The Monster Of Marsden Moor.

Told in his own words by Captain Cloggy

As soon as I saw this picture I knew I’d seen it before, it was hung over the mantleshelf in my Grandma Wetherspoons house.( she was a Butterfield before she wed) It’s a picture of Great Uncle Billy Butterfield, known throughout the West Riding as Big Billy Butterfield, of when he shot The Monster Of Marsden Moor as painted by the New Zealand artist, the Hon Mr. G. Broadmore
Great Uncle Billy had worked as a gamekeeper for Lord Vasey when he were a lad and as a result was very familiar with guns. He was very ingenious and mechanically minded and in his twenties patented the Butterfield Repeating Match fueled by the newly discovered Petroleum Spirit.He licensed it to a Mr Ronson and became quite wealthy from the royalties. He also had a good income from the Butterfield Bust Enhancer and Ironclad Stays sold through the Dreadnought Corset Company. He was well able to afford his time Big Game hunting in India and Africa.

The authorities in New Zealand sent for him to deal with a pack of wolves some misguided individual introduced to the country. Nobody bothered as long as they only ate Maoris but when they started eating sheep Something Had To Be Done and Great Uncle Billy did it. He refused a fee but the grateful government commissioned a leading New Zealand gunmaker to make him a pair of enormously powerful guns he later called ” The Stoppers”. Billy was a very big bloke, 6’ 4” and broad and had no problem with the recoil but in India, on a tiger shoot, the young Maharajah of Mohiniwala INSISTED on firing one, pulled the trigger and went straight over the back of the howdah breaking his leg from the fall as well as his collar bone from the recoil.

Rumours of the Monster started in 1892 when sheep started disappearing off Marsden Moor, then a few Marsdeners vanished which troubled none but the individuals concerned, but when Royston Vaseyites started vanishing and Peg Leg Potter’s well chewed wooden leg was the only visible remnant of this well known Vaseyite then Something Had To Be Done. Lord Vasey sent a cable to India to bring Billy home.Great Uncle Billy used the same technique he’d used in India to shoot tigers.He built an hide then tethered the smelliest goat he could find in front of it hoping The Monster would think it was a Marsdener, but to no avail, The Monster had had enough of Marsdeners after tasting delicious Royston Vaseyites.

Things were looking glum when a young lady came up Great Uncle Billy in Royston Vasey and offered to be the bait. Great Uncle Billy refused at first but the young lady was very persuasive as well as having a pretty face and an hourglass figure that owed nothing to the Dreadnought Corset Company, he finally agreed.She was Miss Augustina Sykes, who’s father, George Atkinson Sykes owned a mill in Nether Vasey and lived in a large mill owners house nearby. Augustina insisted nothing was said to her parents before the attempt.
A couple of nights later Billy met Augustina outside her house and they set off up to the moor. Billy wouldn’t take a horse as it would confuse the scent.When they reached the hide Augustina removed the long cloak she was wearing to reveal a flimsy white flowing shift of the sort Isadora Duncan favoured. Augustina had a keen interest in contemporary painting, she knew what heroines were supposed to wear. She also insisted on being tied to the stake ” for if my nerve goes and I flee and lead the monster away from the hide” but really because heroines were ALWAYS tied to the stake, Millais’ `Martyr of Solway’ had made a deep impression on her. She had taken the precaution of applying ‘Lily of the Valley’ liberally to her person. Whether it was this or Augustina’s charms but Monster appeared ready to devour this juicy tip bit. Billy, worried for Augustina, fired a little early and only wounded the Monster. He picked up the second gun and leaped down from the hide and as the Monster opened it’s huge mouth to seize him thrust the gun inside, pulled the trigger and blew its brains out.

He then unbound Augustina and wrapped her up in the cloak then fired of a green flare that brought Lord Vasey, accompanied by her Ladyship, in his carriage alongside them. Lord Vasey examined the dead Monster then they set off with Billy and the guns to take Augustina home.When her parents were roused in the middle of the night to discover their daughter had been acting as Monster bait there was certain amount of alarm and despondency, but Mrs George Atkinson Sykes, who could give points to Hyacynth Bucket for snobbery, was in such a tizzy at having Lord and Lady Vasey in her house the whole thing was glossed over especially as she was assured that Augustina had been chaperoned by Lady Vasey and her reputation would be unsullied,
Lord Vasey, who was a Director of the London and Northwestern Railway Company, arranged for the Monster to be carried down to the LNWR Cold Store in Huddersfield, to await the arrival of the Natural History Museums taxidermists who had been summoned by the Electric Telegraph , but not before the photographer and reporter of the Royston Vasey Herald Tribune had finished their respective tasks.

That lucrative condition, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, did not exist in those days, so Augustina was fine after her experience, fortified by large doses of Dr Goves Hydropathic Strengthener. A few weeks later she, accompanied by her mother , Great Uncle Billy and Lord and Lady Vasey went to London where she and Billy were presented with the Royal Humane Society’s Medal.They were also presented to the Queen at Windsor, you can imagine the tizzy that put Mrs George Atkinson Sykes in. Another tizzy inducing happening was when Sir Frederic Leighton ( Later Lord Leighton) asked her for permission to paint a picture of her daughter as she waited for the Monster. A few weeks later the artist travelled north to produce one of his most famous works, “Awaiting The Monster”.He stayed with the Sykes and used a studio the Huddersfield School of Art were only too happy for him to use.
The picture, “Awaiting The Monster”, shows Augustina bound to the stake, a look of brave resolve on her face. The garment she is wearing is considerably more flimsy and transparent even than that she actually wore. The is a school of thought that Leighton painted Augustina in the nude first then painted the translucent garment afterwards as a thin wash but this is discounted by those who knew that Mrs George Atkinson Sykes was acting as chaperone. Family legend has it though that Mrs George Atkinson Sykes was in so much awe of Leighton that not only did she allow Augustina to pose in the nude but that if he’d have asked she’d have doffed off herself.Whatever the truth, the display of Augustina’s charms made the picture immensely popular and were a revelation to those in Royston Vasey who knew her, especially the congregation of The United Church Of The Foolish Virgin where Augustina taught at Sunday School.

The finished painting was unveiled at the Royal Academy’s Spring Exhibition to great critical acclaim. Queen Victoria said it epitomised English womanhood. It was bought by Lord Vasey and was on loan to the National Gallery for a long number years. In the 1920’s, when Victorian paintings had gone out of favour, there was talk of putting it into store so the Lord Vasey of that time brought it North and hung it in Huddersfield Art Gallery where over the years it has been visited by Art Lovers from all the world over. The Art Gallery has had a steady income from prints of the picture and was the top selling reproduction until Jack Vettriano’s ” Singing Butler”. There isn’t a house in Royston Vasey that hasn’t an old print of Miss Augustina on its wall.
A year after the Monsters demise Great Uncle Billy and Augustina were married. They had 12 children, four boys and three girls surviving to adulthood. All Butterfield girls since then have had Augustina as their middle name. When Great Uncle Billy died one of the guns was bequeathed to the Natural History Museum where it resides in a glass case besides the Monster in the Great Hall.The other gun was sent back to New Zealand to the Weta Company where it is mounted in front of the original of the picture painted by the Hon Mr. G. Broadmore of Great Uncle Billy and the Monster, a copy of which the company had presented to Great Uncle Billy and which ended up in Grandma Wetherspoons house