The Yorkshire Almanac 2025

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[At the First White Cloth Hall] were great rejoicings and a grand procession of workmen, on July 1st, 1788, as a testimony of gratitude for the passing of an act to prevent the exportation of live sheep and wool, in which the French had encouraged an illicit trade, for the purpose of robbing the English clothier of his staple. A speech, written for the occasion, and delivered by a woolcomber on horseback, at the head of the procession, concluded with “may we never want a Pitt for the French to fall into.”

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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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Original

[At the First White Cloth Hall] were great rejoicings and a grand procession of workmen, on July 1st, 1788, as a testimony of gratitude for the passing of an act to prevent the exportation of live sheep and wool, in which the French had encouraged an illicit trade, for the purpose of robbing the English clothier of his staple. A speech, written for the occasion, and delivered by a woolcomber on horseback, at the head of the procession, concluded with “may we never want a Pitt for the French to fall into.”

93 words.

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.

• 1st White Cloth Hall (3) ·
• Clothing industry (12) ·
• England (12) ·
• France (33) ·
• Horse (72) ·
• Industrial Revolution (22) ·
• 📌Leeds (247) ·
• Protectionism (6) ·
• Sheep (28) ·
• Textile manufacturing (59) ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (151) ·
• William Pitt the Younger (4) ·
• Wool (28) ·

All tags.

Similar

25 September 1705: Daniel Defoe is amazed by Leeds’s outdoor cloth market on Briggate, shortly before the opening of the white cloth hall

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