Cragg Vale Coiners

Hartley family gravestone, Heptonstall; the inscription "David Hartley 1770" is legible at the top
Founded	Also known as Yorkshire Coiners
Founded by	"King" David Hartley
Founding location	Cragg Vale, Hebden Royd, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Years active	1760s
Territory	Yorkshire
Ethnicity	British
Membership (est.)	40 - 200
Criminal activities	Counterfeiting

The Cragg Vale Coiners, sometimes the Yorkshire Coiners, were a band of counterfeiters in England, based in Cragg Vale, near Hebden Bridge, West Riding of Yorkshire. They produced debased gold coins in the late 18th century to supplement small incomes from weaving.

Activities

The Dusty Miller public house, Mytholmroyd, where the Coiners often met; it was here that they plotted the murder of William Dighton.

Led by "King" David Hartley, the Coiners obtained real coins from publicans, sometimes on the promise that they could "grow" the investment by smelting the original metals with base ores. They "clipped" the edges of genuine coins, leaving them only very slightly smaller, and collected the shavings. They then melted down the shavings to produce metal for counterfeits. Designs were punched into the blank "coins" with a hammer and a "coining kit". The coiners then had their accomplices place the fakes into circulation. Most of the counterfeit coins had French, Spanish or Portuguese designs.

The success of the Cragg Coiners was in part due to the remoteness of the isolated region of Yorkshire where they operated.

Downfall

In 1769, William Dighton (or Deighton), a public official, investigated the possibilities of a counterfeiting gang in Cragg Vale. A coiner by the name of James Broadbent betrayed the gang by turning King's evidence and revealing the gang's existence and operations to authorities. Dighton had Hartley arrested.

Isaac Hartley, "King" David's brother, engineered a plan to have Dighton murdered, with a number of coiners subscribing a total of 100 guineas in support of the plan. On 10 November 1769, two farm hands employed by the Coiners, Matthew Normanton and Robert Thomas, ambushed Dighton in Halifax and shot him dead in Bull Close Lane.

Charles Watson-Wentworth (the Marquess of Rockingham and former Prime Minister) was tasked with hunting down the killers. He had 30 coiners arrested by Christmas Day. David Hartley was hanged at 'York Tyburn' near York on 28 April 1770, and buried in the village of Heptonstall, West Riding of Yorkshire.^[1] His brother Isaac escaped the authorities and lived until 1815. Dighton's murderers were also caught^[1] and hanged, Thomas on 6 August 1774 and Normanton on 15 April 1775.

Known members

Bell House, home of David Hartley

• David Hartley, who lived at a farm called Bell House, was the leader of the gang. He was married to Grace Sutcliffe in 1764.
• Isaac Hartley, David Hartley's brother, lived at Elphaborough Hall, Mytholmroyd. Recruited Matthew Normanton and Robert Thomas to kill William Dighton
• Thomas Sunderland, Joseph Shaw and a Mr. Lightoulers were engravers for the Coiners
• James Broadbent, the informant
• Jonathon Bolton, Luke Dewhurst and Abraham Lumb were subscribers to Isaac Hartley's plan to kill Dighton along with David Hartley and Isaac himself Archived 14 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine

Other Coiners included John Wilcock, Thomas Clayton, Matthew Normanton, Thomas Spencer and James Oldfield.

In popular culture

The Cragg Coiners were the subject of a children's novel Gold Pieces by Phyllis Bentley. The story is seen through the eyes of a fictitious 12-year-old boy who lives nearby and who befriends the son of David Hartley. All the places and the main characters such as David Hartley and William Dighton are given their real names. Gold Pieces was reprinted in 2007.

The story of the gang was used as a basis in the independently published graphic novel, The Last Coiner, written by Peter M. Kershaw.^[2][3] David Hartley is renamed "David Hawksworth" and is portrayed, through manipulated photography, by the actor Keith Patrick.

The Chumbawamba song, "Snip Snip Snip", from the album Shhh, is inspired by the story of the Cragg Coiners.

The story of the coiners is told in a song called "King of the Coiners" written by UK singer/songwriter/guitarist Steve Tilston published in his 2008 album Ziggurat.

During a 2016 episode of the BBC's Last Tango in Halifax, the story was part of an evening dinner conversation at Caroline McKenzie-Dawson's (played by Sarah Lancashire) new house. One of the characters (Harry played by Paul Copley) retold the story of the Cragg Vale Coiners and mentioned that Matthew Turnton was known to haunt the house.

The story of David Hartley and the Coiners is the subject of a researched novel entitled The Gallows Pole by author Ben Myers, published in 2017. It received a Roger Deakin award for writing concerned with "natural history, landscape and environment" and won the Walter Scott Prize 2018.^[4] The novel has been translated into several languages. Director Shane Meadows adapted the novel as a BBC television drama, co-produced by Element Pictures and A24,^[5] first broadcast on BBC Two on 31 May 2023.^[6] The popularity of the series led to a large surge in visitors to the nearby large village of Mytholmroyd, and the smaller Heptonstall where most of the Shane Meadows series was filmed.^[7]

In 2023 a stage play, The Coiner's Wife, about the Cragg Vale Coiners was written by Maurice Claypole as part of the 37 Plays project instigated by the Royal Shakespeare Company and published in February 2023.^[8][9] It focuses on the story of Grace Hartley, wife of "King" David Hartley. According to a synopsis,^[9] the play presents the events from a woman's point of view.

References

External links

• "Crag Coiners", The Mytholmroyd Net.
• "Yorkshire Coiners" Archived 13 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine, Yorkshire Coiners website
• "Cragg Vale Coiners walk" Archived 14 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine, illustrated map of the Cragg Vale Coiners walk.
• "The Coiner's Wife", drama about Grace Hartley, the wife of "King" David Hartley.