Sins of the Family

Sins of the Family

  Book Description
The inspirational true story of a woman who set out to heal the scars of her childhood by confronting her family's shocking secret history. Click here to buy a copy of Sins of the Family (updated and re-edited Canadian edition) or the original U'K' edition of Guard a Silver Sixpence

     From the Back Cover

For Felicity, growing up with her unmarried mother and grandparents in a tiny bungalow in Scarborough, life could be frightening and confusing. Why did her beloved granddad just make excuses when her gran subjected her to physical and psychological abuse? Why did her dad, who lived alone nearby, call her by a different name and hide her from his family? What was wrong with her?
Sick of it all, Felicity ran away from home at the age of fifteen. For years she struggled to find her way until, eventually, she qualified as a teacher and found a career she loved. But at the age of fifty, and now a successful woman, she still felt hollow inside. Needing to understand why her gran had abused her, she started to research her family's history and uncovered their secrets one by one, including a shocking truth kept buried out of shame. Her great-grandmother Emily Swann, a brutalized wife, had been hanged for the murder of her violent husband . . .
Powerful and moving, Sins of the Family shows how tragedies can impact generations to come, but how understanding and forgiveness can heal the past.

    About the Author

Felicity Davis is the author of Guard a Silver Sixpence, which was later published as Sins of the Family. She was a finalist in the 2009 Barbara Taylor Bradford Woman of Substance Awards, recognising women who've become high achievers against the odds. She is currently lead teacher at Driffield School and Sixth Form and lives in Yorkshire.

Launched -  click here to order

Updated and re-edited as my memoirs stretches out across Canada

Four generations of Swann women - the key players in my story:


Emily Swann - my Greatgran
Elsie Swann - my Gran
My mum - Marjorie


Me - Felicity
Court sketches


               Click to order a copy


Historical background

The loss of William Hinchcliffe (1845 - 1866).

Oak's Colliery disaster affected my 19th century family in a most horrific way - my Gran's young uncle William, lost his life on the day of one of the biggest coal mining disasters that that South Yorkshire had ever seen. In my blend of fact and fiction, I tell the story of that day. 

Background

The Oaks Colliery, which was one of the largest coal mines working the Barnsley area in South Yorkshire Coalfield, mined a seam that was notorious for firedamp. Almost 20 years before, on 5 March 1847, The Oaks colliery suffered its first disaster when a blast killed 73 men and boys. As mine management was aware of firedamp, there were strict rules about the use of safety lamps. A ventilation system was also used to carry any gas that emerged from the seam out of the mine. However the coal in this seam was known to contain methane making it a very dangerous working environment.

On Wednesday 12 December 1866, 340 men and boys were working the day shift. With less than an hour of the shift remaining, a huge explosion ripped through the workings. The force of the blast blew the cage up No. 1 shaft into the headgear, breaking the coupling. The cage was recovered and replaced to enable a party of "pit deputies" (foreman) to descend the pit to see the devastation. At the bottom of the shaft, they found a number of badly burned men who were sent up to the surface. The dead were taken to their homes and the survivors were given medical attention. By midnight, the exhausted rescuers withdrew to continue their work the next day.

The next morning, 27 rescuers went down the pit with Mr Minto, the underviewer, and mining engineer Parkin Jeffcock to inspect the conditions under which they were working. But as Jeffcock finished inspecting the upcast shaft, another huge explosion occurred killing all the rescuers. The blast was powerful enough to rush up all three shafts at the colliery. A third explosion took place a few hours later, again affecting all three shafts.

In total the explosions killed 361 miners and 27 rescuers. Among the many dead were the pit ponies and their boy handlers, who hauled wagon loads of coal from the workings to the mine shaft. They had all been killed in the first explosion.
Cause

A thorough investigation into the disaster could not conclusively ascertain what had caused the explosion or what was the source of the first ignition. But some survivors mentioned an exceptionally violent blast just before the main explosion. This may have been caused by the driving of a drift near the main seam, meaning the digging of a new workings may have ignited pockets of firedamp. An initial blast may have caused a chain reaction triggering the firedamp and coal dust explosion that devastated the rest of the pit.

Although the cause was never properly discovered, a further 17 explosions would be recorded in the Oak Colliery's history until it closed in the 1960s.
Legacy. A memorial was finally erected in 1913.

The accident remained the worst in British mining history until the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster, in the South Wales coalfield in 1913, which claimed over 400 lives. The Oaks disaster remains the worst in an English coalfield.

(Source: Wikipedia)



The fnal remains and now landmark of the disaster.
I felt so sad taking this picture as I imagined the events of that day and the following week,
as our families attemped to find their losts sons.

July 2014

The National Archives at Kew.

Visiting Kew next week to check out the original documents from the reportage of the trial and subsequent hanging of Emily Swann and John Gallagher. On ordering the documements this was the reply:



The document you have identified in HO 144 has been ordered for you.  Once you have collected your reader's ticket on the second floor, please go to the reading room on the first floor to view it.  As this is a Home Office file, I would expect it to contain correspondence relating to the appeal for clemency considered by the Home Secretary.  It may also contain information regarding the subsequent appeal direct to the King. If it does not, you could write to the Royal Archives to see if they hold any information on the appeal, although I believe it is unlikely that they would have retained it.  Contact details for the Royal Archives are available here:
If you have not already done so, you can search the Times Digital Archive and British Newspapers 1600-1900on one of the computer terminals in our reading rooms.  There is a Times report on the case dated 10 December 1903.  This states that it was heard at the Assizes on 9 December.  Although we hold surviving Assizes records, it appears that the files containing crown and civil minute books, indictments and depositions for the North-Eastern Circuit (which included Yorkshire) between about 1890 and 1920 were erroneously destroyed by a clerk of the assize during the Second World War. 
Calendars of Prisoners in our record series HO 140 are searchable by name on www.findmypast.co.uk which can be accessed for free from our reading rooms, but I think they are unlikely to tell you anything you do not already know about the case.
I wish you success with your research.

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I find it amazing that 'files containing crown and civil minute books . . .' were destroyed during the second world war. Another interesting fact about our familiy's history.





Believe in the power of self.


Once I started to piece the jigsaw of my life together, I knew that I had to get it down on paper. Pure determination drove me to find the help and support I needed to navigate through the world of publishing and agents that I was so unfamiliar with. Now with around 100,000 sales I finally see my dream to tell my ancestors' story along with my own out there where it needed to be. Hopefully motivating and inspiring people to strive to achieve their own dreams.

We all deserve to be happy. So many people think they don't and that is pure nonsense - they do!

I guess my message will always be around the power of hard work and resilience in driving to fulfill your dreams but I now also realise that belief in self is also so powerful.

Sins of the Family became a book and now I will strive just as hard take it to the next level..

Wish me well . . .

The Yorkshire Post















Felicity Davis escaped her past to become a senior teacher and writer. I feel more at peace than I ever have, she says.
When Felicity Davis decided to research her family history to find out why her grandmother beat her on a daily basis, she had no idea of the tragedies she would unearth. Catherine Scott met her.

FROM the age of seven Felicity Davis was cruelly beaten on a daily basis by one of the very people who should have protected her – her grandmother. Her earliest memories are of pain and confusion as she tried to understand why someone who was supposed to love her would abuse her and her mother so relentlessly. A young Felicity also struggled to understand why her mother didn’t take them both away from the violence.

“All my granddad said was that gran had had a hard life, that she hardly knew her own mother because she did something terrible and had to go to prison and gran never saw her again,” says Felicity. After one particularly violent incident when her grandmother poured a pan of boiling water over her, Felicity left home. She was 15, with no qualifications.“I was free,” she explains. “I went wild for a few years. I craved the love I have never had. But my life started to spiral then I woke up one day and realised I was single, 36, with three children and two failed marriages and 20p in my purse. I needed to break the cycle of poverty; I needed to get an education.” And that’s exactly what she did. Through her drive and determination she gained the qualifications she had never had, including a 2:1 degree and then her teaching qualifications before gaining an assistant headship and leadership role at George Pindar Community Sports College in Scarborough.

But, despite her success, she realised at the age of 50 that she would never be truly free and able to put her past behind her until she got answers to her questions. “It wasn’t until I was 50 and finally made something of myself that I recognised that I hadn’t ever escaped her completely,” says Felicity. “The scars caused by my fractured childhood had never totally healed, which meant that at a time when I should have been feeling proud of myself and my achievements, I felt hollow and incomplete. I realised to be totally free, I needed to understand why gran behaved the way she did.”

So in 2007 Felicity started to research her family’s secret past, trying to discover fact from family myth, but nothing could prepare her for what she found. Through her internet research and trawling through church, library and newspaper records she has put together a fascinating piece of family tragedy and social history.In her book Sins of the Family: The unforgettable story of one family’s hidden past, Felicity interweaves her historical discoveries with her own harrowing yet inspiring story of abuse and subsequent success. “I am the kind of woman who wants to know everything. There were just too many unanswered questions. The research was also a way of dealing with the grief as my mother was dying of cancer.”

With the help of her partner of 20 years, Michael, Felicity spent two years researching and a year writing her book. It turned out that Felicity’s great grandmother, Emily Swann, was hanged in 1903 along with her lover for the murder of her husband, Bill.The Wombwell Murder was a notorious case, which had brought shame on Emily’s orphaned children and broke the family apart. Felicity’s grandma, Elsie, had been the youngest of the Swann children and just five when her mother was hanged.

Reading the letters from Emily to her mother Hannah, Felicity was filled with huge sadness but also a sense of injustice. “For most of her married life, Emily was brutally beaten by her husband, a glass blower, who drank heavily and squandered the family’s money while Emily was left to bring up the children. She was a volatile woman, but in this day and age she would have been protected.”

But at the turn of the century there was no such protection for battered wives. And when Bill Swann’s beaten body was discovered in his own home the finger was pointed at Emily and her lover John Gallagher. Emily’s own childhood had been hard, Felicity discovered through reading newspaper cuttings of the time that many members of her family had been killed in the Oaks Mining Tragedy in 1866 in which 286 men were killed in an underground explosion. Had the Oaks tragedy not happened, then Emily’s fate might have been different and Elsie may not have become so cruel. Emily always denied wanting her husband’s death or being involved in it, but people had already made up their mind about her. “People made assumptions about her and did not take into account what she had been through during her married life,” say Felicity. “I do feel that through the book something has been put to rights.”

Before she was hanged, Emily’s sisters and her children travelled to Leeds to visit her in jail. But young Elsie was not allowed in to see her mother as she was deemed too young. Instead, she was left with a prison warden who asked her to guard his silver sixpence as a way of distracting her, hence the name of the book.

After Emily was hanged, Elsie was shunted from relative to relative while being taunted about the circumstances of her parents’ death and became a sullen unhappy child. Despite Felicity’s research, she loses her grandmother until she reappears at the age of 18 pregnant and married to her granddad. Although not excusing the treatment she then dished out on Felicity and her mother in the years to come, this knowledge has helped Felicity understand more about her grandmother. Discovering the poverty and hardships of Emily’s life in Barnsley, and the traumas her grandmother suffered as a girl, has helped Felicity see the destructive patterns that had been repeated in her family for nearly 100 years.

“The past will always be part of me,” she says, “but for the first time I feel really positive about the future. It has been very hard at times I have felt very lost, but I am back on track now. There are still some unanswered questions. But I feel more at peace than I ever have.”

Sins of the family

In 1903, in the mining town of Barnsley, a brutalised wife called Emily Swann lashed out at her violent husband. Her actions brought tragedy and scandal in their wake. Her children were shamed, her family broken apart.
Over one hundred years later her great-granddaughter Felicity, also a victim of physical and psychological abuse, set out to uncover the secret history of her family in the hope it would heal the scars of her own childhood.
As Felicity discovered more about her mum and nan, and was led back to Emily herself, she came to see how all these women had all been caught in a damaging cycle, endlessly repeating the mistakes of the past. And she knew that she, at last, had the power to break free.
Sins of the Family is the heartwarming story of an inspirational woman who learned that anything is possible if you can lay the past to rest.

 The hanging of my great-gran Emily Swann, and her lover   John Gallagher – 
 The Wombwell Murder.
 Armley Prison – Leeds
Armley prison opened inLeeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1847  and was  constructed on the then modern penitentiary principal with four radial wings. It was a grim and forbidding building in line with the Victorian ideas of prison and was responsible for housing prisoners sentenced in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It also took over duty of carrying out West Riding executions fromYorkCastle. Ninety three men and one woman were to suffer the death penalty at Armley between 1864 and 1961. An average of almost exactly one per annum.
 Armley in the late 19th century
Executions at Armley.
There was to be only one public execution outside the jail – a double hanging onthe 10th of September 1864. It was of murderers James Sargisson and Joseph Myers. Myers had tried to cheat the hangman by cutting his throat while in prison but was saved by the surgeon. The hangings were reported in detail by The Leeds Mercury newspaper which claimed that between 80,000 to 100,000 people had come to watch the event on that Saturday morning. At five minutes to nine, the prison bell began to toll and inside the two men were being pinioned by Thomas Askern ofYork. They were led out onto the gallows supported on each side by warders and preceded by the Under Sheriff and the Chaplain. Askern pulled down the white caps over their faces but both men continued to speak, Sargisson’s last words to Myers were reportedly “Art thou happy lad?” to which Myers responded “Indeed I am.”  Askern then operated the drop which fell with a thud, their bodies being almost completely hidden from the crowd. Myers seemed to die almost immediately, but Sargisson struggled for some minutes. As feared the wound in Myers’ throat had re-opened and there was an amount of blood on his shirt. After hanging the customary hour, they were removed from the gallows and buried within the prison.
Botched executions were not uncommon at this time and “a shocking scene” was reported by the Yorkshire Post newspaper following the hanging of 37 year old John Henry Johnson onWednesday the 3rd of April 1877. Johnson had been condemned for the murder of Amos Waite who had been showing interest in Johnson’s wife Amelia on Boxing Day 1876. After a drunken quarrel in the pub where they were all drinking, Johnson went home, returning a little while later with a gun and shooting Waite in the chest. Thomas Askern was called to Leedsto dispatch Johnson and had made the usual preparations on the Tuesday afternoon, but when he pulled the lever the rope broke and Johnson plummeted through the trap. He was immediately rescued by the warders who removed his straps and hood and sat him on a chair. It took Askern 10 minutes to rig a new rope and reset the trap before Johnson could again be led up onto it. This time the rope held but it was reported that Johnson “died hard” struggling for some four minutes on the rope. His death was formally recorded as being from asphyxia but no official mention was made of the failure of first attempt to hang him. It was to be Askern’s last execution at Armley.
Emily Swann & John Gallagher – the Wombwell Murder.
It is amazing what a glass of brandy will do! A few minutes before 8 o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, December 29th, 1903, Emily Swann was in a state of virtual collapse, moaning pitifully on the floor of her cell and yet, after a drink of brandy, she was able to regain her composure and walk to the execution room where she said, “Good morning John” to her hooded and pinioned boyfriend, John Gallagher, as she was brought up beside him on the gallows in Leeds’ Armley prison. He wasn’t aware that she was there and was completely taken aback by this but managed to reply, “Good morning love.” As the noose was placed round her neck, she said: “Good-bye. God bless you.”
The crime.
Emily was a 42 year old mother of 11 children. She was described as a stumpy little, round-faced woman, 4 ft.10 in. tall and 122 lb. in weight and from a “respectable” background. She was married to William Swann who was a glass-blower and they had a lodger, a 30 year old miner called John Gallagher, who was living with them at Wombwell inYorkshire.
It is probable that Emily and John were having an affair and it was common knowledge to their neighbours that William beat Emily up at times, although whether this was because he felt she was too friendly to John or for other reasons is not known. Domestic violence was not uncommon at this time anyway. Attitudes to extramarital relationships and wife beating were very different 100 years ago, and it is probable that William felt well within his rights to lay into Emily over her liaison with John.
There had been lots of quarrels and John had decided to leave the Swanns’ household, although he was still a regular visitor. His visits always seemed to provoke another fight so he had resolved to leave Wombwell for good in June 1903 and move to Bradford.
Things came to a head on the afternoon of the 6th of June when Emily went into her neighbour’s house with a shawl over her head. She removed the shawl and showed the neighbour her two black eyes and facial bruises, saying: “See what our Bill’s done!”
On seeing Emily’s injuries, John, who was also at the neighbour’s house, became instantly enraged and said, “I’ll go and give him something for himself for that.” Another neighbour saw him dashing into the Swanns’ house, followed closely by Emily. John was shouting, “I’ll coffin him before morning.” The neighbours heard the sounds of a struggle from inside the house.
The noises of fighting went on for some 10 minutes, at the end of which John came out and went back to the neighbour’s house.
“I’ve busted four of his ribs and I’ll bust four more,” he announced. A few minutes later he told the neighbour, “I’ll finish him out before I go to Bradford.” As he went back into the Swanns’ house, he said, “I’ll murder the pig before morning. If he can’t kick a man he shan’t kick a woman.” Another fight ensued and the neighbour heard Emily say, “Give it to him, Johnny.”
Ten minutes later Emily and John emerged from William’s house holding hands and being described by neighbours as showing “every sign of affection.” Behind them, in the shambles of the house, William lay dead. John and Emily calmly went over to their friends house and told them the situation.
The police had been sent for and when they arrived, they immediately arrested Emily. John, however, had escaped and went on the run for two months before finally being tracked down to the house of a relative in Middlesborough, having spent some time living rough.
Trial.
John and Emily came to trial in October 1903 at Leeds Assizes. Their barrister admitted that the relationship between them was “of a misdirected order,” but contended that John had merely gone to the house to remonstrate with William for his brutal treatment of Emily. Their defence insisted that neither John nor Emily wanted William dead.
However, the judge advised the jury that John’s remark, “I’ll finish him out before I go to Bradford” showed that there was intent. This remark had been allegedly made between the two fights, after which he had gone back into the house and carried out his threat.
“As for the woman” continued the judge, “it is my duty to tell you that one does not commit murder only with one’s hands. If one person instigates another to commit murder, and that other person does it, the instigator is also guilty of murder.”
Not surprisingly, they were both found guilty of William’s murder on what was very clear evidence, the jury taking only an hour in their deliberations.
Emily remained calm as the foreman of the jury gave the guilty verdict and when asked if she wanted to say anything before sentence of death was passed, told the judge, “I am innocent.” “I am not afraid of immediate death, because I am innocent and will go to God.” Both she and John were then formally sentenced to death.
The judge was aware of some more evidence which it had been decided would not be put before the jury because it would prejudice Emily’s case. After the sentencing and before he discharged the jury, the judge told them that when Gallagher was taken into custody, he had told the police that Emily hit William and beat him with a poker, and that he (Gallagher) did not touch the dead man, although he was present. “That statement was not direct evidence against the woman but from the proved position of the poker I am convinced that the statement was partly true and that Mrs. Swann did really take part in the actual killing.” Understandably, this caused quite a stir. It was held up as an example of the fairness of the judicial system which declined to take unfair advantage of an accused person. It was also a matter for satisfaction to the prosecution that even without that vital evidence, the jury had still been convinced of the woman’s guilt.
After she was sentenced to death, Emily seemed quite unperturbed and smiled and blew a kiss to someone in the gallery as she was led down from the dock.
They were taken from court to Armley prison, Leeds and lodged in separate condemned cells.
Both were informed that would be no reprieves and that their executions would take place on the 29th of December 1903.
Apparently, John had not expected to be reprieved but Emily had hoped that she would be and had had major mood swings in the condemned cell where she was guarded by pairs of wardresses 24 hours a day.
Emily was greatly distressed and in a state of near collapse when the governor informed her that there would be no reprieve. Emily told her wardresses repeatedly that she was very worried about the disgrace she was bringing on her family. Emily’s family made a last, forlorn appeal to the King for clemency but this was, as usual, ignored.
The only time Emily and John saw each other between sentence and execution was at the prison chapel service on Christmas morning where they were kept separate and not allowed to speak. It is reported that they both ate a substantial Christmas dinner.
Execution.
At this time, double (and even treble hangings) were still allowed and it was decided to execute them side by side. John Billington was the principal executioner assisted by John Ellis.
They went first to John Gallagher who was quite calm and pinioned his wrists behind him. He was then led forward to the gallows by warders, while Billington and Ellis pinioned the now much recovered Emily, whom they escorted into the execution room flanked by two male warders.
John was already on the trap, surrounded and supported by warders, with the white hood over his head when Emily was led in. She would have been able to see the two nooses dangling from the beam. As she came onto the trap, Billington drew the white hood over her head and then she made her famous remark. A moment later the lever was pulled and they plummeted down through the trap together. The autopsy found that death had been “instantaneous” in both cases.
Comment.
This was very much an “open and shut” case where the evidence against both defendants was strong and one which involved the doctrine of Common Purpose that was part of English law in 1903 (and still is now). The law states that if two (or more) people commit a crime, they can be held equally responsible where there was common purpose, i.e. they both intended or could have reasonably foreseen the outcome. This seems to have been true in this case – if Emily’s words were accurately reported by her neighbours, it is clear that at that moment, at least, she wanted John to kill William and, therefore, would be equally responsible for the outcome. Her precise role in the actual killing is unclear, although it is probable that she did in fact take part as John had claimed.
It is unlikely that either John or Emily intended to kill William, because he was in the way of their affair, but rather because John lost his temper when he saw Emily’s injuries and between them things went too far in the “heat of the moment.” Today Emily might be seen more as the victim than she was then, but they would almost certainly still both be found guilty of murder because she played an active role in the killing and did nothing to restrain John.
The factor that makes this case unusual is the behaviour of Emily on the gallows. Normally not a word was spoken by the prisoner in this situation. They were not invited to speak and many were probably paralysed with fear or had retreated into a world of their own by the time they were pinioned and hooded.
Double hangings were ultimately abolished because they took longer to carry out, and this was felt to prolong the suffering of the first prisoner especially. After about 1920 where two or more people were to be executed for the same crime, they could be hanged in separate prisons at the same moment in time, as happened with Edith Thompson and her boyfriend, Frederick Bywaters. In this case, it was probably far less cruel, especially to Emily, to allow her to die beside John rather than make her suffer on her own. Edith Thompson may well have held up better if she had been allowed to be hanged with Bywaters.
This was the first of a trio of female hangings that John Ellis was involved in and all three had unusual features. Susan Newell refused the white hood and Edith Thompson’s was very unpleasant and also involved the killing of the husband by the boyfriend. John Ellis had a very strong dislike of hanging women.
Under the name of Her Majesty’s Prison Leeds, Armley continues in service to this day.


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