Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

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

“On Tuesday last the Gentlemen of this town, to shew their utter detestation of the conduct of a certain Admiral, ordered his effigy to be made, with labels affixed to his breast and back, expressing his notorious villany in the following terms:-
Before.
‘Admiral B-g:
The Betrayer of his country;
The Deserter of the brave;
The worst of Servants to the best of Kings.’
On his back.
The just Reward of Cowardice and Treachery.’
“Thus exemplified, he was drawn on a Hurdle through the principal streets (attended by a chimney sweep) to the place of execution, where he was hanged on an iron gibbet fifty cubits high, erected for that purpose, and afterwards burnt amidst the exasperated acclamations of a numerous and loyal Populace, who behaved during the procession and execution with the most unanimous zeal, and retired with exemplary order.”

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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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Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Battle of Minorca (1756) (1) W/G ·
• Candide (1) W/G ·
• First Newcastle ministry (1) W/G ·
• France (34) W/G ·
• George II (8) W/G ·
• John Byng (1) W/G ·
• Leeds Intelligencer (4), one of the first regional newspapers in the country, founded 1754, renamed the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer in 1866, Yorkshire Post in 1883; conservative, anti-Catholic, anti-Chartist W/G ·
• 📌Leeds (249) W/G ·
• Menorca (1) W/G ·
• Royal Navy (11) W/G ·
• Seven Years’ War (4) W/G ·
• Siege of Fort St Philip (1756) (1) W/G ·
• Spain (9) W/G ·
• Voltaire (3) W/G ·
• Whigs (1678-1859) (23), political faction and, later, party, supported parliamentarism, various forms of elite liberalism, manufacturing interests, opposed Catholic emancipation, succeeded by the Liberal Party W/G ·

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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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Similar

1 August 1813: The Leeds-based 51st Foot wear bay leaves, not white roses, on Minden (now Yorkshire) Day, as they drive Napoleon’s troops back over the Pyrenees

5 November 1754: A French fencing master turns highwayman on Rothwell Haigh (Leeds)

28 July 1809: The Napoleonic career of Richard Beckett of the Coldstream Guards, Meanwood (Leeds), and the MCC, who fell today at Talavera (Toledo)

28 November 1796: The Royal Navy seeks recruits among the seamen of Sculcoates, Cottingham and Little Weighton (ER)

20 September 1819: Flags and fasces at a procession from Briggate to Hunslet Moor to protest the Peterloo Massacre

20 March 1755: Royal assent for the Whig government’s act prohibiting, among other things, on-street parking in Leeds

27 August 1754: The (Tory) Leeds Intelligencer calls on Holbeckers to accept the appointment by Samuel Kirshaw, Vicar of Leeds, of a new curate, Richard Fawcett Snr, to St Catherine’s Chapel

30 November 1756: A Leeds brewery advertises its March beer, made with fresh Holbeck water, for wholesale in time for Christmas

30 May 1835: Alfred Austin, future poet laureate, “Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum,” is born into rural splendour at Ashwood, 48 Headingley Lane, Leeds

10 September 1855: Leeds celebrates the fall of Sevastopol during the Crimean War

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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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Is there a picture of the bear’s head? Were bears’ heads readily available in Leeds? An earlier cartoon by John Tenniel shows the Russian Bear threatening Turkey during the dispute over the guardianship of the Holy Places while the British Lion lounges in the background:

(Tenniel 1853/06/04)

Sebastopol Wall via Angus Young.

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