Curious Tales from West Yorkshire E-Book

Howard Peach

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

This is a charming compendium of historical oddities, curious customs and strange events from across West Yorkshire. Laid out in an easy to use A-Z format it explores a vast range of subjects, from folklore and legends to Yorkshire's strangest buildings, artefacts and memorials (including a drinker's tomb made from a beer barrel). Here also are some of Yorkshire's most eccentric characters and famous former inhabitants, and the stories behind some of the oddest events that have occurred in the county - and perhaps even in the whole of the British Isles. With countless Civil War curiosities, tragic tales and hilarious happenings, 'tha couldna mak it up!'. Richly illustrated with both modern and archive images, it will delight residents and visitors alike.

Leseprobe

CURIOUS TALES

from

West Yorkshire

CURIOUS TALES

from

West yorkshire

Howard Peach

First published 2010

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Howard Peach, 2010, 2013

The right of Howard Peach to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5271 2

Original typesetting by The History Press

Introduction and Acknowledgements

All too often what is now West and South Yorkshire seems to be overlooked. For some it lacks the scenic glamour of, say, North Yorkshire and the coast, more commonly featured in county magazines. Granted, many former mill towns and mining villages lack immediate photographic appeal – yet there is some glorious scenery, particularly in the south Pennines, and plenty of contrasting terrain, from rugged moorland, quiet waterside pastures and park land to the near-fens around Hatfield.

Nor should we ever forget that this is fascinating Industrial Revolution heartland, rich with coal and iron deposits, and favoured with fast-flowing rivers. There have been stupendous engineering feats, industrial entrepreneurs and benefactors; literary giants like the Brontë sisters and J.B. Priestley have lived here. As for eccentrics and ‘characters’ this is a prime homeland, well acknowledged by the media. The Holmfirth district is renowned for the television series Last of the Summer Wine; while Esholt’s Woolpack is a focus in Emmerdale.

My interest in history started with political matters – kings and treaties and Acts of Parliament; then economic – how past generations earned a living and the processes of change; and finally social, to do with people and their sometimes odd actions – the twiddley bits – which I now enjoy most. So often these things are inter-linked. A political decision to impose the Corn Laws in 1815 had the economic outcome of reducing trade which, after the long wars against Napoleon, produced profound social effects, like poverty and a greater willingness to break the law. Thus, some anecdotes are indicative of wider, even national, trends. Some remain uniquely parochial and amusing.

At present we live in a period of rapid change. The future of many former industrial settlements is uncertain. But garden centres are thriving! Education always matters –even if unemployed graduates sometimes wonder!

My thanks are due to many people, particularly librarians, staff at tourist information centres and museums, church officials on Heritage days and the National Trust. I should like to pay special tribute to the late Arnold Kellett whose books on Yorkshire have been a constant inspiration and source of ideas; and to John Goodchild for a wealth of suggestions and access to the splendid archives of the Local History Study Centre in Wakefield. For help with illustrations I am most grateful to the following: Anne Slater; Bradford Libraries, Archives and Information Services; the Marks & Spencer Company Archive; and the Yorkshire Waterways Museum.

From talking to people across the old West Riding it is clear that so many historic and intriguing artefacts are unfamiliar. I hope this book does something to raise awareness and prompt further research for us all.

Howard Peach, 2010

A to Zof Curious Tales

A

ACCIDENTS

During the early nineteenth century it was said that no whole man existed in Skelmanthorpe, as all workers had lost toes, fingers, ears, noses, arms etc in the hand looms.

In 1808, at St George’s church, Doncaster, a bell ringer, John Smith, was swept up by his rope to the belfry chamber top. His injuries from the fall were fatal.

In 1878, Arthur Standidge, rector of Adel church, fell through the top deck of his three-decker pulpit while delivering a sermon; it was quickly replaced by a safe single-decker.

‘A portion of the school wall was broken down through five bullocks trying to enter the gate at once.’ (Log book, Thorner C.E. School, 27 January 1934.)

An old saying in mining areas like Castleford was, ‘When tha seed lav door were missin’, tha knowed some collier were dead’.

ACKWORTH PLAGUE STONE

During the seventeenth century there were many outbreaks of plague. In nearby Pontefract in 1603, 228 people had died. The hollow on top of the rounded stone on Castle Syke Hill is where fearful villagers left money in vinegar (hoping to disinfect it) in exchange for food and medicines during the bubonic plague of 1645. Despite these precautions, 153 villagers perished. Hepworth Feast, near Holmfirth, is held on the last Monday of June with a band-led procession to commemorate their plague of 1665.

AFTER YOU, PATRICK

Immediately after his wedding to Maria Branwell at Guiseley church, on 19 December 1812, the Revd Patrick Brontë (future father of the three famous novelist daughters) swapped roles and performed a similar ceremony for his friend, the Revd William Morgan, who was marrying Maria’s cousin.

A Regency engraving of St George’s church, Doncaster.

ALL IN THE DAY’S WALK

West Yorkshire has produced some prodigious walkers: ‘About the year 1736 Richard Wilson, a resident of Ossett, made two pieces of broadcloth; he carried one of them on his head to Leeds and sold it – the merchant being in want of the fellow piece, he went from Leeds to Ossett, then carried the other piece to Leeds, and then walked to Ossett again; he walked about forty miles that day’. (John Mayhall: Annals and History of Leeds, 1860.) From her farm at Haworth, Nancy Ickringill carried woollen pieces to Halifax market. In so doing she damaged her shoulder and walked lopsidedly. Levi Whitehead (1687-1787) was a fast runner, covering four miles in nineteen minutes. At ninety-six he was still doing his daily four miles around the Bramham area.

ALMSHOUSES FOR THE MIDDLE CLASSES

Under the will of Christopher Tancred, a hospital at Whixley Hall opened in 1762 for gentlemen pensioners – ex-army officers, clergy, decayed nobility, the first of whom was Sir Charles Sedley. They were often badly behaved, throwing food, entertaining women in their rooms and fighting. Some, it was found, had wives, so they lost their places. The residents were catered for by a warden/chaplain, a cook and three maids. By 1871 only three remained, so the Hall closed.

In 1754, when Tancred died, aged sixty-four, his coffin was hung in chains on the north wall of the Hall. Eventually it was moved to a cellar, then transferred to the vault under the chapel and finally to the church.

From his will of 1867 (he died in 1870 leaving an estate of £60,000), a John Abbott’s Trustees Ladies’ Home was created for ladies of good birth and education now living in reduced circumstances as widows or spinsters (and of fifty years of age or more). The Home was situated in Skircoat, ‘in that part of the borough of Halifax most affected for residences of the best class…’ Each had to have at least £20 income: none had more than £100. Elected by trustees, there were twelve occupants who lived in, and sixty recipients, non-resident, who were given between £12 and £20 annually. While the Halifax area was preferred, there was no religious discrimination. If any lady married she had to go.

ANTI-CLERICAL CHARTIST

A prominent Chartist, Ben Rushton, a Halifax handloom weaver and Methodist preacher, made an impassioned speech at a Whit Monday Rally at Peep Green in 1839 accusing the clergy of being far too passive in standing up for workers’ rights: ‘They preached Christ and a crust, passive obedience and non-resistance. Let the people keep from those churches and chapels… Let them go to those men who preached Christ and a full belly, Christ and a well-clothed back, Christ and a good house to live in –Christ and Universal Suffrage’. Such words were not calculated to endear him to any part of the Establishment – and the Chapel duly expelled him.

ANTI-RAIL RHODES

In 1840, on the eve of great railway developments, the vicar of Hebden Bridge, the Revd J.A. Rhodes, insisted that the new railway station be sited at least one mile from his home in Mytholmroyd: not for him the additional rewarding challenge of a mission station on his doorstep.

ARCHBISHOP INDULGENT

In 1233 Archbishop Walter de Gray of York offered indulgences to all repentant sinners who contributed to the building at ‘Werreby’ (Wetherby) of a new bridge over the River Wharfe.

ASKERN SPA

Situated near Doncaster and an erstwhile mining area, Askern hardly seems likely to have offered facilities to rival Harrogate or Buxton. Back in the 1700s the waters’ noxious odours and taste were noted by a Dr Short in a book called Mineral Waters of Yorkshire. When healing properties were claimed, bath houses appeared; by 1880 there were five. As visitors flocked by rail, new guest houses appeared. But then new seams of coal were discovered, and as mining took over and men with blackened faces and homely accents emerged from the pit, spa clientele somehow declined.

Ossett, too, had short-lived Spa ambitions. A local stonemason developed two bathing houses in the 1820s, attracting sufferers from gout, rheumatism and scrofula. The south-east area of the town is still known as Ossett Spa.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

During the 1860s, in the Bradford Theatre Royal, where a rougher element was generally well represented, interludes were sometimes enlivened by lowering a reluctant kicking man from the gallery to the orchestra pit.

Mayflower Flag, St Helena’s church, Austerfield.

William Bradford Memorial, St Helena’s churchyard, Austerfield.

AUSTERFIELD

Here was the birthplace of William Bradford, born of yeomen farming stock at Austerfield Manor and baptised in St Helena’s church on 19 March 1589. (The Puritanical history of the church is slightly compromised by a rare Sheila-na-gig on the most easterly pillar on the north side of the nave, i.e. a quasi-erotic carving of a naked lady – a fertility symbol? A warning against lust?)

A sickly child, William became a devout Bible student. At nearby Scrooby his great mentor and ally William Brewster lived in the manor house, which was used as a meeting place for sympathisers who found oppressive the requirement to worship in the Anglican Church. Becoming religious asylum seekers, they went to Holland in 1607; and in 1620 over a hundred of these separatists sailed, as Pilgrim Fathers, in the Mayflower, seeking a fresh start and a new religious identity. The following year William Bradford became Governor of Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts.

B

BACON AND BUTTIES BET

On the 11 May 1818, ‘David Addy Junior for a small Wager agreed to Eat Four Pounds of Bacon Fryed in one hower which he Completed 10 minutes under the Time Given and Danced a Single Dance after and Eat some Cheese and Bread after’. (Diary of Ecclesfield villager from 1775 to 1845, edited by Thomas Winder in 1922.)

On a common-sense basis one might suppose that a workhouse would be among the last institutions to burgle. Anyway, someone-in-the-know decided to break and enter Ecclesfield Workhouse Pantery (sic) in December 1820 to steal over fourteen pounds in cash, doubtless with a view to celebrate Christmas.

BAREFOOT AT BRIG’US

Brass bands like the Black Dyke Mills of Queensbury, Bradford, have won enormous prestige in West Yorkshire – and indeed nationally. Others, fractionally less well known, acquired their own reputations: the Pomfret (Pontefract) Victoria Brass Band was known as the Ale and Bacca Band – no doubt for good reason.

There has always been an independent spirit about Brighouse which, for instance, proclaims a red rose on its coat-of-arms! A story goes that one night the famous Brighouse and Rastrick Band was returning home with a trophy. It was late, and they didn’t want their marching feet from the station to spoil the sleep of their townsfolk (removing their shoes to avoid this) – but they decided to play a celebratory air ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’ as they went! In 1977 the band’s version of The Floral Dance rose to number two in the charts.

BARRING OUT

On Shrove Tuesday, in some schools, children let off steam by barring out their teachers until a holiday was granted. Such breaks from routine were not usually threatening. Indeed, they were often accompanied by jollity and ginger parkin. But during the eighteenth century there were serious scholastic disturbances around the country, as in Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry and Shrewsbury. At Doncaster Grammar School on 15 January 1730 boyish spirits rose too high and windows were smashed. The Corporation footed the bill but declared that the head, Edmund Withers, should not be ‘tyed from correcting the Boys’. These were difficult times: his salary was often in arrears.

BATH NIGHT

Saturday evening used to be a hearthside family bathing ritual. The oldest child went first into the tin bath, which was heated up with boiler water, supplemented by occasional fireback kettles. By the time it was the youngest’s turn, the water might be a touch grimey. Until you reached teenage years, though, it was companionable, especially afterwards, sitting around in warm towels.

BATTLES

It is curious indeed that three decisive battles should have been fought but a few miles apart. The Battle of Wakefield, 30 December 1460, centring on Sandal Castle, might have been a siege, but the Lancastrians taunted the Yorkists to show themselves. Richard of York’s severed head was mounted on Micklegate Bar, York. This was so ‘York may overlook the town of York,’ in Lancastrian Queen Margaret’s poetic words (according, of course, to Shakespeare’s Henry VI, III.I.IV).

Did the mocking song The Grand Old Duke of York originate here? An alternative claim is that the song started at Allerton Park in the 1790s when the indecisive Frederick Augustus, Duke of York (and second son of George III), marched his soldiers up and down a mound as some sort of preparation against the French. The creation of the mound itself, by men with spades and wheelbarrows, was pointless.

At Towton, near Tadcaster, on Palm Sunday of the 29 March 1461, Edward of York (son of the above Richard) defeated the Lancastrians supporting Henry VI and his ambitious Queen Margaret of Anjou. There were mutilations on both sides. It was said that the River Cock was swollen with melting snow and blood. St Mary’s church at Lead sheltered some of the wounded. This time it was Lancastrian heads that were mounted on Micklegate. Lord Dacre, a Lancastrian leader struck down as he took wine, was buried astride his horse in the churchyard of Saxton All Saints.

During the Civil War, just north at Marston Moor, on 2-3 July 1644 Cromwell’s Ironsides defeated the Royalists under Prince Rupert (nephew of Charles I). Thomas Fairfax, Parliamentary commander, ensured York’s decent surrender without reprisals or vandalism – for which the grateful city gave him a butt of sack and a tun of French wine.

BEATING THE BOUNDS

In some communities, the Rogationtide or rammalation (corruption of ‘perambulation’) custom continues of encouraging children to walk the village boundaries. Holy Thursday was also a favoured day. Parents, parish priest and churchwardens carrying willow wands of office led the walk to impress on youngsters the importance of maintaining parish boundaries. There was a good deal of horseplay, like a slap or a bump to impress some feature like stone or stile, with compensatory refreshments provided from church funds at the end of the walk. At Halifax in 1770 a stone bridge, predecessor of the Old North Bridge, collapsed during the walk. Enclosures militated against such communal activities. At Shelley, near Huddersfield, bounds are beaten on New Year’s Day, participants being known as Shelley Welly Walkers. Around Adel, a fifteen mile walk takes place in May on Rogation Sunday; and a less strenuous one in June from St Peter’s church, Thorner.

BLACK-FACED CLOCK

The date is uncertain, but Ripponden folk are fond of the fable of St Bartholomew’s church clock. Two faces were cleaned, but one side of the parish (Barkisland) refused to contribute. Their clock face stayed black.

Micklegate Bar as it appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Towton Cross on the battlefield site.

Lord Dacre’s tomb, Saxton. The white pyramid marks the remains of unknown soldiers found at Towton Hall, 1996.

‘BLOODY POMFRET’

So-called in Shakespeare’s Richard II, that monarch, having been held captive in the castle, died mysteriously in 1400. Shakespeare made out that the king was struck down by Sir Piers Exton… or was he starved to death?

Thomas of Lancaster was beheaded here in 1322 after defeat at Boroughbridge and trial before Edward II, his cousin. Thomas had been responsible for the execution of Piers Gaveston, the former royal favourite.

In Shakespeare’s King John, a hermit, Peter of Pomfret, is brought in to predict the king’s downfall (Act IV, Scene ii). When John learns that French troops are massing for attack he orders Peter’s imprisonment.

One castle dungeon was carved out of a rock and the luckless prisoners thrown in through a hole in the roof.

BODY SNATCHERS

Exhuming recent corpses and selling them to medical students in Edinburgh became a macabre yet lucrative trade. In March 1826 Martha Oddy (who died aged just fifteen) was dug up in Armley churchyard. In this case the corpse was retrieved and reburied in the original grave. For this offence Michael Armstrong was sentenced at Leeds Sessions to six months in York Castle.

Various expedients were adopted to deter ‘resurrectionists In High Bradfield churchyard, west of Sheffield, a watch tower was built.

BRADFORD RESOLUTION, 1825

The Bradford Board of Commissioners resolved that ‘the hog-stye in Manningham Lane opposite Christ church and the muck-heap opposite Rawson Place be removed, and that Thomas Hoadley’s pigs be not allowed to run loose and be fed in the Market Place’.

BRADFORD FIRSTS

It is curious how often Bradford led the country in child welfare. Through Margaret McMillan, the Wapping Street School gained the first school baths in England in 1897; school medical inspections and open-air nurseries followed. Inspectors found that about one-third of youngsters were sewn into their clothes, which were not removed until winter was over, hence the lice problem! School meals were introduced in 1906. Interestingly, Jonathon Priestley, headmaster of Green Lane School, Manningham and father of the future novelist J.B.P., was at this time active in promoting school and adult welfare. Green Lane was first school to establish a school meals depot, supplying meals to needy children elsewhere.

England’s first temperance society formed here in 1830, aimed particularly at youngsters’ self-control regarding drink. But it is odd also that Bradford was the last to have its own municipal hospital; it also managed to retain its trolley-buses until 1972.

Watch-house, St Nicholas churchyard, Upper Bradfield.

BRADFORD PALS

Among the early volunteers to enlist in 1914 were hundreds of young men from West Yorkshire who have gone down in history as ‘Pals’ – Leeds Pals, Barnsley Pals, Sheffield – aye, an’ Hull, too. They chummed up from the same areas, often the same streets. Theirs is a heroic story.

In the early months of the First World War some 2,000 young Bradford men from all classes – apprentices, wool sorters, lads from mills, mines and offices – took the king’s shilling and volunteered to fight against Germany. They formed the 16th and 18th Battalions of the West Yorkshire Regiment. At about 7.30 on the morning of 1 July 1916 they left the comparative security of the trenches to cross No Man’s Land, their objective being to capture the village of Serre. The German machine gunners mowed them down. An hour later 1,770 had been killed or injured, and no gains made. Such was the awesome start to the Battle of the Somme. The Sheffield Pals lost fewer – but far too many.

Private Arthur Pearson of Leeds escaped when a bullet hit his bully beef tin.

The Bradford Pals Memorial stands in Centenary Square, and there is a window to their memory in the cathedral.