On the night of Saturday 29 January 1791, post boy George Leasley arrived at the Ickles, a deserted spot between Rotherham and Attercliffe Common, Sheffield. Suddenly the young man was stopped by a robber and roughly pulled off the mail cart. He had his hands and feet bound with cord and a handkerchief tied over his eyes. Leasley was then tied to a strong hedge and told not to move or try to escape for two hours, when an accomplice would safely release him. However this plucky lad only waited a short while before successfully releasing himself.
The post boy found the horse a short distance away, but the Rotherham mail had gone. He proceeded to alert the police at Rotherham, where a search was quickly made for the man responsible. Leasley described him as being dressed in a smock frock with a white cap on his head. The Rotherham post bag was later found underneath the arch of a bridge over a brook. Thankfully the letters had fallen where it was relatively dry, so the mail was still readable. The letters had all been opened and the only one found to be missing was a cheque from Messrs Walkers and Son for the sum of £123.
This was a massive amount of money for the time and the equivalent of £23,500 today. It was therefore supposed that the robber would have difficulty in cashing it undetected. However this proved not to be case. A few days later, the company was informed that the cheque had been cashed in London just thirty six hours after it had been stolen. Extensive enquiries finally resulted some months later in two men being implicated in the robbery. They were Spence Broughton and John Oxley, who were found living together in a house on Tottenham Court Road, London. On Monday 20 October 1791 they were brought before the Public Office in Bow Street and were interrogated by man called Sir Sampson Wright.
John Oxley stated that five or six days before the robbery of the Rotherham mail, Spence Broughton had mentioned to him that he was very familiar with the area between Sheffield and Rotherham. He suggested that they robbed the mail coach which travelled over the remote areas between the two towns. Oxley agreed and the pair made their plans accordingly. He told Sir Sampson Wright that he and Broughton reached Sheffield on Friday 28 January 1791 and spent the night there. The next day they were walking towards Rotherham, when the mail coach passed them at the Ickles.
Taking this as a sign, they determined to rob it on its return journey. Oxley described how Broughton had pulled out a smock frock and hat which he usually carried with him to don as a disguise. He then physically pulled a gate off the hinges to a nearby field. He did this with the intention of bringing the post boy and the coach into that field to rob it. Broughton then gave his coat to Oxley and told him to wait in a corner of the field. According to the plan, he then robbed the mail coach before the two robbers headed in the direction of Mansfield.
Oxley described how, after reaching a quiet little place, they opened the letters they had stolen and found the cheque for £123. The rest they threw away. After hearing the evidence, Sir Samson Wright handed the two men over and they were placed in custody. Broughton was imprisoned in Newgate and John Oxley was sent to Clerkenwell prison. However it was not long before Oxley escaped and disappeared into the night, leaving Broughton to face the charges alone. Accordingly on Monday 16 March 1792 Spence Broughton was taken to York under a very strong guard. He was imprisoned in the castle in order to wait until the Assizes began.
The prisoner was brought before the judge, Mr Justice Buller just over a week later on Saturday 24 March. After hearing all the evidence, the judge sentenced him to be executed and ordered that his body was to be hung in chains on Attercliffe Common, as a warning to others intent on following his example. The judge gave his reason for hanging the executed body in chains. He said that:
‘In order to deter others, his punishment should not cease at the place of execution, but his body should be suspended between Heaven and earth, as unworthy of either, to be buffeted by winds and storms.’
Accordingly Spence Broughton was executed at Knavesmere, York, a place that became infamously known as the ‘York Tyburn’ on Wednesday 18 April 1792. It was reported that to the last, his behaviour ‘was marked with a degree of fortitude and resignation, seldom observed in persons in such unfortunate circumstances.’ His body was then removed from York to Attercliffe Common where it was hung in a gibbet. This was a cage like shape, made up of chains and metal bars which were placed around the dead body. Then the whole thing was suspended into the air attached to a large pole. This resulted in the remains being visible for miles around.
On the night before his execution Spence Broughton wrote a letter to his wife Eliza, which was printed in the Sheffield Register dated 20 April 1792. In it he expresses how he is not afraid to die, but that:
‘The one thing that chills me with horror, when I reflect my poor remains must not sleep in peace, but be buffeted by the storms of heaven or parched by the summer sun, while the traveller shrinks from them with disgust and terror. This considerably freezes my blood.’
He had every right to dread this part of his execution. It was quickly reported that such was Spence Broughton’s notoriety, that many thousands of people walked from both towns of Rotherham and Sheffield to view the grisly remains. Indeed it was recorded that 40,000 local people went to view it in the first few days alone. It was also stated that ‘the public houses of Attercliffe and Rotherham will have plenty of reason to rejoice in the event.’
Incredibly the short life of Spence Broughton was not remembered just for the gruesome way in which his body was treated after death. It was more for the fact that his gradually decomposing body was left hanging in the gibbet for THIRTY SIX years. Indeed, it was only removed in 1827 by the landowner Henry Sorby, who finally got tired of people trespassing over his land in order to view the macabre remains!