Alice Nutter (alleged witch)

Unlike many accused of witchcraft, Alice was a member of a wealthy family who owned land in Pendle.[1]

She was accused of being present at a witch meeting on Good Friday in 1612 and of later causing the death of Henry Milton. Her principal accuser was a nine-year-old girl. Nutter protested her innocence[2] although others pleaded guilty.

Nutter's trial began at Lancaster Castle on 18 August where the accused were denied access to lawyers or the right to call witnesses. She was subsequently hanged at Gallows Hill in Lancaster on 20 August 1612. The others hanged were Anne Whittle ("Old Chattox"), Ann Redfearn, Elizabeth Device ("Squinting Lizzie"), Alison Device, James Device, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock, John Bulcock and Isobel Robey.

In 1982, one of the members of the music group Chumbawamba changed her name to Alice Nutter by deed poll, feeling "an affinity" to the historical figure. Since the band's breakup, one of her writing projects is a play based on the same Pendle Witch Trials.[3][4]

The 1990 novel Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (later adapted for television) features several witch characters named after the original Pendle witches, including Agnes Nutter, a prophet burned at the stake, and her descendant Anathema Device. Gaiman confirmed the homage in a 2016 tweet.[5][6]

In 2012 a statue of Nutter was unveiled in Roughlee by local celebrity Bobby Elliott. The statue was commissioned following a campaign led by a local councillor. Local artist David Palmer researched local history and the fashion of Nutter's times to create the statue, which is made from steel and brass.[7]

In the same year, Jeanette Winterson published her novella The Daylight Gate whose main character is Alice Nutter. The book is about the events, but Winterson is keen to point out that her character is not the Alice Nutter of history.[8]

Alice Nutter is one of the main characters in William Harrison Ainsworth's Victorian Gothic novel The Lancashire Witches.

In 2001, Joseph Delaney, in his books series The Wardstone Chronicles, incorporated a character named Alice Deane.

• Lumby, Jonathan (1995). The Lancashire Witch Craze: Jennet Preston and the Lancashire Witches, 1612 (1st ed.). Preston: Carnegie Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85936-025-5.
• Poole, Robert, ed. (2002). The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories (1st ed.). Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6203-2.