INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the chamber of horrors! Here, I'll be writing about the petty and the gruesome crimes committed in the Stuffynwood area since the 16th century. The records show public floggings, brandings and even 'transportation' where criminals were sentenced to permanent and temporary sentences in the colonies. Prior to 1776, before the American Revolution, criminals were mainly shipped to North American penal colonies, thereafter, Australia between 1787-1868.

Prison sentences usually involved hard labour and the advent of the industrial revolution brought the treadmill into English prisons. The prisoners held on to a bar and climbed the paddle blades on what looked like a very wide water wheel. A typical treadmill shift lasted eight hours and was equal to climbing stairs for the whole time unable to stop because of the momentum. However, 200 men and women could hardly match the output of one water wheel so it was rarely utilised to turn machinery. The Southwell House of Correction installed one solely to punish the prisoners. The Southwell treadmill features in one of the forthcoming chapters imposed on a Mansfield boy of just 10!

However, murderers weren't so lucky! Before the scaffold was introduced, hangings were ‘short drops’ which did not break the neck or cause a quick death. Those sentenced to hang were often made to stand on the back of a cart or even a stool, the noose placed around their neck with the rope tied to an overhead tree branch or gibbet. The cart was then driven off or the stool kicked away. Depending on the force of the drop, death was usually caused by asphyxiation after remaining conscious for a few minutes. If the victim was to be hanged until dead, the person could be left for up to an hour before it could be certain that all life signs had been extinguished. By this point the face would be blue, the tongue and eyes swollen and protruding. Highwaymen were executed by this method, their bodies displayed at crossroads or the road's highpoint still hanging on the rope as a warning to others.

A serious increase in lawlessness & rioting was evident by the early 1800's caused by economic recessions and poverty, however, the lack of an effective policing system led the authorities to impose serious punishments on petty crimes as a deterrent. In 1840 the Constabulary of the County of Nottinghamshire was established manned at a ratio of 1 constable to each 4000 citizens. Constables had been around in Nottinghamshire since the 17th C based on the ''hundreds' of which there were 8 in Nottinghamshire with Mansfield in the Broxtowe hundred. The hundreds were supposedly areas containing 100 towns, villages or hamlets. Prior to this, since the 9th C, an elder statesman was responsible for maintaining law & order with every male over 12 years of age given the duty of tracking down criminals until they were brought to justice.

I'll be adding to the content as & when I find a record of a historical crime committed locally to Stuffynwood. For all those not sure where Stuffynwood is, it is near Mansfield, North Nottinghamshire on the boundary with Derbyshire between Nottingham and Chesterfield.