, authorities under immense pressure, scapegoat etc etc.
-
yes bring back the gibbit that will teach them.
-
wichfinder I am impressed you can say more than two or three words. You will be able very soon to join in the debates. Keep up the good work I am so proud of you. :) Must be a new type of seed you are eating ;)