Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

On May 19th, a wife was sold in Leeds market for five guineas, to a gentleman who well knew her merits. Strange to say, she had been previously sold at the same place before she was born, her mother, when she was in embryo, being disposed of in a similar manner.

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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

Context required. Divorce/prostitution?

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Original

On May 19th, a wife was sold in Leeds market for five guineas, to a gentleman who well knew her merits, and, strange to say, she had been previously sold at the same place before she was born, her mother, when she was in embryo, being disposed of in a similar manner.

54 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.

• 📌Bradford (72) ·
• Divorce (2) ·
• 📌Leeds (235) ·
• Misogyny (9) ·
• Northern Star (Chartist newspaper) (3) ·
• Slavery (20) ·
• Wife selling (English custom) (2) ·
• Wife selling (2) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 21 April 1838: The Northern Star reminds husbands that it is a criminal offence to sell one’s wife
• 18 January 1855: York Ecclesiastical Court tells Mrs Ackroyd of Knaresborough that any attempts by her husband to injure her are due to her divorce proceedings and failure to consort with him
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