Now! Then! 2025! - A Yorkshire Almanac

Excerpt

There is an excellent public library at Leeds, which has been established 50 years or upwards. The terms of subscribing are 3 guineas on becoming a subscriber and 7s 6d a year. There is also a library which probably from having been established by certain people is called the Jacobin Library. The other, the Old Library, on the contrary is called the Anti-Jacobin Library. There are assemblies at Leeds during the winter, once a fortnight, but of late they have not been very well attended. They have also concerts but not with much success. A playhouse also, which is open part of each summer.

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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

August 27.—There is an excellent public Library at Leeds, which has been established 50 years or upwards. The terms of subscribing are 3 guineas on becoming a subscriber and 7s 6d a year.—There is also a Library which probably from having been established by certain people is called the Jacobin Library—The other, the Old Library, on the contrary is called the Anti-Jacobin Library.—There are Assemblys at Leeds during the winter, once a fortnight, but of late they have not been very well attended,—they have also concerts but not with much success.—A Play House also, which is open part of each summer.

Provisions appear to be cheaper at Leeds than in those places from which the articles can be carried to London. A Fowl is sold for abt. 15d. The town is well supplied with Fish twice a week from Bridlington & Whitby, abt. 70 miles distant.

151 words.

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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.

• Bridlington (10) ·
• Chicken (8) ·
• Farington, Joseph (1747-1821) (12), landscape painter and diarist, inter alia of Turner ·
• Fish (9) ·
• Leeds Library (1768-) (2), oldest surviving subscription library of its type in the UK, founded in 1768 following an advertisement placed in the Leeds Intelligencer, first secretary was Joseph Priestley ·
• 📌Leeds (245) ·
• London (81) ·
• Music (26) ·
• Public library (3) ·
• The Theatre, Leeds (1771-1875) (3), built in Hunslet on the south bank for summer shows by Tate Wilkinson, only drama theatre in Leeds until 1864, partially rebuilt in 1867 to create the smarter Royal Theatre, which burnt down in 1875 ·
• Theatre (24) ·
• 📌Whitby (22), town, port and parish on the east coast of North Yorkshire/the North Riding at the mouth of the River Esk ·

All tags.

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