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Broughton Lane


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Broughton Lane, close to Sheffield Arena, holds a dark secret. It is named after a mail robber called Spence Broughton, thought to be the last man to be gibbeted in Yorkshire.

In the bloodthirsty age of the eighteenth century, the gibbet was the usual punishment for convicted murderers. After being hanged, the felon's body faced further humiliation by being suspended in a gibbet, a open cage-like structure, where it was left to the mercy of the elements and, no doubt, a few hundred onlookers who had turned out for the occasion.

Lincolnshire born Broughton started out as a farmer but a gambling habit caused him to leave his wife and family for the cock-fighting scenes of Sheffield, Grantham and Derby. Here he met John Oxley and in February 1791 the pair conspired to rob the Sheffield to Rotherham mail.

During the robbery, at Ickles near Attercliffe Common, Broughton and Oxley stole the post boy's mailbag, but the only item of value was a French bill of exchange for £123 from a London merchant. Legend has it that the hapless robbers had to use a French dictionary to find out how to cash the bill.

The pair were arrested the following October in London. Broughton was sent to Newgate Prison but Oxley was taken to Clerkenwell where he managed to escape, leaving Broughton to face the music alone. At Broughton's trial, in York, Mr. Justice Buller passed the death sentence and asked that the body be suspended in a gibbet.

Broughton was hanged on April 14, 1792. It is said that while on the scaffold Broughton asked onlookers to pray for his soul and remarked that his sentence was just. Two days later his body arrived in Sheffield and was put in its gibbet on Attercliffe Common.

It is estimated that 40,000 people visited the common on that day to look at the gruesome spectacle. By 1817 (25 years later!) Broughton's tattered clothes and bones were still visible. The gibbet was not taken down until 1827 when the owner of the field where it stood complained of over enthusiastic sightseers trespassing on his property.

And what of Broughton's accomplice, John Oxley, who escaped without trial? It seems he also met a sticky end - his body was discovered on Sheffield's Loxley Moor in January 1793.

Broughton Lane Train Station - now gone

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More info on Broughton Lane:

Opposite the new Sheffield Arena, the sports and concert venue in Broughton Lane, there stands a public house with the name, ' The Noose and Gibbet ' Outside the pub there is a replica gibbet containing an effigy of the highwayman Spence Broughton,after whom the road was named.

Broughton was a gentleman farmer from Lincoln who married well and was in receipt of a large dowry which he squandered through gambling at cock fights.

To recoup his loss he turned to crime becoming a member of the Hatters Club, a local band of Attercliffe villains. His life of crime was not to last for long, he was hung in 1790 for the robbery of the Sheffield Mail on Attercliffe Common. He was hung and gibbeted in chains close to the site of the present day pub, his remains were left for 27 years as a deterrent to other would-be thieves.

He was the last man to be treated this way in England. Today the pub contains several depictions of Spence Broughton and the Hatters Club, and allegedly the highwayman's hand !

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More info on Broughton Lane:

Opposite the new Sheffield Arena, the sports and concert venue in Broughton Lane, there stands a public house with the name, ' The Noose and Gibbet ' Outside the pub there is a replica gibbet containing an effigy of the highwayman Spence Broughton,after whom the road was named.

Broughton was a gentleman farmer from Lincoln who married well and was in receipt of a large dowry which he squandered through gambling at cock fights.

To recoup his loss he turned to crime becoming a member of the Hatters Club, a local band of Attercliffe villains. His life of crime was not to last for long, he was hung in 1790 for the robbery of the Sheffield Mail on Attercliffe Common. He was hung and gibbeted in chains close to the site of the present day pub, his remains were left for 27 years as a deterrent to other would-be thieves.

He was the last man to be treated this way in England. Today the pub contains several depictions of Spence Broughton and the Hatters Club, and allegedly the highwayman's hand !

Read his last letter and get the full story of Spencer Broughton and his accomplices at>
http://www.rotherhamweb.co.uk/misc/broughtonindex.htm
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Judge

To enforce this idea how shame acts on the minds of the most depraved characters, it is well known that even murderers dread being dissected more than hanging, and still more if their bodies are to be hung in chains.

A remarkable instance of this kind happened at York about 25 years ago and was related to me by an eye witness.

The convict's name was Broughton; having robbed the mail he was sentenced to be hung in chains near the spot where the crime was committed. He was so distressed in his mind at the latter part of his sentence, that, his friends were induced to say, two days before his execution that that part was remitted; in consequence of which he became tranquil and resigned, talking and shaking hands with many on his way to the gallows.

[At the time of writing 1821] The remain of Broughton's skeleton are still hanging in a field at Tinsley, near Sheffield. When I first saw it, in 1817, the field was sown with wheat.

It is the first gibbet I ever saw, and must confess that my feelings on the occasion were as completely agonised as they ever have been during my whole life, by a sight in which I had no personal interest.

I have been informed that Broughton was of good family, had received every polish which education and good society gave to a man of uncommon powers of mind. His son, some years afterwards made a pilgrimage to the weather-bleached remains of his father's once elegant and manly form - what a scene ! It is also generally understood that Broughton was so far from deserving this severity of punishment, that he was more an accomplice per force than from his own choice.

M. A.

Source

The Atheneum

or

Spirit of the English Magazines. Vol 1

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Song - words and music and be found here.

http://www.yorkshirefolksong.net/song_database/Highwayman/Spence_Broughton.127.aspx

The below version is from "Cutlin Heroes" a Sheffield Museum publication 1967. ( I dont know if its been said but the chains are in Weston Park Museum.)

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I believe that Peter Harvey the famous Star reporter disputes that Broughton Lane was named after the hanged man. I understand he argues in his book (which I can recall reading) about the origins of Sheffield Street and Road names, that it was named after a member of the Duke of Norfolk's family. Since the land where the road was in thier ownership. The way he put it in the book made me agree with him. Plus as all too many streets are named from the Norfolks it seems logical that this is just another. If it was named after the Norfolk people, perhaps it was seen as funny to hang him there at the time. A sort of :P to you Spence!

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Peter Harvey does make a good case. His argument is that the earliest he can trace the name Broughton is in the 1860's when the area started to be called Broughton Park. He argues that as the land belonged to the Duke of Norfolk he would have been involved in naming it, and unlikely to have named it after a hanged highwayman.

But the Duke did make a practice of using family names, and Lord William Howard, 1st Lord Howard of Effingham, was married to Katherine Broughton, sister and co-heir of John Broughton.

Not as romantic, but more realistic I think!

Using family names as placenames seems to have been common. Even lower down the social scale, several roads in Hillsborough are named after members of the Dixon family who lived at Hillsborough Hall, and the roads were built on what was formerly part of the estate.

In the Dixons' case they went beyond the family sometimes, e.g. Warner Road, named after Sir Pelham 'Plum'Warner, one-time England and Middlesex cricket captain and a President of the MCC, who was a close friend of two of the Dixons when they were at Rugby School.

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Using family names as placenames seems to have been common. Even lower down the social scale, several roads in Hillsborough are named after members of the Dixon family who lived at Hillsborough Hall, and the roads were built on what was formerly part of the estate.

In the Dixons' case they went beyond the family sometimes, e.g. Warner Road, named after Sir Pelham 'Plum'Warner, one-time England and Middlesex cricket captain and a President of the MCC, who was a close friend of two of the Dixons when they were at Rugby School.

For Sunday afternoon amusement purposes :

Which Road/Street is named after the Dixon family woofer ??

Good chance to try out the Sheffield History Google Search tool-thingie ...

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For Sunday afternoon amusement purposes :

Which Road/Street is named after the Dixon family woofer ??

Good chance to try out the Sheffield History Google Search tool-thingie ...

Well if the dog had big teeth and a nasty snarl it ought to have been called Warner, but I know that was the name of one of the sons, 'so I'll go for Garry because that doesn't sound posh enough for one of the Dixons. Funny name for a dog though. lol

HD

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Well if the dog had big teeth and a nasty snarl it ought to have been called Warner, but I know that was the name of one of the sons, 'so I'll go for Garry because that doesn't sound posh enough for one of the Dixons. Funny name for a dog though. lol

HD

Correct ! Nice work.

More detail in "A Quite Difficult Question" - April 2007.

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Peter Harvey does make a good case. His argument is that the earliest he can trace the name Broughton is in the 1860's when the area started to be called Broughton Park. He argues that as the land belonged to the Duke of Norfolk he would have been involved in naming it, and unlikely to have named it after a hanged highwayman.

But the Duke did make a practice of using family names, and Lord William Howard, 1st Lord Howard of Effingham, was married to Katherine Broughton, sister and co-heir of John Broughton.

Not as romantic, but more realistic I think!

Using family names as placenames seems to have been common. Even lower down the social scale, several roads in Hillsborough are named after members of the Dixon family who lived at Hillsborough Hall, and the roads were built on what was formerly part of the estate.

That sounds like you agree with Peter Harvey then Bayleaf?

I wonder when the story of it being linked to Spence came about? Often there's something that triggers these tales, such as a history book, or newspaper story. Someone picking up on the story and linking it to the road name in this case.

It's amazing how often history can be distorted by such tales. Mind you I've got a school history book for teachers from the 1930's, which has King Arthur and other fictional events listed as though they were real. And it's by the publisher who now do technical books for electronics and the like today - Newnes :o

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I wonder when the story of it being linked to Spence came about? Often there's something that triggers these tales, such as a history book, or newspaper story. Someone picking up on the story and linking it to the road name in this case.

Maybe we could try it out. How about spreading the word that the Peace Gardens are really named after Charlie Peace? ;-)

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Maybe we could try it out. How about spreading the word that the Peace Gardens are really named after Charlie Peace? ;-)

I think you've just done it he he

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I think you've just done it

Come to think of it, I could just rephrase that as a statement,

The Peace Gardens in Sheffield are named after the infamous Charlie Peace

and let Mr Google do the rest!lol

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I've been trying to find this for a while, something I came across in Local Studies a while ago.

In June 1871, a Don China jug was sold at auction in London for £4. The story surounding the jug was that a group of potters from the Don Pottery at Swinton had been drinking in Sheffield, and were making their way home in the early hours worse for wear. As they passed the gibbet with the remains of Broughton's corpse still hanging there, they decided to throw a stone at the corpse. As a result the bones of two fingers fell from the gibbet, and they picked them up and took them home. Some time later, the pottery was experimenting with making bone china, and they took the bones, ground them up, and added them to the clay, which was used to make the jug. The article named the men who made and decorated the jug, so the story may well be true?

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Guest maggiemay

Read his last letter and get the full story of Spencer Broughton and his accomplices at>

http://www.rotherhamweb.co.uk/misc/broughtonindex.htm

I've been trying to find this for a while, something I came across in Local Studies a while ago.

In June 1871, a Don China jug was sold at auction in London for £4. The story surounding the jug was that a group of potters from the Don Pottery at Swinton had been drinking in Sheffield, and were making their way home in the early hours worse for wear. As they passed the gibbet with the remains of Broughton's corpse still hanging there, they decided to throw a stone at the corpse. As a result the bones of two fingers fell from the gibbet, and they picked them up and took them home. Some time later, the pottery was experimenting with making bone china, and they took the bones, ground them up, and added them to the clay, which was used to make the jug. The article named the men who made and decorated the jug, so the story may well be true?

I lived on Broughton lane from 1950 to 1955 and it was never like this - only skipping and whip and top!!

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