The Yorkshire Coiners: The True Story of the Cragg Vale Gang

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a b Claypole, Maurice (21 February 2023). The Coiner's Wife - A play in five acts: The untold story of Grace Hartley of Cragg Vale, wife of the infamous counterfeiter, 'King' David Hartley of the Yorkshire Coiners. LinguaBooks. ISBN 978-1-911369-62-2. When the trial of Dighton’s murderers took place, the case against Thomas and Normanton could not be proved because of unreliable evidence. Both men were acquitted. Standing tall atop a 1,300ft hill in the Upper Calder Valley – made up of small towns and villages such as Hebden Bridge, Todmorden and Mytholmroyd, as well as Cragg Vale – is Stoodley Pike, a 121ft spiked monument originally completed after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 as a tribute to peace. By calamitous chance, the pike toppled just before the Crimean war was declared against Russia in 1854. Similar to what Stevie says about connecting to the story, it’s the community having to really pull together and do something to get themselves out of a situation. It’s just a great story, and the bending the law bit, I’ve always been a bit on the edge of the rule book, so for me, I like the slightly rogue side of it as well. Anthony Welsh Every day was a highlight. Working on this job was a bit of a religious experience, you have to give yourself to it and the flow of it, and I’ve liked that. You didn’t know what was going to happen each day, in terms of how we made it, because it was improv, so for me there were always little magic moments that you couldn’t predict or foresee in the scriptments, and you just go that’s magic, that’s the alchemy that is beautiful. So I enjoyed seeing those things pop up. Someone might do something or it might be a feeling, or it might be coming in to a space where the art department had just smashed it. I really enjoyed observing every day, the bits of magic the crew the team, the actors created. Olivia Pentelow

For their cut, associates of the gang would smuggle the fake coins and clipped coins into circulation. The criminal enterprise was highly successful; the weavers of Calder Valley no longer starved and families like the Hartleys once again became wealthy. I moved to the area in 2009 and lived in Mytholmroyd and I heard a bit about this local mythology but there wasn’t that much information about it, and I didn’t look too deeply in to it. One day my wife, Adele, who’s also a writer, was visiting a place called The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle in Durham, she walked in to the library and was looking along the shelves and there was one book that didn’t have a spine on it. She pulled it out, put it on the table and it fell open at the trial notes of the Cragg Vale coiners, so she was reading them from 1770 and she came home that day and said ‘You know the coiners story?’ and I said ‘yes I know a bit about it’ and she said ‘that would make a brilliant TV series, you should write it’ and I said ‘well I don’t know how to write telly, but I could have a go and write a novel and maybe Shane Meadows could film it one day with some of the actors from This Is England.’ That was in 2014, and it wasn’t even a plan, it was sort of a joking pipe dream really. The trial of David Hartley took place on 2 nd April 1770, presided over by William Murray, Lord Chief Justice. Hartley was accused of clipping four guineas with James Jagger, on the evidence of James Broadbent and Joshua Stancliffe, a watchmaker from Halifax. Hartley was found guilty, sentenced to death and executed by hanging at Tynburn, near York, on April 28th. Shane Meadows hotly anticipated drama about an 18th-century Calder Valley gang premieres on BBC Two on Wednesday. Bankfield Museum in Halifax has a display featuring some of the original dies used by the Coiners to stamp their gold discs into coins, as well as panels telling more of their story. Bankfield Museum has FREE entry and is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 4pm (closed Sundays and Mondays).Benjamin Myers wins the 2018 Walter Scott Prize". Walter Scott Prize. 1 June 2018. Archived from the original on 15 April 2019. Hartley returned to his home, Bell House at Cragg Vale, in the 1760s, using his ironworking as a cover to clip or file the edges from gold coins, producing counterfeit coins from the shavings and returning the clipped coins into circulation. For those hoping to follow in the footsteps of the Cragg Vale Coiners – minus the forgery and murders – there's a map for you.

In the mid 18 th century, David Hartley learnt his trade as an ironworker in Birmingham, where the practise of clipping and forging coins was abundant. Hartley is thought to have learnt the coining process himself during his apprenticeship and later left Birmingham for fear that his illicit activities there may be discovered. Richardson, Hollie; Davies, Hannah J.; Verdier, Hannah; Virtue, Graeme (31 May 2023). "TV tonight: Shane Meadows's first period drama is about the Cragg Vale Coiners". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 31 May 2023 . Retrieved 31 May 2023. 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.

Soraya Jane Nabipour

What an experience, I don’t even know how to describe it to be honest, Shane’s just a really incredible thinker. It’s quite magical to see the way that he thinks and how he really makes an idea come to life. The way that he works is so unusual, I like the fact that he works through improvisation. Before I came on to this project, I was studying at Uni and I worked a lot with improvisation so it was really interesting to leave Uni and come on to this project and be surrounded by such a talented thinker. It’s just breath-taking. By late 1769 a list of nearly 80 counterfeiters had been drawn up; 30 from Cragg Vale, 20 from Sowerby, 15 from Halifax, 7 from Wadsworth and 6 from Warley and Midgley. By Christmas over 20 Coiners had been arrested, imprisoned and were awaiting trial. The gang operated freely until 1769 when two men, Bradford magistrate Samuel Lister and barrister John Stanhope, took matters into their own hands. What followed was a series of events, documented with rising tension in this book, that led to the arrest and hanging of David Hartley and the murder of William Dighton, Supervisor of Excise in Halifax, who’d been on a determined mission to root out the coiners.

Christopher hopes the three-hour walk will connect ramblers with the real landscape of the Coiners.

Yusra Warsama

But Hartley was smart. Taking advantage of his formidable local reputation, as long as everyone around him was benefitting financially, his enterprise was relatively secure. As Myers writes, “the valley folk mythologised this gang leader whose behaviour they saw no harm in, so long as there was food on their tables and logs in their log stores”. Most of the local population were involved in the weaving trade and the region produced high quality, hardwearing Worsted cloth. After a boom during the Seven Years War (1756-1763) the woollen industry in the West Riding of Yorkshire fell into decline during the post war recession, due to a reduced demand for the Worsted which had been used largely for military uniforms. During this time, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and the textile industry dominated the Calder Valley. However, the workers faced abysmal working conditions and low wages, struggling to make a decent living. In response to their dire circumstances, a group of individuals, including David Hartley, devised a plan to take matters into their own hands.