Black Barnsley' is not intended as a comprehensive catalogue of violent crimes in the Barnsley area. Indeed such a catalogue would be impossible to produce as many of the area's darkest deeds are shrouded in the mists of time and folklore. It is, however a record of selected events usually ending in death, which captured the attention and imagination of our forefathers.
The some, this book, prepared from a series written by Ian Harley for the Barnsley Chronicle, borders on the macabre. They would argue that many of the incidents selected for inclusion would have been better left forgotten. But closer examination of the predatory occurrences reveals a great deal about eh area and its inhabitants. It tells us how they lived, worked and played in far greater detail than can ever be discovered from meeting reports of the Barnsley Board of Guardians and other erstwhile bodies.
Similarly it gives up information about the respective satellite townships that now combine together under the umbrella of the Barnsley metropolitan District and to some extent, it tells us how our forefathers made their living, what they wore, what they drank, the buildings they visited at that time and the roads on which they passed.
The fact that this book is titled 'black' Barnsley does not mean that Barnsley headed the league in violent crime, far from it. For decades prior to 1840 it was a proud boast of the town that few 'true' Barnsley necks had been offered to the hangman's noose. That however, appears to have been as much through lick as much as anything else.
Contents:
1664, Thomas Wildsmith
1672, Nicholas Cudworth
1681, Thomas Maddox
1783, Clara Wild
1787, John Fish
1819, Thomas Parkin
1829, Thomas Askeron
1840, George Blackburn
1841, Henry Walker
1841, William Huntley
1841, Thomas Depledge
1851, George Firth
1852, Emily Smith
1853, Thomas Husband
1856, Luke and Elizabeth White
1858, Isaac Wood
1862, John Lincoln
1862, Henry Chadwick
1877, John Clarke
1878, George Broadhead
1884, Baby Parkin
1884, Richard Dugdale
1886, P.C. Austwick
1887, Mary Hazelhurst
1887, Edward G. Copley
1887, John Taylor
1888, Aileen Ethel Oone Burke
1888, William Berridge
1888, Margaret Hill
1890, Ernest Guest
1891, Charles Braithwaite
1893, Edward 'Ned' Batty
1894, Herbert Neatby
1894, Laura Smith
1897, Florence Robinson
1897, Mary Ellen Dobson
1898, Margaret Norman
1899, Ann Whitehead
1902, Mary McGrady
1902, Frederick Winston Shore
1903, William Swann
1904, John Ward
1904, Trubshaw family
1907, Arthur Pyrah
1911, Thomas Tingle
1911, William Hammond
1913, John Brook
george broadhead 
