What Happened at Crigglestone

Why did Joseph disappear so suddenly in 1851? The Wakefield Journal reported an inquest at the Cart and Horses public house. Joseph had been one of group of friends who had enjoyed a day’s pigeon shooting and had repaired to the Cart and Horses as the daylight faded. The room was crowded with men sitting around the edge of the room as well as around a table in the middle of the room. A game ensued of 'shooting the candle' that rapidly was getting out of hand. After the candle had been held above Francis Jagger's head, he he put the candle under the table. But Frost requested one more shot and as the candle was being lit, Joseph Pitchforth took a shot at it with a gun he had requested of Thomas Froggett. Why Joseph did not check the gun, as he had requested others to do, was not recorded but he fired a loaded gun. In direct line of fire was John Dyson who was fatally shot at point blank range. The shot hit Dyson in the groin and his trousers were ‘driven inwards’ and covered in blood. He was carried upstairs and laid in a bed but died the following day.

The inquest jury returned a verdict that Dyson had been ‘accidentally shot’ and severely reprimanded Pitchforth and Froggatt for carelessness in handling a gun.  The landlord was advised to be much more cautious and not allow guns to remain in his house.

So to what extent did this appalling event feature in Joseph’s departure to America? He had avoided a criminal conviction (was manslaughter not recognised in the 1850s?) but what did the community think and how did it react? Joseph was depicted as a responsible person by Jagger specifically reporting that Joseph had insisted a gun be checked. Yet he was the one who fired a loaded gun. Was he ostracised and his life made impossible after the incident? Perhaps he decided to leave for America to put this affair behind him.

Joseph had been married for three months when the shooting took place. How did Mary react? Did she refuse to travel to America because she did not want to remain with him?  Indeed was she given the option or did he simply disappear?

Mary remarried less than five years after her first marriage, again in Rotherham. She used the name Mary Pitchforth although she is recorded as a spinster, and gave the same details about her father that were recorded at her marriage to Joseph.

By 1861 Joseph was in Ontario. He had another wife and a six year old daughter. Assuming that the daughter was his child and his marriage predated his child’s birth, the marriage was between April 1851 and 1855 and probably at the later end of this range as his wife was only 19 when their daughter was born. Ellen was recorded as being born in Ontario which suggests this was the location for the marriage.

It is seems likely that Joseph was able to put the tragedy of John Dyson behind him and lived a normal life in Canada. What of his family back in Grigglestone? Of his nine siblings, eight reached maturity.  James (b1828) became a policeman in Doncaster, Thomas Stafford (b1834) was a well-respected photographer in Saltburn, Robert Stafford (b1836) was a builder in Alverthorpe and Richard Parker (b1845) had an honourable career in the Army. The second generation produced some notable people, including a member of the Royal Academy (Roland Vivian) and an explorer of the Arctic (Hector James Henry) who has a fjord named after him. Was Joseph remembered by them or was he written out of the family’s history?

If you have a Pitchforth in your tree, please do contact me, I may be able to share some history. That’s the offer; the request is that if any one in the Toronto area can help uncover something of Joseph’s life in Canada, I’d be very grateful.