Murder in Hartlepool…

Tales of History and Imagination

This week - we travel to the British Seaside town of Hartlepool. The date?? Sometime around the Napoleonic Wars. A French ship has run aground, leaving bodies strewn across the beach. Legend tells one survivor was found - a small, hairy man - subsequently hung by the locals.

Did the people of Hartlepool really hang a monkey, mistaking the animal for a French sailor?

Sources Include: (I think these were the sources when I wrote this in 2020…)

The Hanging of the Hartlepool Monkey by Ben Johnson
Was a Monkey Really Hanged in Hartlepool? By Duncan Leatherdale
This article on Ned Corvan by Tony Henderson

And online articles containing the full text of the Monkey Barber, and an article on Simian impersonator Monsieur Goffe I could no longer find (thanks for the AI Google 🙄)

I’d intended to sing The Fisherman Hung the Monkey O myself on this episode, but - long story, short version - I all but lost my voice a few weeks back to a cold. I found this version online by a gentleman named Keith Gregson, and borrowed a few lines. Go check out his channel.

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Music, writing, narration, mixing yours truly (with the exception of Keith Gregson’s The Fisherman Hung the Monkey O.).