The Halifax Slasher is credited with a series of attacks – variously carried out with a knife, a razor or a hammer – which were reported in and around Halifax for a period of 10 days from Wednesday 16th November 1938 when two 21-year-old women – Gertrude Mary Watts and Mary Gledhill – were attacked in Old Bank, Ripponden, as they were on their way to Ripponden Technical College. The assailant came from behind and attacked them with a mallet or a hammer, before fleeing into the fog. He was said to be distinctive for the bright buckles which he wore on his shoes, and because he had a big mouth.
The attacks were on men and women – and predominantly on girls – and several men were mistaken for the attacker and beaten up by the vigilante groups which were set up. Rover Scouts and Boy Scouts manned telephone kiosks. It seems that many of the victims were Catholics.
Of those who were beaten up by the vigilantes, Clifford George Edwards had actually been patrolling the streets for the attacker following Mrs Lodge's reports. In another incident, Fred Baldwin [15] was innocently pushing his bike along Skircoat Green when 5 or 6 men pushed and struck the boy. William Spencer of Woodhall Crescent, Copley, was summoned by Fred's father, Raymond Baldwin [also of Woodhall Crescent], and was fined 10/-.
An innocent who died as a result of the incidents, was Michael McKieven who committed suicide when he believed that his workmates suspected him of being the Slasher.
Reports also came from Giggleswick, Glasgow, and parts of Lancashire.
No one was ever caught or charged with the attacks, and hysteria probably figured in the reports.
Several local people were subsequently charged with public mischief offences, of whom four were sent to prison:
and
In October 2005, a reader writes:
When my grandma worked in the mill on Queens Road – which is now the Antiques Centre – one of the lasses reckons she got attacked on Shroggs Tip. She said that she recognised her assailant as the brother of a well-known local personality. She didn't report the assault because it had a sexual element to it and of course the idea of equality was somewhat lacking in the 1930s. Since then, I've heard the same story in pubs all over Calderdale. I moved to Elland in the last four years and the older customers of both The Colliers Arms and The Old Bailey were well aware that the alleged assailant – whilst almost universally dismissed as group hysteria – was indeed the well-known person
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