30 July 1882: On his way to play with the Muker church band, Richard Guy of Hill Top Farm climbs over a wall to inspect a fertile heifer
Maggie Joe Chapman. 1984. A Swaledale Woman. Country Voices. Ed. Charles Kightly. London: Thames and Hudson. I would very much like to speak to Dr Kightly re permission to use this anecdote. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.
We used to walk from our farm, Hill Top; it was right on the top and it was the first house you came to after you left Askrigg on the road to Muker. My grandfather – my father’s father – had been tenant there before my father. His name was Guy, and in them days Muker was full of Guys, same as Askrigg was full of Chapmans. Now my grandfather Guy was killed with a bull, one he’d brought up himself. It was a Sunday morning and me grandfather used to play the bass fiddle in Muker church. There was an orchestra in the church, them days; me grandfather played the bass and there was a fiddle, and I wouldn’t know whether they had drums or not, but they had four or five in the orchestra. Well, me grandfather had put his best Sunday clothes on to go, and he passed this pasture where the bull was and there was some heifers there, and he heard one of them in service and he wanted to see which one it was. That is why he climbed over the wall they think. And they always think that the bull didn’t know him in his Sunday clothes and that is why it gored him. My father said he hadn’t a rag left on him when they found him; it had gored him to death. He was a really good man, my grandfather, one of the best living men there was; everybody said he wouldn’t play a dirty trick on anybody. But the bull didn’t know him in his Sunday best.
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Dates. Malise McGuire has discovered a mention in the press (the Northern Echo? I can’t find it) of this tragedy. It is dated 4 August 1882, so Sunday was 30 July: “On Sunday at Hill Top Farm, near Gunnerside, Richard GUY went out to look at some young cattle and was soon afterwards found in a field dead. His clothes were literally torn to shreds.” I haven’t looked on Ancestry, but this is the Richard Guy born in 1833 at Scar House, Muker, and present in the 1881 census:
70. Hill Top Farm
GUY/Richard S/Head/M/47/Farmer 158 Acres/Yks Muker
GUY/Rosomond/wife/M/47/Farmers wife/Yks Muker
GUY/Thomas/son/U/20/Farmers son/Yks Muker
GUY/Robert J/son/U/17/Farmers son/Yks Muker
GUY/Richard/son//13/scholar/Yks Muker
GUY/Elizebeth/dau//8/scholar/Yks Muker
The anecdote also turns up in abbreviated form, perhaps abstracted from the above, in an outstanding book by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby (Hartley 1982).
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- Askrigg (3) W/G ·
- Bull (1) W/G ·
- Cattle (26) W/G ·
- Church music (8) W/G ·
- Church of England (94) W/G ·
- Gunnerside (2) W/G ·
- Muker (2) W/G ·
- Sex (12) W/G ·
- Swaledale (5) W/G ·
- Yorkshire Dales (9) W/G ·
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Dates. Malise McGuire has discovered a mention in the press (the Northern Echo? I can’t find it) of this tragedy. It is dated 4 August 1882, so Sunday was 30 July: “On Sunday at Hill Top Farm, near Gunnerside, Richard GUY went out to look at some young cattle and was soon afterwards found in a field dead. His clothes were literally torn to shreds.” I haven’t looked on Ancestry, but this is the Richard Guy born in 1833 at Scar House, Muker, and present in the 1881 census:
70. Hill Top Farm
GUY/Richard S/Head/M/47/Farmer 158 Acres/Yks Muker
GUY/Rosomond/wife/M/47/Farmers wife/Yks Muker
GUY/Thomas/son/U/20/Farmers son/Yks Muker
GUY/Robert J/son/U/17/Farmers son/Yks Muker
GUY/Richard/son//13/scholar/Yks Muker
GUY/Elizebeth/dau//8/scholar/Yks Muker
The anecdote also turns up in abbreviated form, perhaps abstracted from the above, in an outstanding book by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby (Hartley 1982).
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Similar
28 December 1886: James Lonsdale Broderick (45) makes his final journey, from Hawes over Buttertubs Pass to a grave above the family farm near Crackpot (Swaledale)
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The allegations to which Harcourt-Vernon was responding on behalf of the Church of England:
[It was] alleged that about Christmas 1853, Mrs. Ackrovd had reason to believe that her husband was insane, and that she secreted his razors, and ordered the servants to be ready to come to her assistance st a moment’s notice, as she apprehended some violence on Mr. Ackroyd’s part towards her. That a few days after she left him he went to the house of Miss Fothergill, in Knaresborough, where she was staying, and there, outside the house, conducted himself in a manner which led to the belief that his mind was affected, and caused his wife further anxiety and apprehension as to her personal safety. That in April, by the advice of her medical attendant, she left Knaresborough, and proceeded to Leamington, partly to recruit her health, and partly to be out of the way of the defendant; she kept her address as secret as she could, and while at Leamington she took out of door exercise in secluded parts; nevertheless, from information she received, she became apprehensive that the defendant would find his way to her lodgings. That Mr. Ackroyd having afterwards ascertained when she was to return to Knaresborough, placed himself in some of the roads leading from the railway station, with the intention of intercepting and annoying his wife; but that not having the opportunity of doing so, he afterwards abused and insulted Miss Jane Powell, who had been with his wife part of the time at Leamington, and also annoyed and insulted Mr. Matthew Gill, his wife’s solicitor, by twice throwing up the window of a news-room where Mr. Gill was, and applying opprobious epithets to him. That on the 4th of August the defendant rode up to Miss Fothergill’s drawing-room window, on horseback, and broke it with the butt end of his whip, close by where a lady named Kirby was sitting. That in a short time he returned, and broke several panes of glass in the breakfast-room, and that an attempt was made to secure him, but he being on horseback, escaped. That defendant also went to the shop of Mr. John Fothergill, his wife’s father, and broke a square of glass, and was only prevented from doing further damage by several of the neighours, who, with sticks, brush shafts, etc., had kept him off. That defendant persisted in this outrageous conduct for four hours, on the 4th of August, and that being followed, as he rode up and down, by several hundred boys, he caused great fear to his wife, who was obliged to be removed to the back part of the house. That on the 9th of August he was bound over before a bench of magistrates to keep the peace for twelve months, himself for £100 and one surety of £100. That defendant repeatedly tried to annoy and alarm his wife, and her aunt, and father, by being near and about Miss Fothergill’s house after dark; that he had used some threats as against Mr. Fothergill; and had frequently insulted Mr. Gill, and endeavoured to provoke him to a breach of the peace.
Mrs. Ackroyd doesn’t have her own in the court reporting, but was Isabella Wright (dates unknown). She was married in 1830 in Bradford to Ackroyd, who was born in 1808 in Bradford and died eight years after these events, in 1863, probably also in Bradford.
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