Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

The telegraph announced the news of the fall of Sevastopol, which produced the liveliest sensations in all parts of the kingdom. In Leeds the bells of the parish church rang a merry peal nearly all night. For several days the joy of the inhabitants was unbounded. Bands of music paraded the streets. In the evenings especially the excitement was very great, and an immense quantity of fireworks and coloured fires were let off in Briggate, and other streets. There was scarcely a warehouse, shop, or private house, without a banner or flag hung out; many of them really handsome, and bearing appropriate devices and inscriptions. Two or three immense banners were hung across Briggate; a monster tricoloured one was thrown across the north end of Leeds Bridge, bearing the words “Honour to the Allies.” Mr Appleby exhibited in front of his shop in Briggate the head of a bear, stuffed, and muzzled, with a flag suspended above it, inscribed “The Russian Bear muzzled at last.”

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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.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Comment

Is there a picture of the bear’s head? Were bears’ heads readily available in Leeds?

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Original

On the 10th of September, the telegraph announced the news of the fall of Sebastopol, which produced the liveliest sensations in all parts of the kingdom. In Leeds the bells of the parish church rang a merry peal nearly all night. For several days the joy of the inhabitants was unbounded. Bands of music paraded the streets. In the evenings especially the excitement was very great, and an immense quantity of fireworks and coloured fires were let off in Briggate, and other streets. There was scarcely a warehouse, shop, or private house, without a banner or flag hung out; many of them really handsome, and bearing appropriate devices and inscriptions. Two or three immense banners were hung across Briggate; a monster tricoloured one was thrown across the north end of Leeds Bridge, bearing the words “Honour to the Allies.” Mr. Appleby exhibited in front of his shop in Briggate the head of a bear, stuffed, and muzzled, with a flag suspended above it, inscribed “The Russian Bear muzzled at last.”

172 words.

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.

• Bear (3) ·
• 📌Briggate (14), Leeds' old north-south bridge street and main street ·
• British brass band (5) ·
• Crimea (2) ·
• Crimean War (6) ·
• Fireworks (4) ·
• Flag (2) ·
• France (31) ·
• Kingdom of Sardinia (1) ·
• Leeds Bridge (3) ·
• Leeds Minster (12) ·
• 📌Leeds (235) ·
• Music (25) ·
• Ottoman Empire (6) ·
• Queen Victoria (9) ·
• Russia (8) ·
• Russian Empire (5) ·
• Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) (3) ·
• Telegraphy (2) ·
• Turkey (4) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 15 July 1855: At Sevastopol in the Crimea, boatswain’s mate John Sheppard of Hull wins a VC trying to row through enemy lines on an improvised explosive punt to blow up a Russian warship
• 30 March 1856: Future prime minister H.H. Asquith (3) and his brother lead a procession of children through the streets of Morley to celebrate the end of the Crimean War
• 20 September 1819: Flags and fasces at a procession from Briggate to Hunslet Moor to protest the Peterloo Massacre
• 28 July 1809: The Napoleonic career of Richard Beckett of the Coldstream Guards, Meanwood (Leeds), and the MCC, who fell today at Talavera (Toledo)
• 31 March 1856: William Allison, a 4-year-old port-drinker, hears what he believes to be Russian gunfire while building sandcastles on Redcar beach
• 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
• 10 June 1715: Following the accession of the Hanoverian George I, Tories ring the bells of Leeds church on the birthday of his Jacobite rival, the Old Pretender, currently plotting a comeback
• 19 October 1816: Serenaded by the military, decorated barges leave Leeds for Liverpool to celebrate the completion, after almost 50 years, of the canal uniting east and west
• 4 March 1869: Trains begin to pass through Leeds town centre on the North-Eastern Railway extension
• 14 October 1854: During the Crimean War, Queen Victoria visits the docks at Hull, and comparisons are made with the capital of our Turkish ally