Bygone Punishments Part 15

The blacksmith had to furnish ironwork, etc., at a cost of four shillings and sixpence. For carrying the stool to its proper place half-a-crown was paid. Lastly, nine shillings and sixpence had to be expended to make the pond deeper, so that the ducking-stool might work in a satisfactory manner. The total amount reached 2 11s. 4d. At Coventry, in the same county, we find traces of two ducking-stools, and respecting them Mr. W. G. Fretton, F.S.A., supplies us with some curious details. The following notes are drawn from the Leet Book, under date of October 11th, 1597: "Whereas there are divers and sundrie disordered persons (women) within this citie that be scolds, brawlers, disturbers, and disquieters of theire neighbors, to the great offence of Almightie G.o.d and the breach of Her Majestie's peace: for the reformation of such abuses, it is ordered and enacted at this leet, that if any disordered and disquiet persons of this citie do from henceforth scold or brawle with their neighbo'rs or others, upon complaint thereof to the Alderman of the ward made, or to the Maior for the time being, they shall be committed to the cooke-stoole lately appointed for the punishment of such offenders, and thereupon be punished for their deserts, except they or everie of them, do presentlie paie iijs iijd for their redemption from that punishment to the use of the poore of this citie." The old accounts of the City of Coventry contain numerous items bearing on the ducking-stool.

In a volume of "Miscellaneous Poems," by Benjamin West, of Weedon Beck, Northamptonshire, published in 1780, we find some lines ent.i.tled, "The Ducking-Stool," which run:

"There stands, my friend, in yonder pool, An engine called the ducking-stool, By legal pow'r commanded down, The joy and terror of the town, If jarring females kindle strife, Give language foul or lug the coif; If noisy dames should once begin To drive the house with horrid din, Away, you cry, you'll grace the stool, We'll teach you how your tongue to rule.

The fair offender fills the seat, In sullen pomp, profoundly great.

Down in the deep the stool descends, But here, at first, we miss our ends; She mounts again, and rages more Than ever vixen did before.

So, throwing water on the fire Will make it but burn up the higher; If so, my friend, pray let her take A second turn into the lake, And, rather than your patience lose, Thrice and again repeat the dose.

No brawling wives, no furious wenches, No fire so hot, but water quenches.

In Prior's skilful lines we see For these another recipe: A certain lady, we are told (A lady, too, and yet a scold), Was very much reliev'd, you'll say By water, yet a different way; A mouthful of the same she'd take, Sure not to scold, if not to speak."

A footnote to the poem states: "To the honour of the fair s.e.x in the neighbourhood of R----y, this machine has been taken down (as useless) several years." Most probably, says Mr. Jewitt, the foregoing refers to Rugby. In the old accounts of that town several items occur, as for example:

1721. June 5. Paid for a lock for ye ducking-stool, and spent in towne business 1s. 2d.

1739. Sept. 25. Ducking-stool repaired. And Dec. 21, 1741. A chain for ducking-stool 2s. 4d.

Mr. Petty, F.S.A., in a note to Mr. Jewitt, which is inserted in _The Reliquary_ for January, 1861, states that the Rugby ducking-stool "was placed on the west side of the horsepool, near the footpath leading from the Clifton Road towards the new churchyard. Part of the posts to which it was affixed were visible until very lately, and the National School is now erected on its site. The last person who underwent the punishment was a man for beating his wife about forty years since; but although the ducking-stool has been long removed, the ceremony of immersion in the horse-pond was recently inflicted on an inhabitant for brutality towards his wife." The Rugby ducking-stool was of the trebuchet form, somewhat similar to one which was in use at Broadwater, near Worthing, and which has been frequently engraved. We reproduce an ill.u.s.tration of the latter from the _Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine_, which represents it as it appeared in the year 1776. It was in existence at a much later period. Its construction was very simple, consisting of a short post let into the ground at the edge of a pond, bearing on the top a transverse beam, one end of which carried the stool, while the other end was secured by a rude chair. We are told, in an old description of this ducking-stool, that the beam could be moved horizontally, so as to bring the seat to the edge of the pond, and that when the beam was moved back, so as to place the seat and the person in it over the pond, the beam was worked up and down like a see-saw, and so the person in the seat was ducked. When the machine was not in use, the end of the beam which came on land was secured to a stump in the ground by a padlock, to prevent the village children from ducking each other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUCKING-STOOL, BROADWATER, NEAR WORTHING.]

Mr. T. Tindall Wildridge, author of several important local historical works, says that the great profligacy of Hull frequently gave rise in olden times to very stringent exercise of the magisterial authority. Not infrequently this was at the direct instigation and sometimes command of the Archbishop of York. Occasionally the cognisance of offences was retrospective. Thus, in November, 1620, it was resolved by the Bench of Magistrates, then composed of the Aldermen of the town, that such as had been "faltie for b.a.s.t.a.r.des" should be carted about the town and afterwards "ducked in the water for their faults, for which they have hitherto escaped punishment." At a little later period, in England, in the days of the Commonwealth, it was enacted on May 14th, 1650, that adultery should be punished with death, but there is not any record of the law taking effect. The Act was repealed at the Restoration. About a century before this period, namely, in 1563, in the Scottish Parliament, this crime was made a capital offence. In New England, in the year 1662, several men and women suffered for this crime.

Resuming our notes on the Hull ducking-stool, we find, according to Hadley, the historian, that in the year 1731 Mr. Beilby, who held the office of town's husband, was ordered to take care that a ducking-stool should be provided at the South-end for the benefit of scolds and unquiet women. Six years later, John Hilbert published a view of the town of Hull, in which there is a representation of the ducking-stool.

Mr. Wildridge has found traces of another local ducking-stool. He states that in some accounts belonging to the eighteenth century there is a charge for tarring a ducking-stool situated on the Haven-side, on the east side of the town.

At the neighbouring town of Beverley are traces of this old mode of punishment, and in the town records are several notes bearing on the subject. Brewers of bad beer and bakers of bad bread, as well as scolding women, were placed in the ducking-stool.

The Leeds ducking-stool was at Quarry Hill, near the Spa. At the Court of Quarter Sessions, held in the town in July, 1694, it was "ordered that Anne, the wife of Phillip Saul, a person of lewd behaviour, be ducked for daily making strife and discord amongst her neighbours." A similar order was made against Jane Milner and Elizabeth Wooler.

We find in the Session records of Wakefield, for 1602, the following:

"Punishm^t of Hall and Robinson, scolds: fforasmuch as Katherine Hall and M'garet Robinson, of Wakefield, are great disturbers and disquieters of their neighbours w'thin the toune of Wakefield, by reason of their daily scolding and chydering, the one w'th the other, for reformacon whereof ytt it is ordered that if they doe hereafter continue their former course of life in scolding and brawling, that then John Mawde, the high constable there, shall cause them to be soundlye ducked or cucked on the cuckstool at Wakefield for said misdemeanour."

In the records of Wakefield Sessions, under date of October 5th, 1671, the following appears:

"Forasmuch as Jane, the wife of William Farrett of Selby, shoemaker, stands indicted at this sessions for a common scold, to the great annoyance and disturbance of her neighbours, and breach of His Majesty's peace. It is therefore ordered that the said Jane Farrett, for the said offence be openly ducked, and ducked three times over the head and ears by the constables of Selby aforesaid, for which this shall be their warrant."

At Bradford, the ducking-stool was formerly at the Beck, near to the Parish Church, and on the formation of the ca.n.a.l it was removed, but only a short distance from its original position. Still lingering in the West Riding of Yorkshire, we find in the parish accounts of East Ardsley, a village near to Wakefield, the following item:

1683-4. Paid John Crookes for repairing stool 1s. 8d.

Norrisson Scatcherd, in his "History of Morley," and William Smith, in his "Morley Ancient and Modern," give interesting details of the ducking-stool at Morley.

Not far distant from Morley is Calverley, and in the Constable's accounts of the village it is stated:

1728. Paid Jeremy Booth for powl for ducking-stool 2s.

Mr. Joseph Wilkinson, the historian of Worsborough, near Barnsley, mentions two ducking-ponds in the township--one in the village of Worsborough, another near to the Birdwell toll-bar; and, judging from the frequency with which ducking-stools were repaired by the township, it would seem they were often brought into requisition. The following extracts are drawn from the parish accounts:

1703. For mending ye cuck-stool 0 0 6

1721. Ducking-stool mending 0 1 8

1725. For mending and hanging ye cuck-stool 0 1 0

1730. Pd. Thos. Moorhouse for mending ye stocks and cuck-stool 0 1 0

" Pd. Jno. South for 2 staples for ye cucking-stool 0 0 4

1731. Thos. Moorhouse for mending ye ducking-stool 0 1 0

1734-5. To ye ducking-stool mending 0 0 6

1736. For mending ye ducking-stool 0 10 0

1737. John Ellot, for ye ducking-stool and sheep-fold door 0 14 6

Mr. W. H. Dawson, the historian of Skipton, has devoted considerable attention to the old-time punishments of the town, and the first reference he was able to discover amongst the old accounts of the township is the following:

1734. October 2nd. To Wm. Bell, for ducking-stool making and wood 8s. 6d.

"This must," says Mr. Dawson, "surely mean that the chair was changed, for the amount is too small for the entire apparatus. In this case a ducking-stool must have existed before 1734, which is very likely." In the same Skipton township account-book is an entry as follows:

1743. October. Ben Smith for ducking-stool 4s. 6d.

Twenty-five years later we find a payment as follows:

1768. October 17th. Paid John Brown for new ducking-stool 1 0s. 11-1/2d.

Mr. Dawson has not been able to discover the exact date when the ducking-stool fell into disuse, but has good reason for believing that it was about 1770. We gather from a note sent to us by Mr. Dawson that: "A ducking-pond existed at Kirkby, although it had not been used within the memory of any living person. Scolds of both s.e.xes were punished by being ducked; indeed, in the last observance of the custom, a tailor and his wife were ducked together, in view of a large gathering of people.

The husband had applied for his wife to undergo the punishment on account of her quarrelsome nature, but the magistrate decided that one was not better than the other, and he ordered a joint punishment! Back to back, therefore, husband and wife were chaired and dipped into the cold water of the pond! Whether it was in remembrance of this old observance or not cannot be definitely said, but it is nevertheless a fact that in East Lancashire, in 1880, a man who had committed some violation of morals was forcibly taken by a mob, and dragged several times through a pond until he had expressed penitence for his act."

We have found several allusions to the Derby ducking-stool. Wooley, writing in 1772, states that "over against the steeple [All Saint's] is St. Mary's Gate, which leads down to the brook near the west side of St.

Werburgh's Church, over which there is a bridge to Mr. Osborne's mill, over the pool of which stands the ducking-stool. A joiner named Thomas Timmins repaired it in 1729, and charged as follows:

"To ye Cuckstool, the stoop 0 01 0 2 Foot and 1/2 of Ioyce for a Rayle 0 00 5 Ja. Ford, junr., 1/2 day at Cuckstool 0 00 7"

The Chesterfield ducking-stool was pulled down towards the close of the last century. It is stated that in the latter part of its existence it was chiefly used for punishing refractory paupers.

The Scarborough ducking-stool was formerly placed on the old pier, and was last used about the year 1795, when a Mrs. Gamble was ducked. The chair is preserved in the Museum of the Scarborough Philosophical Society. We are indebted to Dr. T. N. Brushfield for an excellent drawing of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCARBOROUGH DUCKING-STOOL.]

An object which attracts much attention from visitors to the interesting museum at Ipswich is the ducking-stool of the town. We give a carefully executed drawing of it. It is described as a strong-backed arm-chair, with a wrought-iron rod, about an inch in diameter, fastened to each arm in front, meeting in a segment of a circle above; there is also another iron rod affixed to the back, which curves over the head of the person seated in the chair, and is connected with the other at the top, to the centre of which is fastened an iron ring for the purpose of slinging the machine into the river. It is plain and substantial, and has more the appearance of solidity than antiquity in its construction. We are told by the local historian that in the Chamberlain's books are various entries for money paid to porters for taking down the ducking-stool and a.s.sisting in the operation of cooling, by its means, the inflammable pa.s.sions of some of the female inhabitants of Ipswich.

We give a spirited sketch of the Ipswich ducking-stool, from the pencil of Campion, a local artist. It is worthy of the pencil of Hogarth, Gilray, or Cruikshank; indeed, it is often said to be the production of the last-named artist, but though after his style it is not his work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IPSWICH DUCKING-STOOL.]