Yorkshire Almanac At the opening of the hall of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, the surgeon Charles Turner Thackrah bids the town repay its debt to knowledge

6 April 1821: At the opening of the hall of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, the surgeon Charles Turner Thackrah bids the town repay its debt to knowledge

Charles Turner Thackrah. 1821. An Introductory Discourse, Delivered to the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, April 6, 1821. Leeds: The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

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Has Leeds, with all her advantages, drawn from the principles of Knowledge, – Leeds, whose very existence depends on the improvements of Science, returned to Philosophy, any thing commensurate with the benefits, she has derived? What discoveries has she made? Of what extent and importance are the improvements, which she has effected? The examination will not probably be creditable to her exertions. Yet, in Leeds and its neighbourhood, Knowledge is diffused, activity apparent, and mental energy existing, in an equal, if not a greater degree, than in most other towns. But it is to be regretted that this energy, activity, and information, have been too exclusively devoted to the acquisition of wealth; and that the philosophical acquirements of individuals have been too generally confined to themselves. Grateful to Science for her favours, we now meet to return our quota to her stock; anxious for the propagation, no less than the attainment of Knowledge, we hope individually to collect information from experiment and observation, and produce this information for general discussion.

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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.

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13 February 1796: Marshall and the Benyons’ linen factory at Leeds burns down with the loss of eight lives

20 September 1819: Flags and fasces at a procession from Briggate to Hunslet Moor to protest the Peterloo Massacre

4 October 1831: The end of a 33-week strike by weavers at Gott’s, Leeds

9 November 1840: The end of the horse trade at the Leeds winter fair

26 July 1827: Amid Nonconformist protests at a new church rate, payable by all Leeds to build temples for the Church of England, a Farnley man says organs are a waste of money

15 October 1838: Apologies from “imprisoned” Huddersfield workers are read to the great Chartist rally on Peep Green (Hartshead Moor), accusing middle-class radicals of betrayal

6 July 1825: James Backhouse, a Quaker nurseryman from York, triumphs with exotic varieties at the Yorkshire Horticultural Society’s summer meeting in Leeds

22 December 1857: With only a small clock planned for Cuthbert Brodrick’s over-budget town hall, Leeds Council absents itself from a talk by Edmund Beckett, designer of the mechanism for Big Ben

26 September 1835: The (Whig) Leeds Mercury reports the attempt of its proprietor and editor, Edward Baines Jnr, to qualify for the electoral register on the basis of shares in accommodation for the dead

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Cottingham’s ruling came the following day (Leeds Mercury 1835/09/26).

No time to include the rest of the article, but the Tory objection to Edward Baines Senior, included here is amusing. The addresses given by them in an 1837 borough poll book are on King Street and Park Place, with offices on Briggate (Perring 1837):

In 1838 the Leeds Mercury proposed a solution:

In the borough of Leeds, where there have never at any election been found at the poll more than about 4,000 voters, there are at the registration of the present year, no fewer than 3,400 objections! It is true that the number of objections made by each party is nearly equal; and no doubt both parties justify their conduct on the ground of self-defence; but if the bill of the last session had passed, by which it was provided that the grounds of objection should be stated in the notice, and that the persons making objections without any reasonable and probable cause, should be obliged, on the order of the Revising Barrister, to pay costs to the party objected against for the trouble and loss of time consequent upon attending to support his vote, it is highly probable that, instead of three or four thousand objection, the number would not have amounted to half that number.—Leeds Mercury.

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