Thomas Busby’s Stoop Chair

Thomas Busby of Thirsk, North Yorkshire was not a nice man. In 1702, he came one day to discover his father-in-law, Daniel Auty (sometimes spelled Awety — isn’t unregulated spelling fun?) sitting in his favorite chair; this sparked an argument resulting in Auty threatening to take back his daughter (women as property... sigh), before Busby threw him out of the house. That night, Busby went up to Auty’s home, bludgeoned him to death with a hammer, and hid the body in the woods. The body, of course, was found; Busby was tried and convicted; and he was subsequently hanged, tarred, and left in a gibbet by the side of the road opposite the coaching inn. It’s said that on the way to the gallows, Busby requested a drink of ale at his favorite pub before his sentence was enacted. As he finished, he said, “May sudden death come to anyone who dare sit in my chair.”

The chair currently occupies a spot in the Thirsk Museum. Terrible fates have befallen many who have sat in it, from brain tumors to car crashes; accordingly, the decision was made in 1972 to hang it from the ceiling, preventing anyone from sitting in it ever again.

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