The Extraordinary Tale of the Castle Yard Riot: Knaresborough, 1865, (Paperback)

"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 6^th 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.