Man Trap

This is a trap designed to catch people. Landowners sometimes resorted to man traps in order to catch people trespassing on their land. People trespassed for a variety of reasons; sometimes for poaching – the illegal killing of animals on private land – or sometimes simply for hunting and gathering food to feed their families.
After much maiming on the parts of both landowners and trespassers, man traps with teeth were made illegal in 1827. They were replaced by ‘humane’ man traps, which were designed to trap people without undue damage.