Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

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

March 24.—Constable called & took away his Sketches.—I wasat home all the morning painting as usual. Machell & Daniell dined with me.—Machell spoke much of Nicholson who makes drawings by stopping out the light parts. He comes from Whitby in Yorkshire. Machell has 5 Sons and a daughter. His eldest Son is between 16 & 17 years old. His daughter abt. 2 years & old. He lost 2 daugrs. the eldest if living would have now been 19 years old.
Nicholson is upwards of 40 years old. He is a sensible man & hada great mechanical turn.—He says He requires exercise and therefore employ s himself in planing wood &c. He has made an Organ.

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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.

• Farington, Joseph (1747-1821) (13), landscape painter and diarist, inter alia of Turner W/G ·
• John Constable (1) W/G ·
• London (84) W/G ·
• Nicholson, Francis (1753-1844) (1), Pickering-born landscape artist, working in watercolour and oil W/G ·
• Organ (music) (7) W/G ·
• Organ building (2) W/G ·
• Painting (6) W/G ·
• Pickering, North Yorkshire (4) W/G ·
• Pipe organ (3) W/G ·
• 📌Scarborough (21) W/G ·
• Thomas Daniell (1) W/G ·
• Watercolor painting (1) W/G ·
• 📌Whitby (22), town, port and parish on the east coast of North Yorkshire/the North Riding at the mouth of the River Esk 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

29 June 1876: Uplifted, Harrogate parish church awaits the monstrous £1,800 Schulze organ from Thomas Stuart Kennedy’s Meanwood Towers, Leeds

27 August 1801: The London painter Joseph Farington reconnoitres Leeds’s public cultural facilities

20 January 1536: Thomas Cromwell’s dissolvers of monasteries, Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, report allegations of whoring and theft by William Thirsk, Abbot of Fountains

9 August 1661: John Ray encounters kelp-makers on the coast between Scarborough and Whitby

11 August 1875: The Whitby town crier’s unique act for the municipal dog show

26 July 1827: Amid Nonconformist protests at a new church rate, payable by all Leeds to build temples for the Church of England, a Farnley man says organs are a waste of money

26 August 1600: Following the Restoration, powerful local Catholics invade the Hackness (Scarborough) home of Sir Thomas Hoby, Puritan commissioner and newcomer

22 November 1884: The railway will not revive lead mining at Grassington, but may bring tourism to the Dales

Reproduction by kind permission of Michael Paraskos.20 December 1966: Greek-Cypriot cook and artist Stass Paraskos appears before Leeds magistrates charged with obscenity under the Vagrancy Act 1838

6 December 1794: London painter Joseph Farington gets gossip from a pupil about colleague William Hodges’ visit to Walter Fawkes at Farnley Hall, some years before Fawkes met Turner

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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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Editor Greig comments:

The main interest of this paragraph lies not in Hodges, whose father was a blacksmith in Clare Market, off Old Drury-lane, but in Mr. Fawkes (of Farnley), who was one of Turner’s earliest friends and patrons. The great artist first made his acquaintance about 1802, and before long he became a regular visitor to Farnley Hall, the members of its household regarding him with deep esteem, they finding him always full of fun and high spirits. He was known as “Overturner” by the Fawkes, because, while driving the family home one day, he upset the cart.

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