The Witch Trials of Newcastle

A story I wrote for Newcastle Old & New. Read all about it! Visit: http://www.newcastleoldandnew.co.uk

IN the throes of the Civil War old fears and old ways came back to England … Witch-finders stalked the land!

Witch Trials: The very words conjure the infamous Salem trails in the United States. In England, the Witch-finder General, Matthew Hobson, enjoyed the power of a tyrant.

Less known is the fact that the witch hunters came to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

This was an age of superstition. Demons, devils and goblins were very real to people. The gleam of Satan’s eye could be seen in a passer-by’s stare; sudden lightning, natural disasters, were considered Acts of God; the wind howling through dark forests, the screeching of demons; beyond the flickering, fitful gleam of the candles people lived by, who knew what evils were out there, in the dark ….

In the winter of 1648 Newcastle was a stricken place. 13 years previously nearly half the town’s population had been wiped out by plague. Like the rest of England, Newcastle was struggling to recover from the devastating effects of the Civil War. The town had been besieged and then occupied by a Scottish army; the country had suffered something akin to societal collapse.

These were wild times.

During that winter of 1648 a terrible, nameless fear came to Newcastle. There were reported sightings of demons and creatures of the dark; satanic ceremonies with human sacrifice; shape-shifters and goblins. In a mounting climate of hysteria some even claimed to have seen the Devil himself, stalking the narrow, reeking streets and alleyways. Demonic forces could be seen in seemingly everyday occurrences: a pack of snarling dogs fighting over a half rotted animal carcass; an old woman giving the Evil Eye; pestilence and starvation …. It all pointed in one dreadful direction ….

The town had been abandoned by God and visited by the Horned One: Satan.

Newcastle’s Puritan dominated council felt compelled to react. It issued a statement, urging people to be on the look-out for witches and wizards.

Particular sections of the community became scapegoats: the healer; the wise old woman who treated people with herbs and potions; the outsider; the misfits.

A perfect storm was building. Public hysteria was only heightened by the bell man from St Nicholas’ Church walking the cobbled streets. The dreary clanging of his bell must have heralded dread. His baleful exclamations must have made the blood run cold. “Come forward all ye who have an accusation of witchcraft. Devils, murderers, mad dogs! They be amongst us! The Devil stalks us; his stench chokes our fair town and his hordes practice their evil arts! The End Days are upon us! Who are the witches and wizards? Show us! They shall be brought to justice; they shall be tested by a witch-pricker!”

The Bell Man did his job all too well because a fever gripped Newcastle; it was a blood lust in which anyone could be entrapped.

‘Justice’ was brutal. A man called Mathew Bulmer had already been found guilty of being a wizard. The accusation levelled at him was that he was seen shape-shifting into a black cat called Vinegar. This name was closely associated with the Devil.

Mathew – and a black cat – were both imprisoned in the Castle Keep. Bulmer and the women also imprisoned there were tortured until they confessed. Mathew Bulmer suffered a terrible fate. Held in the deep dark bowels of the ancient fortress, Mathew was savagely beaten. He was also dragged by mule until the bones in his shattered feet trailed on the straw covered and bloody floor. The screaming, the terrified shouting of prisoners, must have conjured Hades itself.

The town council asked citizens to bring their accusations to St Mary’s Church and the town hall. This of course was a bully’s charter. Old scores could be settled, hatreds actioned. The puritans invited a Scottish witch-finder, John Kincaid, and his associates Thomas Shovel and Cuthbert Nicholson, to come to Newcastle.

Black coated, black-hatted, wreathed in shadow, the witch-finder arrived in Newcastle during December 1648.

Thirty people were accused of dabbling in Black Magic and handed over to the authorities. The accused were brought to trial on March 26 1649. The proceedings were held at the town’s old law court on the Close, Newcastle Quayside.

A most terrifying scene met the eyes of the accused as they were pushed and shoved into the court: A great wooden room with tiered benches crammed with people; the presiding judges in their puritan black cloaks and tall black hats and shiny buckles; flaring candles, smells of unwashed people, sweat stale on the brow. Only the shouting of the Clerk of the Court could quieten the mob. “Be silent!” The banging of his gavel on table echoed. “The court will come to order!”

Witnesses told of numerous unnatural activities across Newcastle. One such included Ann Armstrong. She claimed to have knowledge of five covens in the town. Presiding over the proceedings was the witch-finder, John Kincaid. His quiet, calculating voice carried across the chamber; his leading questions, the implied threat of not co-operating, provided the sought for evidence from witnesses.

The culmination of the inquisition was when the accused women were brought forward. With a ceremonial flourish, the witch-finder plunged a pin into the accused person’s thigh or shoulder. If it did not draw blood, then she was guilty.

Of course, the witch-finder used pins with retractable heads…

His fake pins had the desired effect. No blood was drawn. The crowd gasped and a terrible hush descended on the courtroom. This did not last though; very soon voices rose like a gale through a forest, rising until a roar of murderous righteousness. Once again the Clerk of the Court had to call for silence, banging his gavel on the bench.

Plaintive remonstrations of innocence did the accused no good. They were found guilty. Each slamming of the gavel on bench brought forth roars of approval from the mob.

At the end of the trials 27 women were found guilty of witchcraft. 14 of these, plus one man accused of being a wizard were hanged on the Town Moor. A huge crowd gathered to watch the executions. They only fell silent on seeing the bodies swinging from the gallows. In the sudden hush, there was only the faint creaking of rope, and crowing of rooks.

That is not the end of the story though. Not all lost their reason to blood lust and superstition.

Ralph Gardner of North Shields was a prominent citizen, a businessman. He was embroiled in a dispute with the Corporation of Newcastle over trading rights. Gardner witnessed the witch trials and was so appalled that he wrote to Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England.

An inquiry was launched into the activities of Witch-finder Kincaid and, his duplicity uncovered, he fled to Scotland. Justice did finally catch up with Kincaid, in 1662. He was arrested by the Scottish Crown and during his trial the Witch-finder confessed to the killing of over 220 women through his activities. He had been paid 20 shillings for every victim.

John Kincaid was condemned to death but given what was then considered a merciful execution: drowning.

He was shown more mercy than he ever offered his victims.

Life on the Ocean Wave: Part 2

This stage in Jim’s life got off to, well if not a flying start then certainly a cruise. He was told to report to Southampton – and to RMS Samaria.

The luxury liner was built in 1921 by Vickers Ltd in Barrow, for Cunard. The Samaria was one of the last of the great ocean going liners, sailing the passenger route between Liverpool and Boston. The era of the luxury liner however was coming to an end. The Samaria was decommissioned not long after Jim’s voyage (this is entirely a coincidence!).

Jim was always proud of the fact that he had sailed on the great ship. He often talked about the excellent cuisine enjoyed during his nine-day trip to Montreal. The cabins were plush, to say the least.

On arriving at Montreal, Jim joined the Port St John. That first stint on this ship took Jim through to February 1956. There then followed a second spell on the rather temperamental vessel. If a ship could be cantankerous it would be Port St John – she was constantly breaking down.

She must have seemed a bit of a come-down after the luxury of the Samaria. Weighing in 5,668 tons, the cargo ship was built in 1938. Her fickle and temperamental engines drove the crew to distraction. This is very unfortunate, bearing in mind that the ship was expected to sail half way across the world and back … As one of the engineering crew, Jim worked flat out just to keep the Port St John going.

The unfortunate vessel was ultimately sold in 1961 to Greece. She was then renamed Redestos. (One wonders if this was an attempt by Port St John’s new owners to turn her into a lucky ship.)

Jim served on the vessel until February 1957, taking mostly farm machinery Down Under and food back to the US. A trip to Dunedin, New Zealand, proved especially memorable.

One day, Jim was leaning on the ship’s rail, watching the cranes loading cargo; this could take the best part of a day to complete. Jim was looking across the busy, noisy docks, resounding to the ceaseless lifting and cranking of the derricks, great nets bulging with fruit and food. There were the dockers and stevedores, the trucks and the cranes, all bustling away. Jim however was waiting for a certain, expected, arrival ….

Then he saw it – a car. It came along the docks and parked near Port St John. The car doors opened and two men got out. One was a reporter and the other a photographer. They were here to do a story about the ship.

New Zealand’s export markets to America were burgeoning and the Dunedin newspaper wanted to feature this. It was a first for Jim; he was used to all sorts of sights and sounds whilst in dock but not the flash / pop of a pressman’s camera. Copies of the newspaper were duly bought and sent home, to be kept as souvenirs.

Jim loved New Zealand, its tempo and quality of life. He often said that he’d have thought seriously of emigrating there. He also said however that he would not leave the UK whilst Joan’s parents, Bob and Bess, were still alive. When, in due course, they had died, Jim’s own family were growing up. The time, he felt, had passed.

Jim loved his time in the Merchant Navy. He loved his job, was good at it, rising steadily though the engineering ranks. He was never sea-sick, probably to the chagrin of his shipmates …. Jim happily took other men’s watches if they were unable to work. He loved his engines and the graft; the pounding pistons, the grease, the machinery and banks of gauges and gages. He also enjoyed the camaraderie. Many good friends were made. Between ports, apart from working shifts, there wasn’t a great deal to do except play cards, smoke and drink. But things could liven up …

The sea, as the old saying goes, is a fickle mistress. Jim saw all weathers across the oceans of the world. On more than one occasion he had to strap himself to a seat at the start of a shift. He would literally have to sit it out, with the ship being tossed about like a matchbox in the storm. Creaking and groaning, lurching and heaving, she took a pounding, engines working flat out.

The ships carried around 12 passengers and had, typically, 60-crew. The vessels were labour intensive in those days. The engine room had a large crew, approximately 12; that’s 20% of the ship’s complement. The engineers worked three, eight hour shifts.

In between voyages Jim enjoyed short periods of leave, allocated a ship in port until his next sea going assignment. If the ship had returned to the Tyne then Jim often came home with some of his shipmates, for tea. Numerous occasions saw the living room crowded with chaps from all over the world, all sipping tea and eating scones, with, “Oh yes, nice top-up of tea, thank you Joan” or “Lovely house you have here, Mrs Flynn.”

Jim certainly saw the world. Ports visited included Sydney, Dunedin, Auckland, Curaso, the West Indies, all along the West Coast of the United States and also the Panama Canal. Some ports were large and some small, great, teeming hubs or one-horse towns. Variety was the spice of life!

Visits by customs officials were a regular part of life. The ships’ crews came up with all sorts of ingenious ways of secreting away duty free goodies such as cigarettes.

One such cunning method was to hide stashes of cigs in the piping of capstans. The men did this by removing the panels, packing the cigarettes inside and then putting the panels back on. Once done, the bolts were creased over, to make it look as though they had not been tampered with or removed.

Life in the Merchant Navy was a great experience for a young man, unforgettable.

By the time of his marriage in the spring of 1957 Jim had sailed the oceans of the world. He had visited places that during childhood seemed distant and exotic.

When Jack sent those presents home from India, during the war, Jim had wondered about that far distant land. Standing barefoot on the rocky banks of the Tyne, he’d watched the ships steaming up and down the great river. He’d imagined the ports and countries those ships went to. What an exciting life it must be!

Well, Jim had lived and loved that life. He’d seen fascinating places, distant lands. His time in the Merchant Navy wasn’t yet over, far from it. He had numerous Deep Sea trips ahead of him, including the nearly fatal journey to Africa.

But now he was married and had a wife to consider. So perhaps, on the day he stood at the altar in St Mary’s Church, Jim’s thoughts were already turning to life on shore.