EXECUTION OF THOMAS HOPKINSON

Thomas was born on the 31st January 1800 and baptised at Ashover on the 12th March.His parents were Thomas & Sarah of Ashover Hill.

Thomas had turned Kings Evidence against four arsonists in 1817,when they had set fire to Col.

Haltons stacks at South Wingfield.The other four,including one Tom Jackson of Woolley Moor,

were executed on August 15th 1817.Thomas had moved to Woolley Moor as a youth where he

had made the aquaintance of Jackson,who was two years older.He was apprenticed to a weaver

but to this official occupation he added the more lucrative one of criminal.

With Jackson as his mentor,he swiftly progressed from poaching,through petty pilfering,to sheep

stealing.He spent his ill-gotten gains on drink and "loose" women in Sheffield.His narrow escape

in 1817 seems to have had little effect on his subsequent behaviour.

Accompanied by John Fletcher,he stopped William Bucknall on the turnpike road near Dronfield,

and stole from him a purse containing twelve shillings and sixpence.He was apprehended after the

highway robbery and sentenced to death at the Spring Assizes.This hardened criminal showed no

remorse and was executed on the 2nd April 1819.

A footnote to the case is that Jacksons father,disgusted at Thomas for turning Kings Evidence against his son two years earlier,volunteered to be the hangman.He may well have wished that he

had taken up this offer,for the execution was not one of which the hangman could be proud,as he was much convulsed after the drop fell,and he seemed to suffer much more than is usual on such occasions.