200 years on, police probe town's monkey business

Some 200 years after fishermen allegedly hanged a monkey out of fear that it was a French spy, the residents of Hartlepool have once again found themselves embroiled in monkey business of a macabre nature.

Some 200 years after fishermen allegedly hanged a monkey out of fear that it was a French spy, the residents of Hartlepool have once again found themselves embroiled in monkey business of a macabre nature.

Last week, a family out looking for seashells on Seaton Carew beach discovered what they believed was a human bone and called the police.

Even though they suspected a crime had been perpetrated, police were forced to wait 24 hours before they could recover the remains from the sea and send it to a pathologist at the University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton-on-Tees.

Tests on the bone showed that it was not human but that of a very large monkey or gorilla - raising questions as to how it got there and comparisons to one of the most famous anecdotes of local history.

Legend has it that a ship was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool during the Napoleonic wars of 1793 to 1815 and the only survivor was a monkey dressed in a French naval costume.

Fishermen who caught the creature, which had struggled to shore, were puzzled by it as they had never before seen a monkey. After trying to question the animal, they heard only grunts and assumed it was French. A lynch mob, worried at the time about the possibility of a French invasion, decided the animal was a spy and after condemning it to death, hanged it on the Fish Sands in front of the town wall.

Ever since, the inhabitants of Hartlepool have been subjected to taunts and cries from rival communities of "Who hanged the monkey?"

In 2002, the theme continued when the town's inhabitants elected H'Angus the Monkey - also known as Stuart Drummond - as mayor.

Now the town will have to live with a third mystery of how a gorilla bone came to be washed up on their beaches.

"There have been a few jokes flying about. But at the end of the day we are just pleased that we are not looking at the remains of a human body," said Detective Sergeant Matt Mason, who led the investigation after the initial discovery.

Although the police investigation is now closed, Superintendent Steve Swales, head of CID at Hartlepool Police, admitted that the mystery of the bone remained intriguing.

"It would be interesting to know the history of the bone but as it is not human it will not be a priority and our investigation is closed," he said.

"Perhaps in the interests of preserving the town's folklore that is the best outcome in that it leaves many questions still unanswered."

As for the original story, there has never been any evidence that the legend is true. The first mention of the monkey was in the mid-19th century, when Ned Corvan, a famous Geordie comic singer and songwriter, first performed the "Monkey Song".

Corvan performed all over the country from North Yorkshire to Scotland where he is believed to have come into contact with a popular folk song north of the border called "And the Boddamers hung the Monkey O".

The song is about the villagers of the seaside village of Boddam near Peterhead in Aberdeenshire who killed a monkey to gain salvage rights to a ship which had run aground on nearby rocks. Because the salvage rights could only be claimed if there were no survivors from a wreck, the villagers allegedly hanged the monkey.

The similarity between the choruses of the two songs is very similar, leading many historians to believe that the story was used by Corvan and "updated" for his Hartlepool audience.