Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

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

INDECENT CONDUCT OF A DEWSBURY TRADESMAN.-On Thursday, at the Borough Court, Dewsbury, Thos. Higginbottom, baker and eating-house keeper, of that town, was charged with indecently assaulting a young woman named Nelson on the previous day. He was defended by Mr. Ibberson, and pleaded not guilty. The bench found the prisoner guilty, and then were informed that about three weeks ago he had been convicted in that court of indecently assaulting a woman in a railway carriage. Mr. Ibberson said that ought not to weigh against him, for she had that morning been convicted as a prostitute. The magistrates fined Higginbottom £5, with the alternative of two months’ imprisonment.

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

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.

• 📌Dewsbury (21) W/G ·
• Human sexual activity (5) W/G ·
• Prostitution (15) W/G ·
• Rail transport (24) W/G ·
• Sexual abuse (2) W/G ·
• Sexual assault (5) W/G ·
• Sexual harassment (1) 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

Something to say? Get in touch

Similar

29 April 1969: Jimmy Savile sexually assaults a 15-year-old girl at Staincliffe Hospital (later Dewsbury and District Hospital), to the amusement of bystanders

15 November 1894: Application is made to move Maria Squires (11) of Dewsbury from a girls’ shelter in Wakefield to St Chad’s Home For Girls, Far Headingley

23 March 1743: His monstrous penis today having terminated its earthly mission, Lancelot Blackburne, (absentee) Archbishop of York, bids his ladies farewell

20 January 1536: Thomas Cromwell’s dissolvers of monasteries, Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, report allegations of whoring and theft by William Thirsk, Abbot of Fountains

15 May 1841: Patience Kershaw (17) tells the Children’s Employment Commission (Mines) about her work at Joseph Stocks’ Booth Town Pit, Halifax

25 January 1859: John Lumsden, Hull-based Scottish steam entrepreneur and future mayor, addresses the local Robert Burns centenary dinner

9 September 2014: A Home Office researcher (2000-02) recalls police harassment following her documentation of child sexual abuse and institutional indifference in Rotherham

Reproduction by kind permission of Michael Paraskos.20 December 1966: Greek-Cypriot cook and artist Stass Paraskos appears before Leeds magistrates charged with obscenity under the Vagrancy Act 1838

26 October 1864: Martin Tobin confronts his ex-banker, William Beckett-Denison, regarding the bank charges levied on his account

24 December 1849: Turner writes from Chelsea to the son of his patron Walter Fawkes – dead for 24 years – thanking him for the annual goose pie from Farnley Hall

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

Something to say? Get in touch