Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

A Yorkshire Almanac Comprising 366 Historical Extracts, Red-letter Days and Customs, and Astronomical and Meteorological Data

16 June 1863: William Allison (12) travels from Coxwold to the circus at Easingwold, hoping to see Tom King, ‘The fighting sailor’

William Allison. 1920. “My Kingdom for a Horse!”. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company. Get it:

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Excerpt

We did pretty much as we liked at Coxwold out of school hours. There was an old chestnut pony which I used to ride, and Tom had another mount. We used to race these animals whenever opportunity arose, much after the fashion of Benjamin and his friend exercising Mr Jorrocks’s hunters. Then too we were interested in pugilism, as is shown by the diary for 16th June 1863: “This morning we did our usual lessons, and then went and talked with Billy Bowser about Tom King, who was coming in a Circus to Easingwold. At night we went there, did not see Tom King and got very wet.” There is a world of disappointment in the above record, for Easingwold is five or six miles from Coxwold.

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

This was between the Mace and Heenan fights. Did he really appear in villages to keep the money flowing in?

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Original

We did pretty much as we liked at Coxwold out of school hours. There was an old chestnut pony which I used to ride, and Tom had another mount. We used to race these animals whenever opportunity arose, much after the fashion of Benjamin and his friend exercising Mr Jorrocks’s hunters. Then too we were interested in pugilism, as is shown by the Diary for 16th June 1863:

This morning we did our usual lessons, and then went and talked with Billy Bowser about Tom King, who was coming in a Circus to Easingwold. At night we went there, did not see Tom King and got very wet.

There is a world of disappointment in the above record, for Easingwold is five or six miles from Coxwold.

135 words.

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