Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

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

I suppose Forster has sent you a Bradford paper containing the report of our meeting for ‘Roman Liberty.’ It went off very successfully as a meeting; but did not bring in to Forster all the ‘virtue’s own reward’ he anticipated, and he was out of humour for twenty-four hours after. In fact, the Bradford gentlemen on the platform were like Bess Stodart’s legs, ‘no great things.’ But the Bradford men, filling the hall to suffocation, were a sight to see! to cry over, ‘if one liked’ such ardent, earnest, half-intelligent, half-bewildered countenances, as made me, for the time being, almost into a friend of the species and advocate for fusion de biens.[Editor: The St. Simonian recipe.] And I must tell you ‘I aye thocht meikle o’ you,’ but that night I ‘thocht mair o’ you than ever.'[Editor: John Brown’s widow (of her murdered husband) to Claverhouse’s soldiers.] A man of the people mounted the platform, and spoke;-a youngish, intelligent-looking man, who alone, of all the speakers, seemed to understand the question, and to have feelings as well as notions about it. He spoke with a heart-eloquence that ‘left me warm.’ I never was more affected by public speaking. When he ceased I did not throw myself on his neck, and swear everlasting friendship; but, I assure you, it was in putting constraint on myself that I merely started to my feet, and shook hands with him. Then ‘a sudden thought’ struck me: this man would like to know you; I would give him my address in London. I borrowed a pencil and piece of paper, and handed him my address. When he looked at it, he started as if I had sent a bullet into him-caught my hand again, almost squeezed it to ‘immortal smash,’ and said, ‘Oh, it is your husband! Mr. Carlyle has been my teacher and master! I have owed everything to him for years and years!’ I felt it a credit to you really to have had a hand in turning out this man;-was prouder of that heart-tribute to your genius than any amount of reviewer-praises, or aristocratic invitations to dinner. Forster had him to breakfast next morning. I shall have plenty of things to tell you when we meet at leisure, if I can only keep them in mind; but in this wandering Jew life I feel no time on hand, even for going into particulars.

Order the book:

Subscribe to the free daily email:

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

See the Bradford Observer of July 19th for the resolutions passed and a report.

Who was the young man? Bess Stodart was a friend of Jane Carlyle and the wife of the Scottish minister David Aitken.

Something to say? Get in touch

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.

• 📌Bradford (73) W/G ·
• Carlyle, Jane Welsh (1801-66) (2), Scottish epistolarian, wife of Thomas Carlyle W/G ·
• Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881) (2), Scottish-born essayist, historian, and philosopher W/G ·
• David Aitken (minister) (1) W/G ·
• Freedom of religion (3) W/G ·
• French Second Republic (1) W/G ·
• Giuseppe Garibaldi (1) W/G ·
• Giuseppe Mazzini (1) W/G ·
• Italy (9) W/G ·
• MacLeod, William (1818/19-75) (2), Scottish medical entrepreneur, proprietor of the Ben Rhydding hydropathic spa in the 1850s W/G ·
• Napoleon III (2) W/G ·
• Papal States (1) W/G ·
• Pope Pius IX (1) W/G ·
• Republicanism in the United Kingdom (2) W/G ·
• Republicanism (2) W/G ·
• Roman Republic (1849–1850) (1) W/G ·
• Rome (3) W/G ·
• William Edward Forster (3) W/G ·

All tags.

Order the book:

Subscribe to the free daily email:

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

See the Bradford Observer of July 19th for the resolutions passed and a report.

Who was the young man? Bess Stodart was a friend of Jane Carlyle and the wife of the Scottish minister David Aitken.

Something to say? Get in touch

Similar

20 July 1849: Jane Carlyle tells husband Thomas how she rebelled against the brutal hydrotherapy meted out by Dr William Macleod at Ben Rhydding spa, Ilkley

4 February 0211: Having survived the Scots, Roman emperor Septimius Severus dies at York, perhaps at the hands of his son and fellow-emperor Caracalla

21 September 1549: Egalitarian, republican and Catholic, the leaders of the Seamer Rebellion against the Edwardian Reformation are hanged at York

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

10 October 1857: Questions from the floor of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce to the explorer and missionary David Livingstone during his exposition of the wonders of Africa

29 February 1824: Prophet John Wroe is baptised on the Leap Day in the Aire near Apperley Bridge before an audience of 30,000

2 May 1844: The Bradford Observer reports a 10% increase in the borough’s population in two years

28 April 1730: John Hobson meets a nematicide at Woodall (Rotherham)

14 August 1673: A retired coal miner, unable to live from carding wool, decides to go down a pit at Royds Hall (Bradford)

18 March 1650: Dorothy Rodes of Bowling (Bradford) blames witchcraft by Mary Sykes for the postpartum illness of her daughter

Order the book:

Subscribe to the free daily email:

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

Raine:

The poor women deny all acquaintance with the crimes imputed to them. At the assizes the bill against Susan Beaumont was ignored, and Mary Sykes was acquitted.

Something to say? Get in touch