George Lyons
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George Lyon (1761 – April 22, 1815) was a Lancashire-born gentleman highwayman in Britain.
Lyon was born in Upholland, near Wigan to a poor family. His name was George Lyon - not George Lyons as some historians wrongly observe.
Little is known of his early life, much more of his life of crime.
George Lyon was 54 when he was executed by hanging. Sentence was passed on Sat. 8th April, 1815 along with Houghton and Bennett. The other accomplice, Edward Ford, who had been working at Walmsley House, where the last robbery took place, as a painter, and for which robbery Lyon and his accomplices were eventually indicted. It was Ford who had suggested robbing the house to Lyon, and had himself taken part in some 17 previous robberies, but because he turned King’s evidence he was spared the capital sentence. The execution of Lyon, Houghton, and Bennett, took place just before noon on Saturday, 22nd April 1815 - the year of the Battle of Waterloo.
Just five years before in 1810 the House of Lords had thrown out a law passed by the Commons that would have prohibited the death penalty for theft offences.
All capital sentences passed that day were commuted, except for the Upholland trio of Lyon, Houghton and Bennett, and two others, Moses Owen for horse stealing, and John Warburton for "highway robbery".
[edit] Prior to arrest
George Lyon' one claim to fame as a highwayman came from the fact that with his accomplices he had planned a stage coach robbery at a meeting in the Legs of Man pub in Wigan, Lyon and his friends then persuaded the ostler at his local, the Bull's Head Inn in Upholland, to lend them horses for a few hours and held up the Liverpool mail coach at nearby Tawd Vale on the River Tawd, firing two shots across the coach, and so forcing the driver to pull up, they robbed the passengers before returning to Upholland, and were back in the Bull's Head when the robbed coach later arrived at the inn with the tale of the robbery, Lyon and his accomplices of course had an alibi as people had seen them in the pub earlier in the afternoon. Other than this one highway robbery incident it seems he was just a habitual thief, and indeed in his younger days had been transported to one of the colonies for a number of years before returning to Upholland.
There is a local legend that Lyon was incredibly inept at highway robbery - it is said that he decided to hold up the coach taking the wages to a local pit (possibly the Maypole Colliery). Unfortunately, on the day of his intended crime, the weather was against him - it was pouring with rain. He stood out to stop the coach far too early and the torrential rain ruined the powder in his pistol - the driver of the coach, maybe having realised this fact, simply coaxed the horses into a run and promptly soaked Lyon with muddy water as the coach flew past!
After his death Lyon' body was handed over to Simon Washington, landlord of The Old Dog Inn in Up Holland, and a companion, for its return to Up Holland for burial.
The Old Dog Inn building still stands on the steep street called Alma Hill, in the village.
Lyon had not wanted his body left at Lancaster as it would have been handed over to surgeons for dissection as was the normal procedure with the bodies of executed criminals. In a poignant letter to his wife written on the 14th of April with the aid of the prison chaplain the Reverend Cowley, who had visited all the prisoners on death row, he implored her to arrange for his body to be returned home.
As the cart approached the final part of its journey, a huge crowd was observed moving off from Orrell Post near Upholland in the direction of Gathurst, to observe the return of George Lyon's body. When word came through that the cortege was instead passing through nearby Wrightington and heading for the road through Appley Bridge instead, the crowd rushed across the fields from the Gathurst Bridge which still spans the Leeds to Liverpool canal, to meet the cart at Dangerous Corner, and then followed it in procession through Appley Bridge, and up the long steep climb through Roby Mill, until it eventually reached Parliament Street in Up Holland, and the last few hundred yards to The Old Dog Inn, where Lyon's body was laid out in the landlady's best parlour overnight.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the pub the next day, and even climbed onto the roofs of adjoining buildings, to see the coffin as it was taken for burial to St. Thomas's churchyard in Up Holland on Sunday 23rd April 1815. George Lyon is buried in his mother's (some say his grandmother's) grave, the inscription simply reads "Nanny Lyon, Died 17th April 1804" His name is not recorded on the stone.The grave itself is now very much past it's best and overgrown, though summers days can still find groups of teenagers hunting for 'The Highwayman's Grave'.
Directly opposite the grave stood the famous haunted house, with violent poltergeist happenings over a long period in 1904. This drew thousands of sightseers to the village, and many locals thought that the ghost of George Lyon was responsible.
