Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

The Treaty of Paris, after the Crimean War, was signed on 30th March 1856. News did not travel quite so rapidly then as now, but whenever this news reached Yorkshire I and the late Sir Charles Smith-Dodsworth, both of about the same age, were digging in the sands at Redcar, and there was suddenly much gun-firing at Hartlepool, in celebration of the peace. We thought it was the Russians coming and fled to our respective nurses. I was a horribly nervous, delicate wretch in those times, and probably owe much to this day to old Dr Ryott, of Thirsk, who was quite a marvel for the “grand manner” and much commonsense, though troubled with no superfluity of science. “Give the boy plenty of good malt liquor,” he used to say, “and a glass of good port in the middle of the morning.” His advice was followed scrupulously, both at home and when I went to school.

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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

There are contemporary press reports of celebrations in London on 30 March, but I believe that the Leeds Mercury only reported the news on 1 April, so (Monday) 31 March in Hartlepool is a guess. Electrical telegraphy could have reached Hartlepool on Sunday (30 March) afternoon, but did it?

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Original

The Treaty of Paris, after the Crimean War, was signed on 30th March 1856. News did not travel quite so rapidly then as now, but whenever this news reached Yorkshire I and the late Sir Charles Dodsworth [Charles Smith-Dodsworth, 5th Baronet], both of about the same age, were digging in the sands at Redcar, and there was suddenly much gun-firing at Hartlepool, in celebration of the peace. We thought it was the Russians coming and fled to our respective nurses.

I was a horribly nervous, delicate wretch in those times, and probably owe much to this day to old Dr Ryott, of Thirsk, who was quite a marvel for the “grand manner” and much commonsense, though troubled with no superfluity of science. “Give the boy plenty of good malt liquor,” he used to say, “and a glass of good port in the middle of the morning.”

His advice was followed scrupulously, both at home and when I went to school.

165 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.

• Alcohol (drug) (59) ·
• Allison, William (1851-1925) (12), Yorkshire-born sporting journalist ·
• Beer (34) ·
• Congress of Paris (1856) (1) ·
• Crimean War (6) ·
• Electrical telegraphy in the United Kingdom (1) ·
• Hartlepool (3) ·
• Malt liquor (2), used in our sources as a synonym for beer ·
• Ottoman Empire (6) ·
• Port wine (2) ·
• Redcar (2) ·
• Russia (8) ·
• Russian Empire (5) ·
• Second French Empire (2) ·
• Treaty of Paris (1856) (2) ·
• 📌West Hartlepool (2) ·

All tags.

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