Early Life and Colliery Conditions
With special thanks to Norman Dunn for his assistance with this article.
William Jobling and his future wife, Isabella Turner, were both born in Jarrow during 1794.
The couple married on the 30th of June 1821 at St. Paul’s Church in Jarrow and would go on to have two children.
The family lived in Jarrow Colliery Village and William worked at one of the coal mines, most probably Alfred Pit in Jarrow.
In those days being a miner was a very dangerous job and there was a very high mortality rate. On the 25th of January 1817 an accident claimed the lives of forty two men and boys. Another horrendous incident in August 1830 took a further forty two lives.
In addition to the physical dangers, miners also had to sign a contract or bond requiring them to work at a particular pit for a year and a day and also to accept “Tommy checks”—a form of voucher payment that could only be redeemed at “Tommy Shops” which were company stores that overcharged for basic goods.
These abuses and dangers led to the formation of the Northern Union of Pitmen of Tyne and Wear, led by Thomas Hepburn.
Hepburn had some success in obtaining better conditions for his members, but inevitably strikes were necessary to achieve progress. Strikes were often subdued with violence by the local militias and threats by the pit owners.
The Assault on Nicholas Fairles
On Monday the 11th of June 1832 at 5.00 p.m., William Jobling and fellow miner, Ralph Armstrong, were drinking in Turners pub in South Shields.
On the road near the toll-bar gate, near Jarrow Slake, Jobling begged for money from Nicholas Fairles, a seventy-one-year-old local magistrate.
Fairles refused to give William anything and this enraged Armstrong, who attacked Fairles with a stick and a stone, beating him about the head.
Both men ran away leaving Fairles lying seriously injured in the road.
The residents of a nearby house had witnessed the attack and were able to identify William Jobling. Two hours later he was arrested on South Shields beach where he was watching the horse racing.
Armstrong, an ex-seaman, managed to escape arrest and it is thought that he returned to sea. He was never apprehended.
Jobling was taken to Fairles’ home and Nicholas Fairles identified him as having been present but stated that he had not taken part in the assault.
Jobling was returned to Durham Gaol to face assault charges. Nicholas Fairles died of his injuries on the 21st of June, so Jobling’s charge was uprated to murder.
The Trial at Durham Assizes
William Jobling was tried at Durham Assizes on Wednesday the 1st of August before Mr. Justice Parke.
The jury took just fifteen minutes to reach their verdict of guilty.
In his summing up, the judge attacked the unions:
“Combinations which are alike injurious to the public interest and to the interests of those persons concerned in them… I trust that death will deter them following your example”.
Jobling was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until he was dead and thereafter to be gibbeted.
The Murder Act of 1751 was still in force and mandated that murderers should either be dissected after hanging or, where a particular example needed to be made, gibbeted after execution.
After passing sentence Mr. Justice Parke commented:
“I trust that the sight of that will have some effect upon those, who are to a certain extent, your companions in guilt and your companions in these ‘illegal proceedings’ which have disgraced the county. May they take warning by your fate”.
Public Execution at Durham
As was further required by the Murder Act of 1751, the sentence had to be carried out within 48 hours.
William Jobling was therefore hanged in the normal way on the “New Drop” gallows erected on the steps of the Durham Courthouse on Friday the 3rd of August 1832 and was protected by 100 soldiers.
After the bolt was drawn Jobling was left suspended for the customary hour under the short drop and then taken down for the gibbeting process to begin.
Preparation and Display in the Gibbet Irons
This involved stripping him naked and covering his body in pitch to preserve it.
It was then placed into the gibbet irons which were described as follows:
An iron cage, made of flat iron bars two and a half inches wide. The feet were placed in stirrups from which bars of iron went each side of his head and ended in a ring by which the cage was suspended.
Jobling’s hands hung by his sides, and his head was covered with a white cloth.
On Monday August the 6th, the encased body was conveyed to Jarrow Slake in a four wheeled wagon, drawn by two horses escorted by a troop of Hussars and two companies of Infantry.
The gibbet was fixed upon a stone weighing one and a half tons which was sunk into the slake, and the heavy wooden uprights were reinforced with steel bars to prevent it being sawn through.
At high tide the water covered four to five feet of the gibbet leaving a further sixteen to seventeen feet visible.
A replica of William Jobling in his gibbet irons is on display at the South Shields Museum & Art Gallery.
On August 31st, when the military guard had been removed, Jobling’s friends secretly stole the body and gibbet irons under cover of darkness, and they have never been found.
Historical Significance and Common Purpose
James Cook was the last man to be hanged in chains (gibbet irons) for murder at Leicester on the 10th of August 1832.
Gibbeting after death was formally abolished by the Hanging in Chains Act of 1834.
Under the legal doctrine of common purpose that was part of English law, where two or more people agree to commit a crime or actively associate in a joint unlawful venture, each will be responsible for the acts of the others which fall within their common purpose or design.
So William Jobling could be technically guilty of murder, even though the victim stated that he did not actually strike him, because he was present and did nothing to stop Armstrong.
Whether Jobling knew that Armstrong intended to attack Nicholas Fairles and whether he could have done anything to prevent the attack is unknown, but he certainly was not given the benefit of the doubt.
This doctrine has led to many contentious cases, such as Edith Thompson and Derek Bentley, where it could be shown beyond reasonable doubt that they did not physically strike the fatal blow, yet both were still hanged.
There was understandably considerable public sympathy for William at the time and no doubt anger that the law was on the side of the mine owners and that it was determined to make an example of someone. William was illiterate and had survived five explosions at Jarrow Colliery and so was very much a genuine victim.
To a modern reader, perhaps the idea of having one’s dead body put on display, whilst very distasteful, would not elicit the dread that it did in 1832. The reason being that it was universally believed at this time that you could not go to Heaven without an intact body, even if you had repented your sins.
Also a proper Christian burial was not possible and this was again an essential concept of spiritual peace at the time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was William Jobling?
William Jobling was a 38-year-old striking coal miner from Jarrow who was executed in August 1832 after being convicted under the doctrine of common purpose for the fatal assault on 71-year-old magistrate Nicholas Fairles.
Why is William Jobling’s execution historically significant?
Jobling’s body was suspended in chains over Jarrow Slake, making his display the penultimate (second to last) instance of gibbeting in English legal history, occurring just one week before James Cook at Leicester in August 1832.
Did William Jobling actually strike Nicholas Fairles?
No. Nicholas Fairles confirmed from his deathbed that it was fugitive miner Ralph Armstrong who struck him with a heavy stick and stone, while Jobling had only begged for money and remained at the scene. Nonetheless, the court applied common purpose to convict Jobling of murder to send a deterrent warning to striking miners.
What happened to William Jobling’s gibbeted body?
After hanging in chains in Jarrow Slake for several weeks, local miners and friends dismantled the gibbet under cover of darkness on 31 August 1832 and took his body away for a secret, decent burial; his remains were never recovered.
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