The Crimes of Mary Bateman | The Yorkshire Witch - video Dailymotion

Brief Case

Today we look into the crimes of one of the last witches tried in England, Mary Bateman!  Please remember to subscribe and hit the bell icon as well as leave a like and a comment for more videos twice a week!  Music by CO.AG Music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZB4l43iTw&t=105s Music by Myuu -https://www.youtube.com/user/myuuji Music by Kevin Macleod - https://incompetech.com  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

00:07Hello everyone. Today we are going back to the late 18th century and early 19th century to look

00:19at a case about a lady named Mary Bateman who lived in England. She was also known as the

00:27Yorkshire Witch. Mary Bateman was born at Topcliffe in Yorkshire, England in 1768. Her father was a

00:39farmer and both her parents were well respected. From a very young age Mary stole things wherever

00:46she went, even things she didn't really need. This stealing habit didn't stop. As an attempt to put

00:55Mary on a more law-abiding path, when she was 13 her parents sent her to work as a domestic

01:02servant

01:02in a large house. She started her work quite well but soon started stealing from her employer and

01:09was dismissed. She was then dismissed from her next employer and her reputation started to spread

01:17so no one wanted to employ her. Out of necessity Mary moved to the city of Leeds. Here she soon

01:25found

01:25work as a dressmaker and she was quite good at her role. The pay however was quite low so resourceful

01:33Mary supplemented her income by becoming a soothsayer. Sooth is an old English word which means truth

01:42and a soothsayer is what we would probably refer to today as a fortune teller. When Mary was 24 years

01:49old

01:49she met John Bateman who was a wheel ride and after a quick three-week courtship they married. They had

01:57four children including a son also christened John. Within two months of her marriage Mary was again on

02:06the wrong side of the law for the many crimes she had committed. But she always was one step ahead

02:14of

02:14them and she always managed to escape arrest and prosecution by persuading her husband to move

02:20frequently from place to place. Her husband John however tired of his wife's constant tricks and

02:27schemes so joined the supplementary militia. This meant that he worked away from his Leeds home for months

02:34on end and that Mary was reliant on herself to generate the income she needed to live on and

02:40bring up four children. By 1799 Mary was living in Marsh Lane Leeds and without any real trade she

02:50started to focus on her fortune telling and claimed that she had supernatural powers. She made and sold

02:57potions that were supposed to cure various illnesses and ward off evil spirits. In the late

03:041700s and early 1800s there was still a popular belief in the power of witchcraft and quick-thinking

03:12Mary found she could cash in on it. It was a far more profitable and certainly less dangerous way of

03:19making money than stealing as at the time stealing was punished by hanging. It might seem incredible to

03:27us today that a relatively uneducated woman who was a career criminal could successfully convince a large

03:35number of people that she possessed supernatural powers and healing abilities but Mary certainly

03:42succeeded in doing so. In 1803 Mary sold medicines to two sisters who lived above their draper's shop

03:50with their mother in St Peter's Square. Mary sold them medicines which were in fact a mixture of

03:56poisons. When the three of them died Mary calmly robbed their house and shop. When the neighbours asked

04:04why the women had died she told them that they had caught bubonic plague. Amazingly there was no inquest

04:10and no suspicion on Mary so she just walked away from the crime and sold everything that she had stolen

04:17from the house. After this crime Mary decided that it would be good to use an alias with all her

04:24scams

04:25so she invented a character named Mrs Moore. This non-existent lady was always consulted on behalf of

04:33Mary's clients. All clients were told but the money she took from them was to go to Mrs Moore. By

04:411806 clients

04:42thought it strange but no one had ever seen Mrs Moore so Mary had to invent a new alias and

04:49named her

04:50Mrs Blythe. By this time she had moved to the Bramley area of Leeds where she met a wealthy childless

04:59middle-aged couple named William and Rebecca Perrigo.

05:07Rebecca was apparently suffering from dizziness whenever she laid down and was also having

05:12psychological problems claiming to be haunted by a black dog and other spirits. She was told by her

05:19doctor that she was under a spell and that he was unable to help her. In about June 1806 the

05:28Perrigo's were visited by their niece who suggested that they employ help from Mary who she said will

05:35be able to assist her aunt to get rid of the spirits that were possessing her. As a result a

05:42meeting was

05:43arranged between the Perrigo's and Mary outside the ironically named Black Dog Pub. Of course Mary saw

05:52this as a very big money-making opportunity. Mary listened to Mrs Perrigo's problems and explained

06:00that she was just a messenger for Mrs Blythe. She told the unsuspecting couple that she would need an

06:07item of underclothing from Mrs Perrigo which she would send to Mrs Blythe in Scarborough who would be

06:12able to connect with Mrs Perrigo through the clothing to find a solution to stop the dizziness and end

06:19the black dog haunting. William Perrigo took the petticoat to Mary who promised to send it to Mrs

06:26Blythe and told William to come and see her the following week. The following week William arrived

06:32as promised and Mary showed him a letter from Mrs Blythe. The imaginary Mrs Blythe had instructed

06:38that Mary should go to the Perrigo's house and sew four one guinea notes and some gold coins which she

06:47had sent into each corner of Rebecca's bed where they were to be left for 18 months. A guinea is

06:55about

06:55one pound ten pence. William was to give Mary four guinea notes in exchange to return to Mrs Blythe.

07:03Mary then went to the Perrigo's house and remember she had worked as a dressmaker so was very good at

07:10sewing. The notes were sewn into the bed and William was instructed to visit Mary regularly to receive

07:17further instructions from Mrs Blythe. The next instruction was that William should nail two

07:23horseshoes to the door. William was soon to receive a letter from Mrs Blythe instructing him to take Mary

07:30a further two guinea notes and to purchase cheese to be sent to her by Mary. The letter was to

07:38be burnt

07:38after he had read it. The next letter requested a small quantity of china and silverware to be sent to

07:45Mrs Blythe together with some tea and sugar. Again the letter was to be burnt. The next request was

07:53for a bed and bedclothes as Mrs Blythe was unable to sleep in her own bed due to the problems

07:59she was

08:00having with the spirits but had taken over Mrs Perrigo. Again the letter was to be immediately burnt

08:07after all this had been actioned. The letters continued. The following one predicted an illness

08:15in the Perrigo's house affecting one or both of them. It instructed Mrs Perrigo to take half a pound

08:23of honey to Mary who would mix it with some special medicine that Mrs Blythe had made. The letter also

08:30stated that the Perrigo's were to eat puddings for six days and they were to mix into each of the

08:37puddings

08:37a packet of powder that Mary would give them. The Perrigo's began eating the puddings. Interestingly

08:45the letter said but only one pudding was to be made each day nobody else was to be allowed to

08:53eat any of

08:54it and that if there was any left over it must be immediately destroyed. It also said that should

09:02William or Rebecca become ill they were not to go to the doctor because he would be unable to help.

09:09Unsurprisingly this letter like its predecessors was to be burnt. So Mary's plan was that the

09:17Perrigo's would poison themselves and destroy all the evidence of Mary's involvement. You may wonder

09:25how an adult couple could be so naive in the early 1800s but Mr Perrigo just wanted his wife to

09:33be

09:33cured and his doctor had already informed him that his wife was possessed and was unable to cure her.

09:40The couple began eating the puddings with no ill effects but on the sixth day they tasted a little

09:46different and it caused William and Rebecca Perrigo to have severe stomach cramps and vomiting. As directed

09:54a doctor was not consulted and Rebecca died a horrible death on the 24th of May 1807.

10:06Her husband William however did consult a doctor who suspected that Rebecca could have been poisoned

10:13but no post-mortem was carried out. William Perrigo stopped eating the puddings and started to recover.

10:22Mary had been very clever up to this time. Through Mrs Blythe she continued to demand items of value from

10:30the Perrigo's but no more than she assessed that they could afford in view of William's successful

10:37business. William Perrigo decided to examine the little silk purses that contained the guinea notes

10:45and gold coins that Mrs Blythe had asked to have sewn into Rebecca's bed. Would they still contain the

10:52notes and coins that had been placed in them? He looked but instead they contained cabbage leaves and

10:59copper coins. William finally started to realise that he had been deceived by Mary. William then arranged a

11:07meeting with Mary saying he wanted to purchase another bottle of medicine but he also went to see the

11:14local constable. At the meeting Mary bought a little bottle of liquid containing oatmeal and arsenic.

11:21Mary had a problem as William had lived rather than died as she had planned but with the oatmeal and

11:29arsenic she would now be able to finish him off. The constable however very quickly saw what Mary was doing.

11:37and took Mary into custody and followed this by searching her house where he found many of the items that

11:44the Perrigo's had given to Mary to be sent to the imaginary Mrs Blythe.

11:53The constable was not a naive man and Mary appeared before the magistrates the following day charged with

12:00Rebecca's murder. They committed her for trial and on Friday the 17th March 1809 at York Castle she came

12:08before the judge Sir Simon LeBlanc. Evidence of the handwriting was submitted which showed Mrs Blythe's

12:15letters were identical to Mary's. Forensic evidence was provided which analysed the remains of the honey

12:21and found that it contained mercuric chloride which was extremely poisonous and was consistent with the

12:28symptoms displayed by the Perrigo's. Mary's defence was very simple. She just denied any involvement with

12:37Mrs Perrigo's death. Sir Simon LeBlanc summoned up and told the jury that to bring in a guilty verdict

12:44they had to satisfy themselves on three points. These were that Rebecca Perrigo

12:50had died from poisoning. That the poison had been administered with the knowledge of Mary and that

12:56it had been done with the aim of causing Rebecca Perrigo's death. He went on to remind the jury that

13:04although there was a strong case against Mary for having systematically defrauded the Perrigo's this

13:11did not make her automatically guilty of murder. The evidence of criminality and murder was so overwhelming

13:19that it did not take the jury long to deliver its verdict of guilty. In accordance with the usual

13:27procedure Mary was asked if she had anything to say as to why sentence of death should not be pronounced

13:34on her. With teary eyes she told the judge that she was pregnant. As a result the judge ordered the

13:42court doors to be locked and got a doctor to examine her. Mary was found not to be pregnant

13:49and the judge proceeded to sentence her to be hanged and afterwards dissected on the following Monday.

13:57Mary was aged 41 at the time and had an infant child with her in prison up till the time

14:03she was condemned.

14:05Over the weekend Mary wrote a letter to her husband in which she enclosed her wedding ring

14:10and asked him to give it to their daughter. She admitted some of her crimes but continued to deny

14:18the murders. It was reported in a Leeds newspaper that she continued her criminal habits even in the

14:24condemned cell telling the fortune of other inmates for a guinea. Mary was executed on Monday the 20th of

14:32March 1809 in front of a very large crowd who had gathered to see her. Many still believed she had

14:40supernatural powers and there was some sympathy for her. Many also believed that she would be saved from

14:47death by some divine intervention but this was not to be. Mary continued to deny any involvement in the

14:55murder and her other criminal activities to the end. After execution Mary's body was sent to the Leeds

15:03Royal Infirmary for dissection and afterwards put on display. The public paid three pence each to view

15:10her body and 30 pounds was raised for the hospital. Her skeleton together with a plaster cast of her death

15:18mask were put on display and can be seen today at the Thackeray Museum in Leeds. Hello everyone and thank

15:27you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this case that happened over 200 years ago. I'd really

15:34appreciate your comments and feedback especially on whether you prefer modern or older cases or just

15:41maybe a mixture of both. I have put a link for a modern and an older case so if you

15:48would like to see one

15:49please just hit the link and I will see you all in the next brief case.

The Crimes of Mary Bateman | The Yorkshire Witch

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended