Resuming our notes on the Hull ducking-stool, we find, according to
Hadley, the historian, that in the year 1731 Mr. Beilby, who held the
office of town's husband, was ordered to take care that a ducking-stool
should be provided at the South-end for the benefit of scolds and
unquiet women. Six years later, John Hilbert published a view of the
town of Hull, in which there is a representation of the ducking-stool.
Mr. Wildridge has found traces of another local ducking-stool. He states
that in some accounts belonging to the eighteenth century there is a
charge for tarring a ducking-stool situated on the Haven-side, on the
east side of the town.
At the neighbouring town of Beverley are traces of this old mode of
punishment, and in the town records are several notes bearing on the
subject. Brewers of bad beer and bakers of bad bread, as well as
scolding women, were placed in the ducking-stool.
The Leeds ducking-stool was at Quarry Hill, near the Spa. At the Court
of Quarter Sessions, held in the town in July, 1694, it was "ordered
that Anne, the wife of Phillip Saul, a person of lewd behaviour, be
ducked for daily making strife and discord amongst her neighbours." A
similar order was made against Jane Milner and Elizabeth Wooler.
We find in the Session records of Wakefield, for 1602, the following:
"Punishm^t of Hall and Robinson, scolds: fforasmuch as Katherine
Hall and M'garet Robinson, of Wakefield, are great disturbers and
disquieters of their neighbours w'thin the toune of Wakefield, by
reason of their daily scolding and chydering, the one w'th the
other, for reformacon whereof ytt it is ordered that if they doe
hereafter continue their former course of life in scolding and
brawling, that then John Mawde, the high constable there, shall
cause them to be soundlye ducked or cucked on the cuckstool at
Wakefield for said misdemeanour."
In the records of Wakefield Sessions, under date of October 5th, 1671,
the following appears:
"Forasmuch as Jane, the wife of William Farrett of Selby, shoemaker,
stands indicted at this sessions for a common scold, to the great
annoyance and disturbance of her neighbours, and breach of His
Majesty's peace. It is therefore ordered that the said Jane Farrett,
for the said offence be openly ducked, and ducked three times over
the head and ears by the constables of Selby aforesaid, for which
this shall be their warrant."
At Bradford, the ducking-stool was formerly at the Beck, near to the
Parish Church, and on the formation of the canal it was removed, but
only a short distance from its original position. Still lingering in the
West Riding of Yorkshire, we find in the parish accounts of East
Ardsley, a village near to Wakefield, the following item:
1683-4. Paid John Crookes for repairing stool 1s. 8d.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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