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THOMAS BOTT - DERBYSHIRE'S MOST UNGENTLEMANLY GENTLEMAN

In common with all English counties, Derbyshire has its fair share of unusual or distinctive customs - from the quaint to the bizarre, the well-known to the obscure, some still thriving and others long obsolete. One of the latter category - at least so it is believed - is the ancient practise of 'wife-selling'. Here Peter Seddon takes a surreal dip into the archives to discover the truth.

The unsettling character Papa Lazarou, from the BBC comedy series 'The League of Gentlemen', which was extensively filmed in Hadfield, in Derbyshire's High Peak. His unusual hobby was 'collecting' other men's wives. Three centuries ago, unscrupulous Derbyshire characters like Thomas Bott might willingly have brokered a deal with him

In the interests of local pride, let's set the record straight right from the start. It wasn't just Derbyshire where wife-trading was rife.

Historical records have shown that between 100 and 200 years ago, husbands all over England were selling their wives for whatever they could get. The going rate was anything from a paltry half pint of beer to 25 guineas (£26.25).

Consider the case of the Derbyshire farmer Thomas Bott, an ungentlemanly sort if ever there was one.

On 5 December 1771 Bott sold his wife for 'one shilling and sixpence' - that's 7.5 pence in today's currency. The price was about average for the time and included delivery - he took her to Derby Market Place with a halter round her neck, and there the devilish deal was done.

But in fairness to Bott, he was not an isolated case. Another man - probably also a farmer - swapped his wife for a sheepdog and a bale of hay at Chesterfield market.

Other traders fared rather better by comparison. In 1773 William Bradley travelled to Wirksworth to trade in his wife of 18 years - he returned home quite satisfied, having pocketed a handsome two guineas (£2.10p) and a silver watch.

Fifteen years later, again at Wirksworth, a breeches-maker sold his wife to a shoemaker for five shillings and threepence (26p). About 500 people witnessed the sale, making a great deal of noise as they congratulated the newly-joined couple.

So were the sales legal? In fact they weren't, although people genuinely thought they were, and viewed the bizarre transactions as the only form of divorce available to ordinary folk.

Of course there was a 'code of conduct'. It consisted of only one rule - the woman had to be handed over to her new ‘purchaser’ in a neck halter and wearing nothing but a smock. Sales generally took place on market day and the wife went to the highest bidder.

The following newspaper report shows that local prices were low:

‘We are assured from Kirk Ireton in this County that Thomas Frost of that town hath sold his wife and five children to Joseph Handford, a clog maker of the same place for the sum of three halfpence (less than 1p) ..... both sides are at present well pleased with their bargain'.

In 1790 a young woman in a halter was put up for sale at Buxton fair by a parish official from Swadlincote. It wasn't his wife though - the parish had been making payments to the woman after she was deserted by her husband. So in effect she had been 'reposessed by the council' in order to clear the debt - she went for two shillings (10p), but the assiduous official was quick to deduct the price of the halter.

Some women didn't wait to be sold, but instead fled their husbands. Yet the values of the times were strangely inconsistent. A reward of five guineas (£5.25) was offered for a lost horse, but only four shillings (20p) for a wife who had run away!

Blessedly there are no such 'ungentlemanly gentlemen' in Derbyshire today - although the unspeakable hobby of 'wife abduction' has in the last few years been widely-reported in Hadfield, a pleasant small town in Derbyshire's western High Peak, close to Glossop.

Before there are too many gasps of horror, it needs to be said we have now entered the surreal realm of fantasy - more specifically the cult BBC television series 'The League of Gentlemen' and its alarming cast of curious grotesques.

Set in the fictional northern town of Royston Vasey, it was extensively filmed in Hadfield - indeed Hadfield has almost 'become' Royston Vasey to committed fans of the series, and an unlikely tourist trade has developed there on the back of it.

The evil 'wife collector' of the series was the itinerant peg-seller Papa Lazarou, who toured the country with his strange 'Pandemonium Carnival' preying on the unsuspecting.

Of course it is only a front for his extensive wife acquisition programme - and when he is not calling everybody 'Dave' he utters in his evil rasping voice what is surely the most unsettling catchphrase in British television history:

'YOU'RE MY WIFE NOW' - in the Derbyshire of three centuries ago it might actually have been the truth!

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County:  Derbyshire

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