Isaac Briggs' Crime
The Lancatser Gazette of Saturday 24 May 1828 reported:
Last week were committed to York Castle, Sally Shackleton, the
younger, charged with having disposed of and put away several
forged notes with intent to defraud Messrs. Rawdon, Briggs, and
Co. of Halifax and Messrs. Gibson and Co. bankers, of Kirkby
Lonsdale, knowing them to be forged and counterfeited.
-George
Stansfield, charged with putting off counterfeit milled money,
purporting to be half-sovereigns and half-crowns, knowing them to
be false and counterfeit ; also for uttering forged notes, with
intent to defraud Messrs. Reardon, Briggs, and Co. of Skipton.
-Isacc Briggs, charged with uttering forged notes, with intent to
defraud Messrs. W. Gibson and Co. of Kirkby Lonsdale ; Messrs.
Beckett and Co. of Leeds ; and Messrs. Rawdon, Briggs and Co. of
Halifax.
Jonathon Stanfield charged with uttering forged notes,
with Intent to defraud Messrs. Birkbeck and Co. of Skipton, and
Messrs. Beckett and Co. of Leeds.
-And Henry Sunderland,
charged with having uttered forged notes, with Intent to defraud
Messrs. Birkbeck, of Skipton ; Messrs. Gibson and Co. of Kirkby
Lonsdale, and the Governor and Co. of the Bank of England. These
prisoners, who appear to belong to a most desperate gang, were
committed by John Aspinall, Esq. of Blackburn. The principal part
of the notes which they are charged with having uttered were
issued in the parish of Halifax.- York Herald.
The
following account of the apprehension and committal of the above
and three others, we have copied from the Blackburn Mail :-"
Extensive Forgeries.- Our readers will doubtless be aware, that
for a long time past, forgeries of the notes of several of the
Yorkshire banks and others In the neighbouring counties, have been
in circulation to a very considerable extent.
-The evil
which resulted to the public, in consequence, induced the bankers
to take active measures to detect the men by whom the forgeries
were put forth and circulated, and information having been
conveyed to our active constable, Mr. John Kay, of a gang resident
ion in the neighbourhood of Halifax and Todmorden, suspected of
being concerned in the matter, he has ever since January last,
been on the look-out for certain and accurate knowledge of these
proceedings.
Having at length obtained the requisite
information of their proceedings, he and his assistants proceeded
into the above neighbourhood during the night of Sunday week, and
about three o'clock on Monday morning, apprehended six men and one
woman belonging to the gang, and although they resided at the
distance of 10 or 15 miles asunder, yet so effectual was the plan
Iaid for their apprehension, that they were taken into custody
within five minutes of each other.
-Mr. Kay immediately
brought them to this town, and in the course of Monday and
Tuesday, they underwent examinations before John Aspinall, Eq.
which ended in the committal of six of them, viz.-Henry
Sunderland, Jonathan Stansfield, John Fielding, Isaac Briggs,
George Stansfield, and Sally Shackleton, to York Castle, each
variously charged with uttering forged one pound notes of the
banks of Gibson and Co. of Kirkby Lonsdale, Birkbeck and Co. of
Settle, Williams, Brown and Co. and Beckett and Co. Leeds, and
Briggs and Sons, Halifax.
-The first named prisoner, Henry
Sunderland, was also charged with uttering two forged £5 Bank of
England notes ; and George Stansfield with uttering a quantity of
counterfeit half sovereigns and half crowns.
“These six were
sent off on Wednesday ; the other, Matthias Pilling, was detained
for further examination.-The six had scarcely left town, when Mr.
Kay met with another of the gang in King Street, and immediately
apprehended him
-This man’s name was George Scholes , a native
of this town, and he underwent an examination on Thursday, before
J. Aspinall, Esq. and Pilling at the same time was further
examined. These examinations resulted in the committal of both of
them to York Castle ; Scholes charged with uttering, along with
Henry Sunderland, two £5 forgeries on the Bank of England, and
Pilling charged with uttering forged £1 notes of the Bank of
Conliffe, Brooks, and Co. Blackburn, and of Birkbeck and Co.
Settle.
- The men who have thus been sent to take their
trial, appear from the evidence, to have been wholesale dealers in
forged notes, and to have carried on a regularly organised system
of selling them, and circulating them by means of their
emissaries, throughout the country ; too much praise, therefore,
cannot be given to those through whose instrumentality and
active exertions this formidable gang has been broken up.”