The Extraordinary Tale of the Castle Yard Riot

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"You have all been found guilty of this riot and unfortunately it appears that you took the law into your own hands in a country where everybody has the right to legal redress of his grievance [...]

Attending as I do to the recommendations of this jury [for the sentence to be tempered with mercy], I do not feel myself at liberty to pass a less severe sentence than the one I now pass which is that you each be imprisoned with hard labour for three months"

Mr Justice Shee

On Friday 6th April 1866, eleven honest and true men of Knaresborough were sentenced to three months imprisonment with hard labour in Wakefield Gaol. The overwhelming reaction of the inhabitants of Knaresborough was a response the like of which the town had never before witnessed. It is a story which deserves to be told.