FROM CLIPPING TO MURDER
The Story of The Cragg Coiners.

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 All pictures on this site unless otherwise stated are © copyright Nigel J Lloyd.

The village of Cragg Vale is found south of Mytholmroyd on the B6138 Cragg Road in a seemingly peaceful Pennine valley. But, this peaceful village hides a notorious history, in the latter part of the 18th century it was home to The Cragg Coiners, a band of counterfeiters and murderers. The story is one of which any thriller writer would be rightly proud.

  The 'Coiners' were led by a man know as 'King David' Hartley who lived at Bell House a medieval farmhouse. The gang got together because their lives were ones of living close to great need. Most were already having to work long hours keeping their families alive by weaving in their lonely farms as well as keeping animals  to produce the provisions needed to keep body and soul together. Some of the men were also having to do jobs for others to keep their families alive by working in quarries and mills in truly terrible conditions, so hours were long and hard.

 The local publicans were employed in the counterfeiting operation as it was they who would take the gold coins out of circulation to enable the 'Coiners' to do their thing. The coins were either filed or 'clipped' so that some of the gold was removed and then a new edge would be 'milled' onto them so as to make the coins hopefully unnoticeably smaller. The filings or clippings would then be melted down to make new blanks which would be made into new coins by stamping onto them new 'heads and tails' by means of skillfully created dies. These new coins would then be put secretly back into circulation by the local publicans. At the trial three engravers were named as producing the dies these were Thomas Sunderland of Halifax, Joseph Shaw of Bradford and someone only known as Lightoulers, the latter being the engraver for 'King Davids' dies.

 Other 'Coiners' were named as King David's brother Isaac Hartley, John Willcock, Matthew Normanton, Thomas Spencer Thomas Clayton, Robert Thomas, James Broadbent and a man called Greenwood. The homes of the men were remote farms some of which still exist to this day, and so any strangers approaching would be spotted easily making it easy for the men to carry out their nefarious activities in near safety.

 News of the counterfeiting reached the excise authorities, and in 1769 an officer called William Dighton (Deighton) was employed to investigate the matter. James Broadbent turned King's evidence and this led to the arrest of King David by Dighton. Isaac Hartley then offered the princely sum of £100 to any man who would kill Dighton. At an unknown date the plotters got together at the Dusty Miller Pub in Mytholmroyd (still used). Robert Thomas and  Matthew Normanton got together and ambushed Dighton and shot him in the head at Bull Close Lane in Halifax. This greatly angered the government of the day who immediately appointed Charles Watson-Wentworth The Marquess Of Rockingham, Lord Lieutenant Of The West Riding to hunt down and catch the excise mans killers. Rewards were offered for information leading to the arrest of the murderers, this included pardons to anyone except the killers who would turn King's evidence. By the end of 1769 a list of counterfeiters had been drawn up which numbered 80 and included 30 from Cragg Vale as well as other areas including 20 from Sowerby, 15 from Halifax, 7 from Wadsworth and 6 from Warley and Midgley. By December of 1769 officers had made 30 arrests.

 David Hartley was tried at York and hanged at the Tyburn gallows in the city know as 'The Three Legged Mare' which was sited on The Knavesmire (now the site of York Racecourse) in the city on April 28th 1770. his body was buried in the graveyard of Heptonstall church, the gravestone can still be seen there. Although he was acquited of Dightons murder, Robert Thomas was eventually hanged as a highwayman on 6th August 1774. His body was displayed on Beacon Hill, Halifax to warn others of his kind of the consequences of their actions. Matthew Normanton was eventually found after fleeing into the Cragg Valley and hiding out and was hanged on April 15th 1775. The man who organised the plot to murder Dighton, Isaac Hartley was never brought to trial due to lack of evidence, he eventually died at the age of 78, an old man in Mytholmroyd in 1815.

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Clip A Bright Guinea by John Marsh now out of print and very collectable (sells for £150+).