Yorkshire Almanac Sarah Ann Haldren of Hoxton (London) meets her end at the home of her new husband, William Wilkinson Walley of Holbeck (Leeds)

9 July 1849: Sarah Ann Haldren of Hoxton (London) meets her end at the home of her new husband, William Wilkinson Walley of Holbeck (Leeds)

Northern Star. 1849/07/14. Suicide of a Bride Near Leeds. Leeds. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

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

SUICIDE OF A BRIDE NEAR LEEDS.-A sad event occurred at Holbeck, near Leeds, on Monday after noon, at the house of Mr. William Walley, of Holbeck, near Leeds. Mr. Walley, who is a woolstapler in Leeds, was married on the 21st ult., at the church of St. Mary the Virgin, London, to Sarah Ann, the daughter of Mr. Joshua Haldren, of Hoxton, the lady being about twenty-seven years of age. Up to Monday last nothing had occurred to create any dissatisfaction between Mr. Walley and his bride, and on the day named he was about to receive company. When Mr. Walley left home in the morning. his lady appeared in her usual health and spirits, and in the course of the day retired to her dressing room, for the purpose of changing her dress and preparing her toilet, previous to the arrival of her friends; “but as she did not return, the servant proceeded to her room, where the unhappy lady was found quite dead. She had committed suicide by dividing the jugular vein of the neck. On Tuesday an inquest was held on the body, and adjourned.

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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

Via another report (Hull Packet 1849/07/13).

Confirmation of the marriage to William Wilkinson Walley on 21 June.

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Comment

Via another report (Hull Packet 1849/07/13).

Confirmation of the marriage to William Wilkinson Walley on 21 June.

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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

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Comment

Via Roy Wiles (Wiles 1965).

Events

“Sunday last” is 25 August, but Fawcett managed to get in by 11 September:

On Wednesday last Mr. Fawcett for the first time performed Divine Service in the chapel of Holbeck, but was escorted to and from the chapel by a party of Dragoons, who kept guard at the doors during the service. Notwithstanding this precaution, some evil-disposed people found means to break the windows and throw a brickbat at Mr. Fawcett while he was in the reading- desk. The Sunday following he went through the service unmolested. And on Sunday last he preached a most excellent sermon, 46th verse of 13th chapter of Acts… The same night some prophane sacrilegious villains broke into the chapel and besmeared the seats with human excrements.

On 22 September he was able to conduct a reduced Sunday service in peace:

On Sunday last the Rev. Mr. Fawcett was received and behav’d to by his congregation at Holbeck with great decency… One of Mr. F.’s friends admitted their favourite preacher to his pulpit in the town-by this means the tumultuous part of the people were mostly drawn away from Holbeck, and the curate left at liberty to perform his duty amongst the peaceable and well-disposed inhabitants of the chapelry.

However, on 22 October we read that

In the night between the 16th and 17th inst., the windows of the chapel of Holbeck were again broken. No wonder, when Holbeck contains such a nest of vermin whom neither the laws of God or man can confine within the bounds of decency, etc.

For which John Robinson, a “Houlbecker,” was in November sentenced to be whipped and to pay a fine of £5 (Griffith Wright 1895).

In the summer of the following year he published his first Sunday’s sermon and and his resignation letter. I think that in the following Fawcett is quoting things actually said to him:

A man might oftentimes, by due Care and Watchfulness, perhaps very safely defeat the Schemes, and discourage the Practices of the private Pilferer; and yet, whenever this is done, it is commonly suspected to be done rather for the Preservation of his own Property, than out of a pure Regard to the Public-good: But when he is attack’d in his house, or upon the road by open Plunderers, and requir’d to deliver, or suffer himself to be rifl’d of what he is possess’d of, with some one of these dreadful Alternatives, of having his Brains immediately blown out,” or their hands “wash’d in his hearts Blood,” or “having bis “Entrails pull’d out at his Mouth,” or “being “buried alive,” it will Then surely be accounted highly Romantic in him to reject their demands, out of a Pretence to prevent the bad Influence of their Example; and he will be generally suspected of giving a Proof of his Fool-hardiness or his Avarice, rather than of his public Spirit, by such a Refusal.

In the resignation letter he says that he

perform’d the Duty of the Curacy for near Three Months after he gain’d Admission into the Chapel, and this too, rather to prepare a Say for the peaceable Reception of any other Person whom the Patron shou’d think proper to nominate, that out of any Prospect of reconciling the People to himself.

Fawcett declines to attribute responsibility (“Who the Incendiaries were, the Sufferer neither Pretends to Know, nor Desires to be Inform’d”). He also explicitly excuses the lord of the manor, who at this juncture I take to be Lord Irwin (aka Henry Ingram, 7th Viscount of Irvine) rather than the Whiggish Scholey family, as well as other leading citizens (Fawcett 1755).

Was Fawcett a lousy preacher, or was the mob’s alternative, whoever he was, utterly adorable? Was there a Whiggish or Radical element at work? Was there some element of revenge for Samuel Kirshaw’s victory over James Scott in the struggle from 1745-51 for the vicarage of Leeds (Taylor 1865)? Perhaps you know.

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