The Halifax Slasher
Encyclopedia
The Halifax Slasher was the supposed attacker in an incident of mass hysteria that occurred in the town of Halifax
Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...

, England in November 1938 following a series of reported attacks on local people, mostly women.

The incident

The week-long scare began after Mary Gledhill and Gertrude Watts claimed to have been attacked by a mysterious man with a mallet
Mallet
A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...

 and "bright buckles" on his shoes. Five days later, Mary Sutcliffe reported an attack on herself. Reports of attacks by a 'mysterious man' with a knife or a razor continued, and the nickname "the Halifax Slasher" stuck. The situation became so serious the Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...

 was called in to assist the Halifax police. Vigilantes groups were set up on the streets, and several, mistakenly assumed to have been the attacker, were beaten up; business in the town was all but shut down. Rewards for the capture of the attacker were promised; reports came of more attacks in nearby cities.

In the evening of November 29, Percy Waddington, who had reported an attack, admitted that he had inflicted the damage upon himself. Others soon had similar admissions, and the Yard investigation concluded there were no "Slasher" attacks. Five local people were subsequently charged with public mischief offenses and four were sent to prison.

2 December the Halifax Courier ran this story:

Carry on Halifax! The Slasher scare is over... The theory that a half-crazed, wild-eyed man has been wandering around, attacking helpless women in dark streets, is exploded... There never was, nor is there likely to be, any real danger to the general public. There is no doubt that following certain happenings public feeling has grown, and that many small incidents have been magnified in the public mind until a real state of alarm was caused. This assurance that there is no real cause for alarm, in short, no properly authenticated wholesale attacks by such a person as the bogy man known as the 'Slasher', should allay the public fear...

Timeline of purported attacks

Not complete
  • 16 November - Mary Gledhill and Gertrude Watts claimed to be attacked by a man with a mallet.
  • 21 November - Mary Sutcliffe claimed to have been attacked.
  • 24 November - Clayton Aspinall reported an attack
  • 25 November - Elland Lane, Elland, and Percy Waddington were 'attacked'
  • 25 November - Hilda Lodge 'attacked', also Clifford Edwards attacked by a vigilante mob.
  • 27 November - Beatrice Sorrel reports attack
  • 27 November - Fred Baldwin attacked by a group of drunken vigilantes.
  • 29 November - Margaret Kenny claims an attack by a 'well-built man with a broad face, wearing very lightweight shoes and what felt like a dirty macintosh'. Mary Sutcliffe reports a second attack, and Winifred McCall claims to be attacked. Attacks in Manchester and Bradford are also reported. Percy Waddington, who claimed to have been attacked, admits he inflicted the damage to himself, effectively ending the scare.
  • 30 November, 1 and 2 December - Claims of attacks in other cities including London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

    are dismissed.


Reference:
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