Mary Bateman

{{Infobox criminal | honorific_prefix = | name = Mary Bateman | honorific_suffix = | image = Mary Bateman.jpg | alt = | caption = Mary Bateman mixing poison | birth_name = Mary Harker | birth_date = {{birth year|1768}} | birth_place = Asenby, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1809|03|20|1768}} | death_place = York Prison, England | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | monuments = | citizenship = | education = | occupation = Servant<br>Con artist | years_active = 1780s–1809 | known_for = The so-called 'Yorkshire Witch' | criminal_charge = Fraud<br>Murder | conviction_penalty = Death by hanging | conviction_status = Executed | motive = | conviction = | escaped = | escape_end = | comments = | victims = Rebecca Perigo | imprisoned = Female Prison, York | spouse = {{marriage|John Bateman|1792}} | children = 2 }} '''Mary Bateman''' (née '''Harker''',<ref>{{Cite web |title=Prisoner Stories: Mary Bateman {{!}} York Museums Trust |url=https://www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/blog/prisoner-stories-mary-bateman/ |access-date=2024-03-27 |website=www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk}}</ref> 1768 – 20 March 1809) was an English criminal and alleged witch, known as the '''Yorkshire Witch''', who was tried and executed for murder during the early 19th century.

==Biography== Most of the details of Mary Bateman's life are known from ''The Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman'',<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=anon |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hxjrt4 |title=Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman the Yorkshire Witch |publisher=Davies and Co., Leeds |year=1811 |edition=12th}}</ref> published soon after her trial and death. She was born in Asenby in the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1768. Her father was a farmer. She learned to read and write and, from age 13, worked as a servant girl in Thirsk, North Riding of Yorkshire.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="odnb" />

She moved to York aged 20 and worked as a dressmaker. However, she fled to Leeds the next year after being involved in a burglary.<ref name="odnb" /> During the next four years she worked as a mantua maker, and also began to build a reputation as a fortune-teller and 'wise woman'. In 1792, she married John Bateman, who was a wheelwright.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="odnb" /> During these early years of her marriage, she also undertook several robberies and was caught several times, escaping prison by bribing those who witnessed her activities.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="odnb" /> In 1796, John joined the Army, and Bateman accompanied him away from Leeds, however within one year they had returned to Leeds.<ref name="odnb" /> Amongst other crimes, she is reported to have once roamed the streets of Leeds after a major fire begging for money and goods for victims, but instead retained the charitable gifts for herself.<ref name="YP">{{cite news|first=Helen|last=Johnson|date=31 October 2018|title=The Yorkshire Witches: Mary Bateman, Mary Pannal and Mother Shipton|newspaper=Yorkshire Post|url=https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/latest-news/the-yorkshire-witches-mary-bateman-mary-pannal-and-mother-shipton-1-9422050|accessdate=19 July 2019|archive-date=19 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190719130812/https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/latest-news/the-yorkshire-witches-mary-bateman-mary-pannal-and-mother-shipton-1-9422050|url-status=dead}}</ref> According to author Summer Stevens, she also worked as an abortionist.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|last=S|first=Jessica|date=2 August 2018|title=Burned At The Stake-The Life of Mary Channing/The Yorkshire Witch-The Life and Trial of Mary Bateman by Summer Strevens.|url=https://womenslibrary.org.uk/2018/08/02/burned-at-the-stake-the-life-of-mary-channing-the-yorkshire-witch-the-life-and-trial-of-mary-bateman-by-summer-strevens/|access-date=9 February 2021|website=Glasgow Women's Library}}</ref>

In 1806, Bateman joined the followers of the prophetess Joanna Southcott and attended meetings.<ref name="odnb" /> As part of a Southcottian sect, she created the hoax known as The Prophet Hen of Leeds, in which eggs laid by a hen were purported to have written on them 'Christ is coming' – a message believed to precede end times.<ref name=rr>{{cite book|title=Are You Rapture Ready|first1=Todd|last1=Strandberg|first2=Terry|last2=James|pages=35–45|publisher=Dutton|date=June 2003|location=New York City}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33622934 |title=10 failed doomsday predictions |website=NBC News |date=12 November 2009 |access-date=12 November 2009}}</ref> Three of these eggs were displayed by Bateman and members of the public were charged a penny to see them. When the hen was taken away from her, it laid no more prophetic eggs. It was later found that she had written on the eggs using ink and reinserted them into the hen's oviduct.<ref name=":2" />

In the same year, Bateman was approached by William and Rebecca Perigo – Rebecca was suffering from chest pains and Bateman diagnosed that she had been put under a spell.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="odnb" /> However, over the next several months, Bateman began feeding them pudding which was laced with poison. Rebecca's condition worsened however and she finally died in 1808. In October 1808 William Perigo accused Bateman of poisoning his wife, as well as defrauding money from them for the two years preceding to pay for "charms" and cures.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="odnb" /> Although Bateman proclaimed her innocence, a search of her home turned up poison as well as many personal belongings of her victims including the Perigo couple.<ref name=":2" />

===Trial and execution=== Bateman's trial took place in York in March 1809.<ref name="odnb" /> According to ''The Criminal Chronology of York Castle'' by William Knipe, which was written in 1867, the trial lasted 11 hours, though the jury took only a few moments to find her guilty of the charges of fraud and the murder of Rebecca Perigo. The book also claims that immediately following the sentence of death from the judge, Bateman said that she was 22-weeks pregnant and thus avoided hanging. The judge subsequently requested that the Sheriff gather a panel of 'matrons' to assess Bateman's claim. Twelve married women were sworn into the jury and conducted a physical examination of Bateman, concluding that she was not pregnant.<ref name="Knipe">{{cite book |title=Criminal chronology of York castle; with a register of criminals capitally convicted and executed at the County assizes, commencing March 1st, 1379, to the present time |first=William|last=Knipe |date=1867 |url=https://archive.org/details/criminalchronol00knipgoog |chapter=Mary Bateman |pages=[https://archive.org/details/criminalchronol00knipgoog/page/n175 145]-149|publisher=York [Eng.] C. L. Burdekin; [etc., etc.] }}</ref>

William Knipe's 1867 account suggests Bateman had a daughter at home as well as an infant child in the prison with her. She reportedly mailed her wedding ring back to her husband to give to the daughter.<ref name="Knipe"/>

Bateman was hanged alongside two men on Monday 20 March 1809.<ref name="Knipe"/>

=== Dissection === After her execution, her body was transferred to Leeds General Infirmary, which publicly displayed her body, charging 3 pence per visitor.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Ward|first=Richard|date=2015|title=The Criminal Corpse, Anatomists, and the Criminal Law: Parliamentary Attempts to Extend the Dissection of Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century England|url= |journal=Journal of British Studies|volume=54|issue=1|pages=63–87|doi=10.1017/jbr.2014.167|pmid=25821241|issn=0021-9371|pmc=4374108}}</ref> Her body was dissected by William Hey, who spread the event across three days. On day one medical students paid to view the corpse, on day two “about 100 tickets were available to gentlemen [professional Leeds men] who paid five guineas”, and on day three women could buy a day ticket to attend Hey's lectures on the body.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Hurren|first=Elizabeth T.|date=2013|title=The dangerous dead: dissecting the criminal corpse|url=https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61626-8|journal=The Lancet|volume=382|issue=9889|pages=302–303|doi=10.1016/s0140-6736(13)61626-8|pmid=23901413|issn=0140-6736|pmc=5955205}}</ref> Strips of her skin were tanned into leather and sold as magic charms to ward off evil spirits.<ref name="YP" /><ref name=":1">{{cite book|last1=Davies|first1=Owen|date=2017|work=Executing Magic in the Modern Era: Criminal Bodies and the Gallows in Popular Medicine|pages=29–52|editor-last=Davies|editor-first=Owen|series=Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse and its Afterlife|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-59519-1_3|isbn=978-3-319-59519-1|last2=Matteoni|first2=Francesca|title=Executing Magic in the Modern Era |chapter=The Corpse Gives Life |editor2-last=Matteoni|editor2-first=Francesca|doi-access=free}}</ref> The tip of her tongue was collected by the governor of Ripon Prison. Two books from the library of Mexborough House were covered in her skin – Sir John Cheeke's ''Hurt of Sedition: How Grievous it is to a Common Welth'' (1569) and Richard Braithwaite’s ''Arcadian Princess'' (1635); the books went missing in the mid-nineteenth century.<ref name=":1" />

==Legacy== thumb|Lamb & Flag pub, Leeds, the building before conversion was the former home of Mary Bateman Bateman's death caused a sensation at the time and details were eagerly consumed by the public through books and articles.<ref>{{cite book|last=Churms|first=Stephanie Elizabeth|title=Romanticism and Popular Magic |chapter=A Profile of Romantic-Period Popular Magic: Taxonomies of Evidence|date=2019|chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04810-5_2|work=Romanticism and Popular Magic: Poetry and Cultures of the Occult in the 1790s|pages=17–79|editor-last=Churms|editor-first=Stephanie Elizabeth|series=Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|doi=10.1007/978-3-030-04810-5_2|isbn=978-3-030-04810-5|s2cid=192353441 |access-date=9 February 2021}}</ref> A popular account, ''The Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman'' was published, which was already in its twelfth edition two years after her execution.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":0" /> The episode of the prophetic eggs was cited by Charles Mackay as a minor example of the credulity of the public in his ''Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds''.

Bateman's skeleton was on display to the public at the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds<ref>Goor, K. (2006) Haunted Leeds, Tempus, Page 37</ref> until 2015, when it was moved to Leeds University.<ref>{{cite book |first=Summer |last=Strevens |title=The Yorkshire Witch: The Life and Trial of Mary Bateman |publisher=Pen and Sword |date=2017|page=135}}</ref>

A BBC-TV programme about Bateman, featuring a modern-day descendant of hers (Tracy Whitaker), showed Bateman's skull being laser-scanned to demonstrate how her face may well have appeared. It was first shown on 12 April 2001, entitled ''The People Detective – 1. Witch'' and presented by historian and curator Daru Rooke.<ref>{{cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Witch. The People Detective. Episode 1 of 5|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0327wk8|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170415211132/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0327wk8|archive-date=15 April 2017|access-date=10 January 2021|website=BBC}}</ref>

== Historiography == As early as 1867, William Knipe suggested that she was "addicted" to crime.<ref name="Knipe" /> Historian Owen Davies describes Bateman as having a "pathological need to steal", implying that there was a psychological reason behind the motivations for some of her crimes.<ref name="odnb" />

==References== {{Reflist|refs= <ref name=odnb>{{cite ODNB | last = Davies | first = Owen | title = Bateman, Mary (1768–1809) | year = 2004 | doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/56653 | url = http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/56653 | access-date =9 May 2010}}</ref> }}

==Further reading== * {{cite book |ref=none |last1=Baring-Gould |first1=Sabine |author-link1=Sabine Baring-Gould |title=Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents and Strange Events |date=1900 |publisher=Methuen |location=London |pages=401–424 |edition=5 |chapter=Mary Bateman, Witch and Murderess}}

==External links== {{Commons category}} *[http://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ng500.htm The Newgate Calendar – Mary Bateman] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20061230155949/http://www.shanmonster.com/witch/witches/bateman.html The Witching Hours: Mary Bateman] by Roy Stockdill *{{cite web |url=http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/york.html |title=York Castle prisons – Executions at York |access-date=28 February 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004024927/http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/york.html |archive-date=4 October 2006 |url-status=dead }} *[https://www.mylearning.org/stories/crime-and-punishment-in-leeds/1053 Crime & Punishment in Leeds]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bateman, Mary}} Category:1768 births Category:1809 deaths Category:19th-century apocalypticists Category:19th-century English criminals Category:19th-century executions by England and Wales Category:British female murderers Category:19th-century British murderers Category:Cunning folk Category:Date of birth unknown Category:English fraudsters Category:English people convicted of murder Category:Executed English women Category:Executed people from North Yorkshire Category:Human trophy collecting Category:People from the Borough of Harrogate Category:People from Thirsk Category:Poisoners Category:Witchcraft in England Category:Executed suspected serial killers Category:19th-century English women