Christmas Cheer

Every Christmas, there used to be a booklet sold in Plymouth called 'Christmas Cheer'. The one pictured here cost one shilling and dates from 1955. The front cover shows children having a snowball fight by Drake's statue on the Hoe. The booklet was 64 pages long and featured some interesting stories including tales of the Old Stoke Gibbet, Plymouth in 1855, Disaster in the Sound, Christmas in the Air Raids, the Story of Gogmagog, an article about the old people of Plymouth, as well as plenty of Christmas quizes and the odd ghost story. The tale of the Stoke gibbet is a dark and macabre one. It is a true story that tells of the murder of a dockyard clerk on the night of July 21st, 1787. Philip Smith was brutally bludgeoned to death near to Stoke Church. His murderer, a John Richards, together with an accomplice, William Smith, were both soon apprehended. Richards was a dock worker who had earlier been suspected of killing a Fore Street sentinel. At first, there were no clues to who had committed the crime but Richards soon boasted of the crime and was, shortly afterwards, arrested. However, there was little evidence against him and he was soon released. A hat found beside the body was identified as belonging to Richards' accomplice, William Smith. Hearing of this, Smith fled to Dartmouth but was soon caught and admitted to his role in the murder and implicated Richards. Both men were tried for murder at Heavitree. They were found guilty, condemned to death and executed in 1788. The judge in the case, Judge Buller, declared that their bodies wouldn't by given to surgeons for dissection, which was usually the case, but were to be 'suspended between Heaven and Earth as they were fit for neither.' The corpses were brought from Exeter to Stoke and displayed near the scene of the crime. This gruesome practice was common at the time. The bodies were hoisted in wire cages and chains on a gibbet erected on the muddy Deadlake beach just below Stoke Church. Smith's body stayed there for seven years before the gibbet collapsed and Richards' body stayed there slightly longer. People avoided the spot and it was said to be 'the terror of some and the disgust of many'. Nettleton's 'Stranger's Guide to Plymouth' says that the gibbet stood in place upwards of 38 years near the Mill-bridge until it was blown down in the gale of 1827. In 1788, a bestseller called, 'The Genuine Account of the Trial of Richards and Smith' sold 25,000 copies. Some were sold around the base of the gibbet. Long after the gibbet disappeared, people shunned the area after dark which, during the 1830's, left the area quiet enough for grave robbers to carry out their grim practices in the secluded Stoke churchyard. I hope to include some more stories from 'Christmas Cheer' and hopefully, they'll be a lot less morbid!