Tutbury bull run

The bull run started at the priory gate, though after the Dissolution a barn belonging to the town bailiff was used (this was sited some 0.25 miles, 0.40 km from the county boundary with Derbyshire).^[9] The Bull's horns were removed, its ears and tail cropped and the skin smeared with soap to make it harder to catch; pepper was also blown into its nostrils to enrage it.^[1] The bull was loosed between 4 pm and 5 pm and the minstrels had until sunset to try to catch him.^[8] No man, apart from a minstrel, was permitted to close within 40 feet (12 m) of the bull.^[10]

If caught, and proof given by means of hair cut from the bull, then it was donated to the minstrels otherwise it was returned to the donor. It would then be brought to the town's market cross, baited with dogs and killed.^[10] The carcass would often form the centrepiece of a subsequent feast.^[11] The minstrels had the right to claim a bounty of 40 pence (3s 4d; £0.17 in modern currency) in lieu of the bull, if desired.^[4]

In some years the bull had to be caught on the Staffordshire side of the River Dove to be claimed by the minstrels, later it could be claimed within Derbyshire but only by minstrels from that county.^[4][8] The event thereafter developed into a contest between Staffordshire and Derbyshire residents, with fights sometimes breaking out over ownership of the bull.^[2][8] In some years the bull escaped as far as Hoon (near Hilton) or Sudbury (some 6 kilometres, 3.7 mi away).^[8] Broken bones were frequent and it was not uncommon for lives to be lost.^[8]

The Court of Minstrels declined in the 18th-century and the bull run became a more general drunken revel.^[5] A man was killed during the 1778 run after a mass brawl broke out between locals and visitors from Burton upon Trent. The vicar of St Mary's Church, Tutbury, Joseph Dixon, drew up a petition to William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire for abolition and, after consultation with the king and government a meeting was called at Ashbourne, Derbyshire. A panel of 15 men from Derbyshire and 15 from Staffordshire agreed with Dixon and the Duke, with the king's approval, directed the abolition of the practice. For some years bull-baiting was carried out in its stead but this too was abolished following the intervention of the local gentry.^[12] Bull-baiting continued to be a common and popular entertainment in England and Staffordshire in particular, until its abolition by the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835. It was particularly associated with the events of Wakes week in the Midlands and Northern England.^[13]

A more infamous event, the Stamford bull run, continued until 1839 despite being banned by the 1835 act; though the Tutbury run was held to have been more excessive.^[2][13]