Yorkshire Almanac 2025

Unedited excerpt

The excerpt in the book is shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

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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.

Comment

Comment

The musicians Greg Mulholland and Summercross quote the doggerel in Jimmy and Harriot, a fictionalised song about the dangers of navvying (Mulholland 2014), which I think features in the full version of The navvies who built the Bramhope tunnel:

A factual accident description:

A second’s absent-mindedness cost William Willoby (aged 23) his life at Bramhope Tunnel in December 1846. According to a witness, the tunnel inspector, Richard Taylor: “He had been at the works working all night and after coming up the Shaft at Six in the morning he walked from the Shaft by the cabin as if going towards his Lodgings, turned back upon some occasion and walked into the Shaft. No-one saw him fall.” (Brooke 1983)

The inscription on the Otley monument quotes respectively Genesis 23:4 and Luke 13:4 to the effect that the navvies did not deserve their bleak reputation:

In memory of the unfortunate men who lost their lives while engaged in the construction of the Bramhope Tunnel of the Leeds and Thirsk Railway, from 1845 to 1849. This tomb is erected as a memorial, at the expense of James Bray, Esq., the contractor, and of the agents, sub-contractors, and workmen employed thereon.

I am a stranger and sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.

Or those eighteen upon whom the Tower in Siloam fell and slew them: think ye that they were sinners above all the men in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay: and except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

The Otley monument does not include Myers and others buried elsewhere. I wonder what the total death toll was for the construction of this 2.138-mile tunnel from Airedale to Wharfedale, connecting Horsforth with Harrogate.

Because of the nature of the ground, accidents did not cease once the navvies had left.

Unprocessed:

1. James Bray
2. Our navvies: a dozen years ago and to-day
3. Bramhope.org
4. Tim Barber

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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.

• Arthington Viaduct (2) W/G ·
• Bible (15) W/G ·
• Biblical canon (2) W/G ·
• Bramhope Tunnel (2), 2.138-mile tunnel with crenellated north portal built 1845-1849 by the Leeds and Thirsk Railway on the Harrogate Line between Horsforth station and the Arthington Viaduct W/G ·
• 📌Bramhope (4) W/G ·
• Harrogate line (2) W/G ·
• Harrogate (13) W/G ·
• Horsforth railway station (1) W/G ·
• Leeds Northern Railway (2) W/G ·
• 📌Leeds (249) W/G ·
• 📌Otley (13) W/G ·
• Poetry (75) W/G ·
• Rail transport (24) W/G ·
• Thirsk (14) W/G ·
• Work accident (22) W/G ·
• 📌Yeadon, West Riding/West Yorkshire (7), town on the north bank of the Aire northwest of Leeds W/G ·

All tags.

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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.

Comment

Comment

The musicians Greg Mulholland and Summercross quote the doggerel in Jimmy and Harriot, a fictionalised song about the dangers of navvying (Mulholland 2014), which I think features in the full version of The navvies who built the Bramhope tunnel:

A factual accident description:

A second’s absent-mindedness cost William Willoby (aged 23) his life at Bramhope Tunnel in December 1846. According to a witness, the tunnel inspector, Richard Taylor: “He had been at the works working all night and after coming up the Shaft at Six in the morning he walked from the Shaft by the cabin as if going towards his Lodgings, turned back upon some occasion and walked into the Shaft. No-one saw him fall.” (Brooke 1983)

The inscription on the Otley monument quotes respectively Genesis 23:4 and Luke 13:4 to the effect that the navvies did not deserve their bleak reputation:

In memory of the unfortunate men who lost their lives while engaged in the construction of the Bramhope Tunnel of the Leeds and Thirsk Railway, from 1845 to 1849. This tomb is erected as a memorial, at the expense of James Bray, Esq., the contractor, and of the agents, sub-contractors, and workmen employed thereon.

I am a stranger and sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.

Or those eighteen upon whom the Tower in Siloam fell and slew them: think ye that they were sinners above all the men in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay: and except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

The Otley monument does not include Myers and others buried elsewhere. I wonder what the total death toll was for the construction of this 2.138-mile tunnel from Airedale to Wharfedale, connecting Horsforth with Harrogate.

Because of the nature of the ground, accidents did not cease once the navvies had left.

Unprocessed:

1. James Bray
2. Our navvies: a dozen years ago and to-day
3. Bramhope.org
4. Tim Barber

Something to say? Get in touch

Similar

19 September 1854: A multifarious railway accident in the Bramhope tunnel between Leeds and Harrogate

21 September 1874: The young of Nidderdale and Wharfedale celebrate Craven Lass’s victory amid urban railway tourists in the Pateley Bridge Races

9 June 1758: Entry into law of the first dedicated railway enabling act, for Richard Humble and Charles Brandling’s wagonway from Middleton Colliery to the Aire at Leeds

25 June 1753: The Moravian Brethren of Fulneck, Pudsey, refuse to participate in the toll-bar riots

1 February 1829: Jonathan Martin’s attempt to burn down York Minster is frustrated by a frolicsome chorister

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

19 January 1905: A accident in fog on the Midland Railway between Leeds and Sheffield highlights the need for better communications technology

9 November 1840: The end of the horse trade at the Leeds winter fair

3 August 1846: Aged one month, Frances Jane Campbell becomes the latest Leeds victim of the opiate epidemic

30 May 1415: A native God creates, in the York Mystery Plays, the first Yorkshireman and -woman

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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.

Comment

Comment

Of all the entries in this almanac, this is the most arbitrary. Peter Meredith, via Margaret Rogerson (Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries 2009):

There are five key dates that establish our understanding of the functioning of the Play: 1377, 3 the first record of any kind; 1399, the first list of the stations* (the places in the city streets at which the Play was performed); 1415, the first clear statement of its scope and structure; 1433, the date of the Mercers’ indenture that illuminates the nature of the pageant wagon; and 1463-77, the writing of the Register that provides us with almost the complete text of the Play. Perhaps one should add to those 1569, the date of the last performance (Meredith 2000).

But I have no idea whether this text was created or reached this form before or after 1415, though my negligible knowledge of the historical linguistics suggests 15th century York dialect (hence “native God”), exhibiting features from both further south and north. However, if you are prepared to join me in self-deception, then we do know that Easter was 31 March in Julian 1415, and Corpus was thus 30 May.

“Course”/”courses” is ugly, but Canon Purvis’s translation of the first quatrain gets the job done:

In heaven and earth the course is seen
Of five days’ work even unto the end,
I have completed by courses clean;
Methinks the space of them well spent.
(Purvis 1957)

My mistranslation of “fere” is a tribute to Les Dawson:

Les Dawson might have disagreed with the great Canon Purvis' translation of "fere" in his popular version of the York Mystery Plays. ("I discovered the wife's got asthma. Thank God – I thought she was hissing at me.") pic.twitter.com/Zrac5r4Oua

— Leeds' Singing Organ-Grinder (@elorganillero) May 19, 2024

For all the lack of proper dating, I am glad this entry has ended my flirtation with Archbishop’s dating of the creation of Adam Eve to Friday 28 October 4004 B.C.:

And upon the sixth day (October 28, which is our Friday) the living creatures of the earth took their creation, as well going, as creeping creatures. And last of all, man was made and created after the image of God, which consisted principally in the divine knowledge of the mind, and in the natural and proper sanctity of his will. And he forthwith, when all living creatures, by the divine power, were brought before him, as a lord appointed over them, gave them their names, by which they should be called. Among all which, when he found none to help him like to himself, lest he should be destitute of a fit companion, God taking a rib out of his side, while he slept, fashioned it into a woman, and gave her to him for a wife, establishing, withal, a law of marriage between them; then blessing them, he bade them wax and multiply, and gave them dominion over all living creatures, and for them all he provided a large proportion of food and sustenance to live upon. To conclude, sin being not yet entered upon the world, God beheld all that he had made, and, behold, it was exceeding good. And so was the evening, and so was the morning of the sixth day (Ussher 1658).

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