Yorkshire Almanac The borough of Leeds orders the return of records “public and pious” lost during the civil war

22 December 1666: The borough of Leeds orders the return of records “public and pious” lost during the civil war

James Wardell. 1846. The Municipal History of the Borough of Leeds, in the County of York. Leeds: Longman, Brown, and Company. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

At a Court held on the 22nd of December, 1666, the following Order was made, relative to the Corporate and other documents, which, having become dispersed during the period of the civil war, had fallen into various hands:-—

“Whereas by the wickednes of an Intestin warr, sundry Deeds, Evidences, and other Escripts, (bothe of publique and pious vse and Interreste) are dispersed and kept secret in private hands and possessions; by reason whereof, the intents and good purposes of the respective donors are wholy disapointed, and the pious vses thereby arriseigne, altogeather misimployed, contrary to the wholsome & charitable Lawes and Statuts in that behalfe made. For Remedy whereof, It is ordered by this Court, that all and every pe’son or persons of what State, Quality, or Condic’on soever, he or they be within the sd Burrough, that have any deeds or writeings in his hands, custody, possession, or knowledge, that doe any way touch or concerne any publique or piovs vse or gift, that he or they, doe within tenn dayes after publicac’on hereof, bring and deliver vpp the same vnto the p’sent Maior of this Burrough, to th’end a formall Alphebet or Table may be thereof made & the sd deeds or writeings safely keept & secured in such publique cheste or truncke & vnder such Locks & Keyes as the Maior, Aldermen, and Reverend Viccar for the time being, shall thinke meete & conveniant. And it is moreover declared by this Court, that if any p’son or p’sons after the time aforesd shall keepe & detaine any of the sd deeds or writeings with intent to conceale the same, that then such speedy course be taken against him or them, as his Maties Courts of Equity have appoynted & p’vided for Releife in cases of this nature.”

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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26 March 1662: The Leeds corporation appoints a cook

9 May 1622: Leeds corporation legislates against Sunday street life

17 July 1844: Tory Radical Joshua Hobson tells Leeds council that Liberal mayor Hamer Stansfield was wrong to prohibit public meetings on the semi-privatised Kirkgate market

3 November 1694: Leeds’s borough treasurer is mandated to pay goldsmith Arthur Monjoy £61 for making the ceremonial mace

7 November 1959: The last tram scheduled in Leeds, no. 181 or 187, runs from Cross Gates to Kirkgate or Swinegate

10 March 1665: Blizzards and Dutch attacks prolong Restoration-induced shortages of fodder and coal at Northowram (Halifax)

18 February 1934: Leeds Labour triggers the first rent strike against a council by announcing higher rents for well-off tenants and the prospect of free housing for ex-slum-dwellers

2 June 1867: Dr Clifford Allbutt tells the Epidemiological Society that the market will not provide decent housing for Leeds’s poorest

30 May 1835: The (Tory-dominated) Leeds Corporation gives its assets to three cronies to prevent their being inherited by the new (Whiggish) town council created by the Municipal Corporations Act

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£7K was about £0.75m in May 2024 – chicken-feed for Covid-era embezzlers.

They were not the only beneficiaries:

When the functions of the late Corporation of Leeds were about to cease, by virtue of the Municipal Bill, the members voted to Mr. Adolphus jun., the son of the eminent barrister and Deputy Recorder of that Corporation, the sum of one hundred guineas, in testimony of their esteem, and as a small but grateful record of their estimation of his services. Mr. Adolphus refused to accept the tribute, excusing himself upon the plea that he could not ???? to himself the idea of allowing the last act of the corporation to be that of giving a sum of money to one of its legal advisers (Morning Post 1836/04/06)

The Spectator has a follow-up (Gale doesn’t have Leeds Mercury scans for 1836!):

The Solicitor-General has given his opinion, that the conduct of the old Leeds Corporation, in alienating their funds, was illegal and fraudulent, and that the seven thousand pounds may be recovered on an application to the Court of Chancery. We are sure the burgesses of Leeds will require their Council to institute proceedings for the recovery of the property without delay, if the old Corporation should have the audacity to persist in their wrongful act, and that the borough will support the Council in those proceedings.—Leeds Mercury.(Spectator 1836/04/09)

This was during the period of Whig rule nationally 1835-41 under Viscount Melbourne, and there is probably a Tory response to the Solicitor General somewhere. But what happened eventually? Were there sanctions for the guilty members of the Corporation? Who were they? For that at least John Mayhall has the answer:

LEEDS CORPORATE BODY, 1834-5.
MAYOR: Griffith Wright.
RECORDER: Charles Milner.
DEPUTY RECORDER: John Leycester Adolphus.
ALDERMEN:-Henry Hall, George Banks, Christopher Beckett, William Hey, Benjamin Sadler, Thomas Beckett, Thomas Blayds, Ralph Markland, Rt. William Dinsey Thorp, Richard Bramley, Joseph Robert Atkinson, William Perfect.
ASSISTANTS:-Jonathan Wilks, Joseph Ingham, John G. Uppleby, Fountain Brown, Michael Thomas Sadler, Joseph Henry Ridsdale, William Wilks, Joseph Mason Tennant, William Hey, junr., John Wilkinson, Charles Brown, William Waite, Benjamin Holroyd, William Osburn, junr., John Upton, William Gott, Thomas Motley, Francis Chorley, Robert Harrison, John Cawood, William Milnes, Thomas Charlesworth, George Hirst.
TOWN CLERK: James Nicholson.
CORONER: Robert Barr.
CHIEF CONSTABLE: Edward Read.
DEPUTY CONSTABLE: James Ingham.
SERJEANT AT MACE: George Hanson.
CLERK OF THE MARKETS, AND BILLET MASTER: James Fairclough.
BEADLE: J. Handley.
CAPTAIN OF THE WATCH. Benjamin Wool.
GAOLER: James Lancaster
TOWN’S CRIER: Benjamin Spencer.
(Mayhall 1860)