What’s New: April 2025
April 10, 2025
Welcome to the 121st update of the Oxford DNB which, to mark UK City of Culture Year, 2025, surveys 325 biographies of people connected with Bradford and its metropolitan area in West Yorkshire. Eleven portrait likenesses are also added.
From April 2025, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford DNB) offers biographies of 63,087 women and men who have shaped the British past, contained in 65,331 articles. 12,268 biographies include a portrait image of the subject—researched in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Entries on those who died in 2021 will be published in June 2025.
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April 2025: the city of Bradford and its metropolitan district in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
In 2025 Bradford is UK City of Culture, and this update is marking the year by surveying the articles in the ODNB on people connected with the city of Bradford and its region, which takes in an area comprising, among others: Addingham, Baildon, Bierley, Bingley, Burley in Wharfedale, Cottingley, Idle, Ilkley, Haworth, Keighley, Menston, Oxenhope, Queensbury, Saltaire, Shipley, and Steeton. The ODNB’s search tools have been used to identify biographies associated with these places, whether by birth, education, residence, employment, or business. The 325 names are organized chronologically by year of birth, within subject areas. The exercise is then repeated for the towns and villages outside the city but within the current metropolitan district, arranged by place, also chronologically by birth year.
The biographies range from the Jesuit, James Sharp [alias Francis Pollard], born in Bradford in 1576, to the zoologist, Victoria Anne Braithwaite, born in Bradford in 1967. The ODNB currently includes the lives of people who died up to 2020. Of the latter, the great majority were born before 1939. The lists therefore cannot reflect developments since then: for example, the University of Bradford, chartered in 1966, and whose first students would mostly have been born after 1945.
Most of the people listed in the search results set out below were active during the nineteenth century, when Bradford became the leading world centre of worsted wool manufacture and trade, and was dubbed ‘Worstedopolis’. Several of the leading figures in the woollen industry of Bradford and its region have articles in the ODNB; additionally, the lists show that significant numbers of the parents recorded in the ODNB biographies were engaged in the industry, so dominant was it as a source of employment and (in some cases) prosperity. The international reach of the trade is reflected in the significant number of Bradford people in the ODNB who were of German origin. The development of factory production in the woollen industry also accounted for many of the social movements in which Bradford played a leading part, notably the campaigns to limit the working hours of children, and the foundation of the Independent Labour Party (1893).
Collectively, the biographies illustrate the historical strength of protestant nonconformity in Bradford; of those for whom the denomination is known, among the 200 or so ODNB biographies on city of Bradford figures, protestant dissenters comfortably outnumber Anglicans. This reflects the important Congregationalist and Wesleyan Methodist chapels in Bradford, and also the educational institutions founded by those denominations, which attracted students from beyond the region.
Bradford was particularly associated with, and took pride in, its role in the development of national education, represented especially by its Member of Parliament W. E. Forster, who introduced the Elementary Education Act of 1870. The importance of Bradford Grammar School (and its Keighley counterpart) is also apparent in the lists. Other connections and trends can be identified, and this exercise is simply intended to illustrate how the biographies in the ODNB can illuminate aspects of the places where their subjects lived.
The earliest references to Bradford in the ODNB derive from evidence of property ownership and marriages: the Skipton gentry Tempest family (per. c. 1500–1657), who extended their influence through a marriage in 1497 or 1498 to the heir of the Bowling family of Bowling in Bradforddale; or the religious writer and ecclesiastical lawyer William Wilkinson (c. 1551–1613), whose family are known to have held land in Bradford.
Others arise from incidents during the civil war sieges of Bradford by royalist forces in 1642 and 1643. They include parliamentarian army officers: Ferdinando Fairfax, second Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1584–1648), born at Denton Hall, Otley, who in 1642 repelled a royalist attack on his headquarters at Bradford; his son, Thomas Fairfax, third Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1612–1671), parliamentarian army officer, who took charge of the besieged town of Bradford in 1643; his wife, the noblewoman, Anne Fairfax [née Vere], Lady Fairfax (1617/18–1665), noblewoman, who was briefly taken prisoner by the earl of Newcastle during the chaotic parliamentarian withdrawal from Bradford led by her husband in 1643; Sir William Fairfax, (bap. 1610, d. 1644), who held estates at Steeton near Bradford, and raised a new regiment around Bradford during the civil war; and John Mauleverer (c. 1610–1650), from a Yorkshire gentry family, who was taken prisoner by the royalists in Bradford in 1643.
Find out how people with a connection to Bradford influenced the following sectors:
RELIGION
James Sharp [alias Francis Pollard] (1576–1630), Jesuit, born in Bradford; David Clarkson (bap. 1622, d. 1686), clergyman and ejected minister, born in Bradford, and baptized there; John Denton (c. 1626–1709), Church of England clergyman, born in the parish of Bradford, probably the son of clothier who held land at Lilliecroft, Manningham; Joseph Lister (1627–1709), nonconformist autobiographer, born at Bradford, Yorkshire, to ‘godly religious parents’, and the earliest identifiable example in the ODNB of a pupil at Bradford’s grammar school. He was apprenticed by his mother to a godly clothier of the town. John Ryther (1631x5–1681), clergyman and ejected minister, who settled as pastor of the Independent church at Bradford-dale in 1668. Francis Smith (d. 1691), bookseller and General Baptist minister, the son of a Yorkshire farrier from Bradford. John Sharp (1645?–1714), archbishop of York, born at Ivegate, Bradford, the son of a wet and dry salter in the town, and educated at Bradford grammar school.
Abraham Dawson (1713?–1789), biblical scholar, probably born at Horton, near Bradford, the son of a Presbyterian minister at Horton, and grandson of a Presbyterian minister who had been ejected from Thornton Chapel, near Bradford. James Scott (1733–1814), Church of England clergyman and writer, born in Leeds and educated at Bradford grammar school. Timothy Priestley (1734–1814), Independent minister, ordained pastor of the congregation at Kipping, Thornton, near Bradford in 1760. John Crosse (1739–1816), Church of England clergyman, born in London, vicar of Bradford from 1784 until his death. John Fawcett (1740–1817), Particular Baptist minister and theological writer, born at Lidget Green, near Bradford, who was encouraged by his ‘pious mother’ to attend Bradford parish church, where the lecturer was the headmaster of the grammar school, the Revd Butler, who instructed him in the classics. He also received help in his Latin studies from David Pratt, a Bradford Presbyterian minister. He subsequently associated with Methodists and Independents in Bradford before joining the Particular Baptists in 1758. Miles Martindale (1756–1824), Methodist minister, was appointed governor of Woodhouse Grove School near Bradford, founded in 1811 as the Methodists’ second boarding-school. John Wroe (1782–1863), founder of the Christian Israelites, was born in the Wroe farmstead in Rooley Lane, Bowling, Bradford, Yorkshire, and baptized in Bradford parish church. John William Whittaker, (1791–1854), Church of England clergyman, born at Manchester, whose father was from Bradford, was educated at Bradford grammar school. Jonathan Crowther (1794–1856), Wesleyan Methodist minister, from Cornwall, was a master at Woodhouse Grove School, near Bradford.
William Wood Stamp (1801–1877), Methodist minister and historian, born and baptized in Bradford, was raised at the Octagon chapel house, Little Horton, Bradford, and educated at the Wesleyan Academy, later Woodhouse Grove School, Bradford. His publications include The History of Wesleyan Methodism in Bradford (1841), in which he used unique source material to describe the lives of the earliest Methodist pioneers in the Bradford area. William Benton Clulow (1802–1882), Congregational minister and author, born at Leek, Staffordshire, became classical tutor at Airedale College, Bradford, in 1835 but in 1843 he left in consequence of a disagreement with some influential supporters of the institution. Joshua Fawcett (1809–1864), Church of England clergyman, born at Bradford, the son of a worsted manufacturer, was presented in 1833 by his brother-in-law, Henry Heap, vicar of Bradford, to the perpetual curacy of Holy Trinity, Wibsey, Low Moor, Bradford. George Vance Smith (1816?–1902), Unitarian minister and biblical scholar, served his first ministry at Chapel Lane, Bradford, where he was ordained in 1841. Vincent William Ryan (1816–1888), bishop of Mauritius, vicar of Bradford. Samuel Gosnell Green (1822–1905), Baptist minister, educated in London, became in 1851 classics and mathematics tutor at Horton Academy, Bradford, moving with it to Leeds in 1859, when it became known as Rawdon College.
Robert Harley (1828–1910), mathematician and Congregational minister, became a divinity student at Airedale Independent college, Bradford, in 1851 and on completing his course entered the Congregational ministry at Brighouse, Yorkshire. He served as professor of mathematics and logic at Airedale. Andrew Martin Fairbairn (1838–1912), Congregational minister and college head, became principal of Airedale College, Bradford, in 1877, and while at Airedale became chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales in 1883. Thomas Child (1839–1906), Swedenborgian minister, born in Darlington the son of a heckle-comb maker, studied at Airedale Independent college, Bradford with a view to entering the ministry. John William Gott (1866–1922), freethought propagandist, born at Cowling, Yorkshire, the son of a farm labourer, became a self-employed tailor and draper in Bradford where, through aggressive advertising in freethought and socialist periodicals, he built a successful mail-order business. He joined the National Secular Society in 1887 and in 1891 he became secretary of the revived Bradford branch of the society. (Thomas) Rhondda Williams, (1860–1945), Congregational minister, was minister at Greenfield church, Bradford (1888–1909), where he became a Christian socialist, giving his ministry a new social reforming emphasis. He also became convinced that Christianity should be adapted to modern thought, but this brought much local opposition, and some members resigned from his Bradford church. John Henry Jowett, (1863–1923), Congregational minister, son of a tailor and draper from Halifax, entered the Airedale Congregational College in Bradford in 1882 to prepare for the ministry. William Henry Lax (1868–1937), Methodist minister, was the district missioner for the Halifax and Bradford district from 1896, a role that emphasized evangelism in areas where traditional methods were failing. (Frederic Sumpter) Guy Warman (1872–1953), bishop of Manchester, was appointed by the Simeon trustees to succeed Theodore Woods as vicar of Bradford in 1916, and laid the foundations for the new diocese of Bradford.
Alfred Walter Frank Blunt (1879–1957), bishop of Bradford, was appointed bishop of Bradford in 1931. A member of the Christian Social Union since 1907, and a member of the Labour Party since the general strike (1926), Blunt paid unofficial visits to factories and preached widely on unemployment, presiding over clergy conferences on the subject in 1933. His address to the Bradford diocesan conference in December 1936 on the coronation of Edward VIII, interpreted as a criticism of the king’s conduct, contributed to the abdication crisis. Albert Peel (1887–1949), Congregational minister and historian, born at Gomersal, near Dewsbury, went in 1906 to the Yorkshire United Independent College, Bradford, to train for the Congregational ministry. John Martin Creed (1889–1940), Church of England clergyman and theologian, was ordained as assistant curate at St Paul’s Church, Manningham, Bradford, in 1913. (Frederick) Donald Coggan, Baron Coggan (1909–2000), archbishop of Canterbury, a Londoner, was appointed bishop of Bradford in 1956, during a period when the textile industry was in decline. Eric William Heaton (1920–1996), Church of England clergyman and biblical scholar, was born at Horton, Bradford, the son of a mechanical engineer. Maxwell Davidson Craig (1931–2009), Church of Scotland minister, born in Halifax the son of a physician, was educated at Bradford grammar school.
MEDICINE AND SCIENCE
Abraham Sharp (bap. 1653, d. 1742), mathematician and scientific instrument maker, was born at Horton Hall, Little Horton, near Bradford. He died at Horton Hall and was buried in St Peter’s, Bradford (now Bradford Cathedral), where a monument was later erected. Richard Richardson, (1663–1741), physician and botanist, was born at North Bierley, near Bradford, and was educated at Bradford School. David Hartley (bap. 1705, d. 1757), philosopher and physician, baptized Halifax, Yorkshire, attended Bradford grammar school. George Mossman (1763/4–1824), physician, set up in practice as a physician in Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1787, when he treated patients during an outbreak of fever. He was involved in a controversy with the Bradford solicitor and botanist, Samuel Hailstone, who published pamphlets attacking both Mossman’s professional credentials and his democratic political allegiances. Mossman was said to have been a popular figure in Bradford, published papers in medical journals on the effects of digitalis in consumption and died at Bradford, where he was buried. Samuel Hailstone (1767–1851), botanist, was articled to John Hardy, a Bradford solicitor who took him into partnership in 1791. A staunch whig, Hailstone served for ten years from 1794 in the Bradford volunteer corps. In 1801 he set up his own legal practice which prospered by serving the local canal and iron companies. He was prominent in the agitation of 1803 for a Bradford Improvement Act and was the principal founder in 1808 and 1822 of two short-lived Bradford literary and philosophical societies, and supported the Bradford Mechanics’ Institute established in 1832. He rented Horton Hall, Bradford, where he died.
William Sharp (1805–1896), physician and homoeopathist, born in Armley the son of a merchant, belonged to a family that had lived in that neighbourhood and at Horton, near Bradford, for several generations. One relation was John Sharp (1645?–1714), archbishop of York; another was Abraham Sharp (bap. 1653, d. 1742), the astronomer and mathematician. He was articled in 1821 to his uncle, William Sharp, a leading surgeon in Bradford, into whose practice he succeeded in 1833. Sharp was elected a surgeon to the Bradford Infirmary in 1829, and became its senior surgeon in 1837; for many years he also had the largest general practice in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Mary Parsons [née Field], countess of Rosse (1813–1885), photographer, the daughter of a landowner, was born at Heaton Hall, Bradford, where she and her younger sister, Delia, were educated at home by their governess, Susan Lawson, who is reputed to have encouraged Mary’s inquiring mind and wide-ranging interests. Always an independent woman, she maintained interests in her Heaton and Shipley estates and in global investments, particularly railway stock. Louis Borchardt (1816/17–1883), paediatrician, a refugee from the revolution of 1848, moved to Bradford, Yorkshire, with a letter of introduction to an old schoolfellow, and there made the acquaintance of a German merchant, with whom he relocated to Manchester in 1852. Thomas Livesley Plant (1819–1883), commission agent and meteorologist, was born at Low Moor, near Bradford.
John Wood (1825–1891), surgeon, born in Bradford, the son of a wool-stapler, went to work as a dispenser to Edwin Casson, then senior surgeon to the Bradford Infirmary. Here he learned minor surgery, and was taught enough Latin to enable him to pass the preliminary examination at the Royal College of Surgeons. Henry Seebohm (1832–1895), ornithologist, born at Horton Grange, Bradford, the son of a Quaker wool merchant from near Bad Pyrmont in Germany. He settled on a small farm, Horton Grange, near Bradford. John Henry Bridges (1832–1906), positivist and medical administrator, settled in Bradford, where he was appointed physician to the infirmary in 1861. During the cotton famine he joined local radicals in denouncing the inability of the poor law to cope with the massive unemployment. He conducted private sanitary surveys and lectured audiences both professional and popular on public health. Marion Greenwood Bidder [née Marion Greenwood] (1862–1932), physiologist, born in Hull the daughter of a shipping agent and Baptist lay preacher, and brought up in Oxenhope, near Keighley, went to the Bradford Girls’ Grammar School as one of its first pupils. Sir Frank Watson Dyson (1868–1939), astronomer, won scholarships first to Bradford grammar school and then to Trinity College, Cambridge. Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869–1959), physicist, took up a teaching post at Bradford grammar school to support his family. Thomas Martin Lowry (1874–1936), physical chemist, was born at Low Moor, Bradford, the son of a Methodist minister. Sir Arthur Frederick Hurst [formerly Hertz] (1879–1944), physician, was born at Oak Mount, Manningham, Bradford, the son of a wool merchant. His Jewish grandparents on both sides came from Germany in the mid-nineteenth century. Sir Douglas Mawson (1882–1958), scientist and explorer in Antarctica, was born at Shipley, near Bradford. During his childhood the family moved to Australia. John Rawlings Rees (1890–1969), psychiatrist, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, was educated at Leeds and Bradford grammar schools.
Sir Edward Victor Appleton (1892–1965), physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1947, was born in Maperton Road, Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a warehouse clerk. He won a scholarship in 1903 to Hanson School, Bradford, where he flourished. He became interested in physics and mathematics, largely through the influence of his school physics master, J. A. Verity. James Gerald Crowther (1899–1983), science journalist and administrator, was born in Halifax, gained an exhibition from Bradford grammar school to study mathematics and physics at Trinity College, Cambridge. Ronald Stanley Illingworth (1909–1990), expert in child health, born in Harrogate, the son of an architect, went from Bradford grammar school, and went with a West Riding scholarship in classics to read medicine at Leeds University. Ian Arthur Hoyle Munro (1923–1997), medical journalist, was born in Bradford, the son of a chartered accountant. Albert Victor Crewe (1927–2009), physicist, was born in Bradford, the son of a motor mechanic, was educated at Wyke junior school, Bradford, and Carlton grammar school. Michael Graham Gelder (1929–2018), psychiatrist, born in Ilkley the son of a wool merchant, grew up in Bradford where he attended Bradford grammar school. He resisted plans for him to join the family firm and instead won a scholarship to Queen’s College, Oxford, to study medicine. Iain Donald Campbell (1941–2014), structural biologist, born and educated in Scotland, spent a year in the physics department at the University of Bradford. Victoria Anne Braithwaite (1967–2019), zoologist, born at the Duke of York Home, Bradford Royal Infirmary, the daughter of a wool comber and textile merchant, attended a small preparatory school in Bradford before going on to Bradford Girls’ Grammar School in 1978.
TEXTILE MANUFACTURERS AND MERCHANTS
John Hustler (1715–1790), wool stapler and canal promoter, was born on the family farm, Apple Tree Farm, Low Fold, Bolton, near Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a wool stapler and merchant. His parents were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), and John received an education at the Friends’ school in Goodmanend, Bradford. For almost a century the Hustlers were the leading wool staplers of the town, profiting from their resale of raw wool purchased from farms and wool fairs all over England. Hustler was instrumental in establishing the first Bradford piece hall for the sale of cloth, and for linking Bradford to the national network of canals. John Priestman (1805–1866), manufacturer of worsted goods and peace campaigner, born at Thornton, near Pickering, Yorkshire, into a Quaker family. At nineteen he joined his brother-in-law James Ellis in the Old Corn Mill, Bradford. Together they founded the first ragged school in Bradford, in a room at the top of one of their mills. Priestman was one of the founders in 1832 of the Friends’ Provident Institution. He became a free-trader, and he represented Bradford at many of the conferences called by the Anti-Corn Law League. Sir Jacob Behrens (1806–1889), textile merchant, born in Germany, helped to pioneer the transition of merchanting from Leeds to Bradford, which was to become the dominant mercantile centre for the wool textile industry. He was a leading figure in the Bradford Chamber of Commerce. Sir Isaac Holden, first baronet (1807–1897), inventor of a wool-combing machine, entrepreneur, and politician, born near Paisley, took a bookkeeping position at a worsted manufacturing firm at Cullingworth, near Keighley, and became interested in mechanizing wool-combing. He formed a partnership to this purpose with Samuel Cunliffe Lister in 1849 and set up factories in France that made large profits. His wool-combing concern in Bradford, the Alston Works, opened in 1864. Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, first Baron Masham (1815–1906), inventor of textile machinery, born at Calverley Hall, near Bradford, was the son of a manufacturer who was the first MP for Bradford after the Reform Bill of 1832. His worsted mill at Manningham opened in 1838. He took out 150 patents, dominated the wool-combing business, and amassed enormous wealth. He sold his Manningham estate to the city of Bradford as Lister Park, and contributed to the Cartwright Memorial Hall in Bradford. William Foster (1821–1884), worsted manufacturer and merchant, born probably at Low Fold, Clayton, Queenshead (later Queensbury), near Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a worsted cloth merchant, was educated at the local nonconformist academy of Joseph Hinchliffe at Horton House, Bradford, and in 1834 joined his father at Prospect House, Queensbury, in his successful business as a master manufacturer in the domestic worsted trade. The business included a new purpose-built spinning mill which became known as Black Dyke mills (later famous as the home of the brass band of that name). Richard Goldsbrough (1821–1886), wool broker, was born at Shipley, Yorkshire, the son of a butcher, and was apprenticed to Bradford wool staplers. He later settled in Australia where he developed the wool trade. Sir Henry Mitchell (1824–1898), textile merchant and philanthropist, was born at Esholt, near Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a small local textile manufacturer. He went to a local elementary school, and at the age of fourteen entered his father’s worsted mill to learn the principles of textile manufacture. He gained a reputation as one of the chief authorities on the worsted trade. He championed the promotion of technical education and helped found the Bradford Technical College between 1878 and 1882. Alfred Illingworth (1827–1907), worsted spinner and politician, born at Kent Street, Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a worsted spinner, was educated at a private academy in Little Horton, Bradford, run by a Moravian, Joseph Hinchcliffe. George William Douglas (1859–1947), woollen and worsted dyer, born at Spring Gardens, Bradford, son of a wool merchant, was educated at Bradford grammar school and at the Yorkshire College, Leeds. Geoffrey Hill Ambler (1904–1978), inventor and air force officer, was born at Kirklands Avenue, Baildon, near Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a worsted spinner and manufacturer. He is associated with his invention, the Ambler Superdraft, in collaboration with the Leeds University mathematician, (Dorothy) Margaret Hannah [married name Greig] (1922–1999). George Frederick Raper (1909–1973), mechanical engineer and inventor of wool textile machinery, born at Cranbourne Road, Bradford, was the son of the managing director of the long-established woolcombers Isaac Holden & Sons Ltd, Bradford. Starting as a machine operator, while also attending Bradford Technical College to learn about textiles, he made several improvements on the chemical and engineering side of wool-combing.
ENGINEERS, INDUSTRIALISTS, AND RETAILERS
Thomas Rhodes (1789–1868), civil engineer, born at Apperley Bridge, near Bradford, was the son of a millwright and carpenter, and attended Calverley School, Bradford. Read Holliday (1809–1889), chemical manufacturer, born in Bradford, was the son of miller, wool spinner, and latterly a tinner. Samson Fox (1838–1903), mechanical and chemical engineer, and benefactor, born at Bowling, near Bradford, Yorkshire, was the son of a Leeds cloth-mill worker. Henry Greenwood Tetley (1851–1921), industrialist, born in Bradford, was the son of a stuff merchant. Weetman Dickinson Pearson, first Viscount Cowdray (1856–1927), building contractor and oil producer, born near Huddersfield, attended a private school, Hallfield, in Bowling, Bradford. William James Eames Binnie (1867–1949), civil engineer, born at Londonderry, was educated at Bradford grammar school. Sir Holberry Mensforth (1871–1951), engineer and engineering company executive, born at Snow Hill, Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a painter and decorator. He was educated until aged about twelve at Christ Church Day School in Bradford, and then became a millwright’s apprentice at a Bradford gas engine maker, attending evening classes at the mechanics’ institute in Bradford. Sir (John) Frederick Heaton (1880–1949), road transport administrator, born in Bradford, the son of a warehouseman in the woollen trade, attended Bradford Technical College and studied accountancy. Charles Edward Fairburn (1887–1945), railway engineer, born in Bradford, was educated at Bradford grammar school. Harry Ramsden (1888–1963), fish and chip restaurateur, born at Chatham Street, Bradford, the son of a fish frier, who ran a fish and chip shop in Manchester Road, Bradford. Harry McEvoy (1902–1984), industrialist and food manufacturer, born in Bradford, was the son of a weaver who became a grocer and, after education at Bradford grammar school, worked in his father’s grocery business. Sir Maurice Arthur Eric Hodgson (1919–2014), industrialist, born at Apsley Villas, Manningham, Bradford, the son of schoolteachers, was educated at Bradford Grammar School. Sir (Arthur) Noel Stockdale (1920–2004), businessman, born at Pateley Bridge, near Ripon, Yorkshire, was educated at Woodhouse Grove School, near Bradford. Sir (George) Trevor Holdsworth (1927–2010), businessman, born at Killinghall Road, Bowling, Bradford, the son of a turf accountant, was educated at Hanson grammar school in Bradford and Keighley grammar school, and was a chorister in Bradford Cathedral. He became an articled clerk in a Bradford accounting firm. Sir Kenneth Duncan (Ken) Morrison (1931–2017), businessman, born at Lister Avenue, Bradford, the son of a grocer, attended Bradford Grammar School. He single-mindedly built Britain’s fourth-biggest supermarket group.
LABOUR MOVEMENT
Ann Ellis [née Waite] (1843–1919), trade unionist and power-loom weaver, born at Guiseley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the daughter of a cloth weaver, made her name organizing the weavers in the heavy woollen districts of Dewsbury and Batley. In widowhood she lived in Bradford and fostered many children on behalf of the Bradford poor-law guardians. Joseph Burgess (1853–1934), journalist and socialist, attended the founding conference of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in Bradford in January 1893, and in 1907 was employed in Bradford on the Yorkshire Factory Times. Frederick William Jowett (1864–1944), socialist and politician, born at Clayton Street, Bradford, the son of a cotton warp dresser, started work in the Bradford textile trade as a half-timer at the age of eight, before transferring to full-time employment at the age of thirteen. Julia Varley (1871–1952), trade unionist, born in Horton, Bradford, the daughter of an engine tenter (a skilled worsted mill worker), attended St Andrew’s School, Listerhills, Bradford, and the Quaker Sunday school, but because of family circumstances left school at the age of twelve, and became a part-time mill worker, soon progressing to full-time weaver. She joined the Weavers and Textile Workers’ Union and by the age of fifteen had become Bradford branch secretary. Her involvement increased with the Manningham Mills strike of 1890–91; she became the first woman member of the Bradford Trades Council as secretary of her union branch. Fred Bramley (1874–1925), trade unionist, born at Pool, near Otley, the son of a journeyman engineer, had an elementary education in Bradford, and began an apprenticeship as a cabinet-maker. He spent his youth in Bradford, then a stronghold of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). George Robert Shepherd, first Baron Shepherd (1881–1954), political organizer, born at Spalding, Lincolnshire, began his working life in a shoe shop and became active in the Shop Assistants’ Union. Moving to Bradford, he joined the ILP in 1901, became an effective street-corner speaker and held office in the local party. Sir John [Jack] Bailey (1898–1969), politician and co-operative movement activist, was appointed as political secretary to the Co-operative Party in Bradford, and served on Bradford city council, leading the juvenile employment and education committees. Sir (Harold) Vincent Tewson (1898–1981), trade unionist, was born at Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a nursery gardener. Victor Grayson Hardie Feather, Baron Feather (1908–1976), trade unionist, was born in a back-to-back house in Malvern Street, Bradford, the son of a French polisher and a domestic servant. He started work when he left school shortly after his fourteenth birthday in one of the Bradford Co-operative Society’s grocery shops. He learned the skills of public meetings on street-corner soap boxes for the Independent Labour Party (ILP), of which Bradford was then a stronghold. He also began writing articles for the ILP’s weekly paper, the Bradford Pioneer. James Edward [Jim] Mortimer (1921–2013), trade unionist and Labour Party official, was born at Duckworth Lane, Manningham, Bradford. His father was a street-corner news vendor, while his mother had been employed in a textile mill from the age of twelve.
POLITICS
John Baynes (1758–1787), lawyer and political reformer, was born in at Middleham in Yorkshire, the son of William Baynes of Middleham, attended school at Bradford under Mr Butler. Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, first earl of Cranbrook (1814–1906), politician, was born at the Manor House, Bradford, was the son of a barrister, recorder of Leeds, and MP for Bradford from 1832 to 1837, whose family wealth derived from the Low Moor ironworks, Bradford. William Edward Forster (1818–1886), politician, born at Bradpole, Dorset, the son of a Quaker philanthropist and minister, entered the wool stapling and worsted business and was a model employer at his works at Burley in Wharfedale, near Bradford. Elected MP for Bradford in 1861, he was responsible for the Elementary Education Act of 1870, his greatest legislative achievement, which established a mandatory and comprehensive national system of elementary education, publicly funded from locally raised rates, and enabled the creation of school boards. Percy Holden Illingworth (1869–1915), politician, born at Ladye Royde Hall, Manningham, Bradford, was the son of a partner in a Bradford firm of worsted spinners. He was a lifelong Liberal and member of the Baptist church. Mary Elizabeth Henderson Stewart [née Birkinshaw], Baroness Stewart of Alvechurch (1903–1984), lecturer and politician, was born at Manningham, Bradford, the daughter of a commercial traveller. Barbara Anne Castle [née Betts], Baroness Castle of Blackburn (1910–2002), politician, was born in Chesterfield the daughter of a tax inspector. The family lived in Bradford between 1922 and 1931, and the textile city of Bradford, where she attended Bradford girls’ grammar school, made the strongest impact upon her. Alan Robertson Campbell, Baron Campbell of Alloway (1917–2013), barrister and politician, was born at Mount Royd, Manningham, Bradford, the son of a master woolcomber. Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey (1917–2015), politician and author, whose father was principal of Keighley Technical School, grew up in the village of Riddlesden, on the outskirts of Keighley, at the edge of Ilkley Moor. He won a scholarship to Bradford Grammar School when he was eight. He was made a life peer as Baron Healey, of Riddlesden, West Yorkshire, in 1992.
SOCIAL REFORMERS
John Wood (1793–1871), worsted manufacturer and factory reformer, born in Bradford, was the son of a Bradford manufacturer. Apprenticed to Richard Smith, Bradford’s largest spinner of worsted yarn, he began business as a master spinner and was the foremost master spinner in Bradford. His major claim to fame was his part in the launching of a movement for factory reform, to limit the working hours of children. Benjamin Waugh (1839–1908), social reformer, born at Settle, Yorkshire, entered Airedale College, Bradford, to prepare for the Congregational ministry, and subsequently devoted himself to child protection work. Eva Maria McLaren [née Müller] (1852/3–1921), social reformer and political activist, joined the executive committee of the Manchester Society for Women’s Suffrage while living in Bradford, and served as poor-law guardian for the Horton district of Bradford. Margaret McMillan (1860–1931), socialist propagandist and educationist, settled in Bradford in 1893, taught adults at the Bradford Labour Institute, was elected to the Bradford school board in 1894, on the ILP ticket, serving until she left the city in 1902, developing her ideas on childhood and socialism. Alfred Richard Orage (1873–1934), journal editor and advocate of social credit, was born at Dacre, near Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a farmer and later head teacher at his own school at Dacre. Dorothy Clarissa Keeling, (1881–1967), social worker, was born at Grammar School House, Manor Row, Bradford, daughter of the headmaster of Bradford grammar school. She was educated at home and at a girls’ grammar school, and in 1907 she joined the staff of the Bradford Guild of Help. Florence White (1886–1961), pensions campaigner, was born at Furnace Street, Bradford, Yorkshire. Her mother was an illiterate worsted stuff mill worker. She attended Bowling Back Lane board school. Elizabeth Marion Denby (1894–1965), urban reformer, born at Horton Road, Bradford, the daughter of a doctor, was educated at Bradford Girls’ Grammar School. Her recollections of the slums of industrial Bradford influence her later rethinking of urban environments. (Mary) Kathleen Baxter [née Young] (1901–1988), advocate of women’s rights, born to a Roman Catholic family in Bradford, was the daughter of a woollen manufacturer and was educated at St Joseph’s College, Bradford., Deborah Anne (Debbie) Purdy (1963–2014), journalist and legal campaigner, settled in Bradford after her marriage in 1998.
EDUCATIONISTS
Baldwyn, Edward (bap. 1745, d. 1817), schoolmaster and pamphleteer, born in Ludlow, Shropshire, was appointed in 1784 as master of Bradford grammar school. Although the school flourished under his leadership, his time in Bradford was dominated by his quarrel with the vicar of Bradford. Anthony Nesbit, (bap. 1778, d. 1859), schoolmaster and land surveyor, in about 1814 he set up a school at Bradford, moving in 1821 or thereabouts to Manchester. His son, John Collis Nesbit, (1818–1862), chemist and educationist, was born at Bradford. Matthew Balme (1813–1884), factory reformer, was born in Tong, the son of a yeoman farmer, and was baptized at St James’s Church, Tong, in the parish of Birstall. He became the protégé of the Reverend George Stringer Bull, the evangelical curate of Bierley, near Bradford. He was appointed superintendent of the model factory school at Bowling, Bradford, opened in October 1832. Fanny Hertz (1830–1908), educationist, born in Hanover, Germany, married a yarn merchant in Bradford, Yorkshire, who was also from Hamburg. Their homes at Ashfield Place then Vicar Lane, Bradford, became well-known meeting-places for writers, artists, and thinkers, and those with an interest in radical causes. Mary Eliza Porter (1835–1905), headmistress and promoter of women’s education, was in 1875 appointed headmistress of the new Bradford Girls’ Grammar School, founded by the Bradford Ladies’ Educational Association. William Hulton Keeling (1840–1916), headmaster, was appointed headmaster of Bradford grammar school and held that post until his death, transforming it into a school of the first grade. Charlotte Maria Shaw Mason (1842–1923), teacher and writer on education, moved to Manningham, Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1879 where she taught at the Ladies’ Collegiate School run by her friend Elizabeth Groveham. Her ideas on home education became the basis for the Parents’ Educational Union, which she established in 1887 in Bradford with her friend Emeline Steinthal. Thomas Godolphin Rooper (1847–1903), educationist, was inspector of schools under the education department in the Bradford district (1882–95). (George William) Hudson Shaw (1859–1944), Church of England clergyman and public lecturer, born in Leeds the son of a civil engineer, was sent to Bradford grammar school and then to university. Arthur Hinsley (1865–1943), Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster, was born at Selby, Yorkshire, held a curacy at St Anne’s, Keighley, as curate in 1897. Convinced of the importance of Catholic education, by 1900 he had founded the small Catholic grammar school of St Bede in Bradford. Raymond [Ray] Honeyford (1934–2012), headmaster, was appointed in 1981 head of Drummond middle school in Bradford.
LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM
Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne [known as C. J. Cutcliffe-Hyne; pseud. Weatherby Chesney] (1865–1944), novelist, son of the vicar of Bierley, near Bradford, was educated at Bradford grammar school. (George) Oliver Onions (1873–1961), novelist, was born at Ripon Street, Bradford, the son of a cashier. Humbert Wolfe [formerly Umberto Wolff] (1885–1940), poet and civil servant, was born of Jewish parents in Milan. His father became a partner in a Bradford wool business, obtaining British nationality with his children in 1891. Wolff was educated at Bradford grammar school. (Robert) Howard Spring (1889–1965), novelist and journalist, born in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, moved to Bradford in 1912 and joined the staff of the Yorkshire Observer. He later recalled his time at Bradford as his ‘university years’. Alfred John Brown [pseud. Julian Laverack] (1894–1969), author, born at Paisley Street, Horton, Bradford, the son of a fitter and mechanical engineer, attended St Joseph’s Roman Catholic elementary and St Bede’s Roman Catholic grammar schools, Bradford, but left at fourteen and became a trainee in the wool trade. He completed his education at evening class and gained rapid promotion to wool buyer at the age of twenty-one.
John Boynton Priestley (1894–1984), writer, born at Mannheim Road, Bradford, the son of a schoolmaster. He was educated at Whetley Lane primary school, Belle Vue preparatory school, and then, on a scholarship, Belle Vue high school. His father wanted him to go on to college, but he left at sixteen to work as a clerk for a wool firm with offices in Bradford’s Swan Arcade. Marjorie Olive Whitaker [née Taylor; pseud. Malachi Whitaker] (1895–1976), writer, was born at Clara Road, Bolton, near Bradford, the daughter of a bookbinder. John Gerard Braine (1922–1986), writer, born in Bradford, the of a sewage-works inspector. He was educated at St Bede’s Roman Catholic Grammar School, Bradford, and between 1940 and 1951 he was an assistant librarian at Bingley Public Library. Kenneth Vivian Rose (1924–2014), journalist and biographer, was born at Wakefield Road, Bradford. Philip Dennis Hobsbaum (1932–2005), poet and literary scholar, was born in Whitechapel, London, to parents who were both first-generation eastern European Jewish immigrants. They settled in 1942 in Bradford, where Hobsbaum obtained a place at Belle Vue Grammar School. Ronald Bradshaw, a perceptive English teacher, recognized his ability, encouraging him to try for a Cambridge scholarship. During his schooldays Hobsbaum participated in theatricals at the local Civic Theatre. Andrea Dunbar (1961–1990), playwright, was born at Oliver Street, East Bowling, Bradford. Both her grandfathers were woolcombers and both her parents were textile workers at the time of their marriage, but with the decline of the textile industry her father found alternative employment as a demolition worker. She grew up on Bradford’s Buttershaw estate, attending Horton Bank Top junior school and Buttershaw high school, where sympathetic teachers recognized her potential as a writer, though her first job was in French combing at Bowling Mills in Bradford.
ART
John Cousen (1803–1880), engraver, was born at Miryshaw, near Bradford, and baptized at Little Horton Lane Independent chapel, Bradford. Joseph Clayton Bentley (1809–1851), engraver and painter, was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a Bradford solicitor. He was a founder member of the Bradford Artists’ Society of Painting and Sculpture (1827). Examples of his work at Cartwright Hall, Bradford. Lumb Stocks (1812–1892), engraver, born at Lightcliffe, near Halifax, the son of a coalmine owner, was educated at Horton, near Bradford, where his drawing instructor was Charles Cope. John Lockwood Kipling, (1837–1911), artist and art school administrator, born at Kirbymoorside, Pickering, Yorkshire, the son of a Methodist minister, was educated at Woodhouse Grove near Bradford, the Wesleyan academy for the sons of the ministry. Henry Snowden Ward (1865–1911), photographer and author, born at Great Horton, Bradford, the son of a stuff manufacturer, was educated at Great Horton national school, Bradford grammar school, and Bradford Technical College. In 1885 he joined the printing and publishing firm of Percy Lund & Co. of Bradford, for whom he founded and edited the monthly periodical Practical Photographer in 1890. Frederick Henry Townsend (1868–1920), cartoonist, art editor, and illustrator, was born at Elizabeth Street, Horton, Bradford, the son of a worsted manufacturer. Sir William Rothenstein (1872–1945), artist and art administrator, born at Spring Bank, Bradford, the son of a wool manufacturer. His parents were Jewish immigrants from northern Germany. He attended Bradford grammar school. Albert Daniel Rutherston (1881–1953), painter and illustrator, younger brother of William Rothenstein, was also born in Bradford. Frank Parkinson Newbould (1887–1951), graphic artist, born at Lumb Lane, Manningham, Bradford, the son of a chemist. Educated at Bradford grammar school, he abandoned the family profession and to study at Bradford School of Art where he produced his first poster designs. Álvaro Ladrón de Guevara (1894–1951), artist and boxer, born in Valparaíso, Chile, the son of a woollen exporter, who had business interests in Yorkshire. He entered Bradford Technical College but had no inclination to train for the wool trade and left without any qualifications, but attended evening classes at the local art school. Richard Ernst Eurich (1903–1992), painter, was born at Lindum Terrace, Manningham, Bradford, the son of an eminent bacteriologist. His ancestors had migrated from Germany to Bradford in the early nineteenth century. His childhood was spent in the centre of Bradford. Educated at Bradford grammar school, his professional artistic training began at Bradford School of Arts and Crafts in 1920.
ARCHITECTURE
Henry Francis Lockwood (1811–1878), architect, born in Doncaster, and William Mawson (1828–1889), architect, formed a professional partnership and established an office in Bradford, then one of Victorian England’s fastest growing cities and the world centre of the worsted industry. In 1850 they won the competition for the Bradford union workhouse, which led to their winning the competition for the city’s St George’s Hall (1851–3). For more than two decades they were successful in every significant architectural competition in Bradford. Titus Salt approached them to build a new mill and model town at what became Saltaire, a project which over twenty-five years became one of the largest undertaken by a single architectural practice in Victorian England. Stanley Gordon Wardley (1901–1965), civil engineer and town planner, born in London, was appointed city engineer and surveyor at Bradford, and set about a controversial remodelling of the city centre during the 1950s. Mary Beaumont Medd [née Crowley] (1907–2005), architect and educationist, born in Heaton, Bradford, was the daughter of the medical officer of health for Bradford.
MUSIC
William Jackson (1815–1866), composer and choral conductor, born at Masham, Yorkshire, took over a music business in Cheapside, Bradford, in 1852, in partnership with the singer William Winn. He became organist at Horton Lane Independent Chapel (Bradford’s ‘Congregational cathedral’). He was soon invited to direct the Bradford Old Choral Society, directed choral societies, and was chorus master at the Bradford festivals of 1853 and 1856. Frederick Theodor Albert Delius (1862–1934), composer, was born at Claremont, Horton Lane, Bradford, where his father had moved to work in the wool trade. Both his parents were born in Bielefeld, Germany. He attended the Bradford grammar school. John Coates (1865-1941), singer, born at Girlington Road, Manningham, the son of a plumber’s bookkeeper, attended Bradford Grammar School from the age of eight and sang as a chorister at St Jude’s Church, Bradford.
The opening of St George’s Hall made Bradford an important musical centre, and there are numerous references in the ODNB to performances at the Bradford festivals from 1853 onwards.
THEATRE AND ENTERTAINMENT
Charles Rice (bap. 1820, d. 1880), actor, theatre manager and playwright, born in London, moved in 1868 to Bradford, where he leased the recently built Theatre Royal, Manningham Lane, and where he remained until his death. Sir Henry Irving [real name John Henry Brodribb] (1838–1905), actor, collapsed and died in the lobby of the Midland Hotel, Bradford, after performing Tennyson’s Becket. Edwin Croueste [formerly Crowhurst], (1841–1914), clown and circus proprietor, lost his money later in life, and died in the workhouse hospital at Horton, Bradford. Marie Studholme [real name Caroline Maria Lupton] (1872–1930), actress, born in Stonehall, Eccleshill, Bradford, the daughter of an auctioneer, she was raised by her paternal grandparents in Baildon and her father’s half-sister Mrs Frank Rhodes in Shipley. She received her secondary education at Salt’s Girls’ School on the Saltaire mill estate. Gertrude [Gertie] Millar [married names Gertrude Monckton; Gertrude Ward, countess of Dudley] (1879–1952), actress, was born at Grunwith Street, Manningham, Yorkshire. Her mother was a Bradford worsted-stuff worker and dressmaker. Harry Corbett, (1918–1989), children’s entertainer, born at Edmund Street, Horton, Bradford, the son of a coalminer, was educated at elementary school and at the Carlton high school, Bradford. He received piano lessons from a private tutor and was greatly influenced by his uncle, the fish and chip entrepreneur Harry Ramsden. His first public performance in his early teens was playing the piano at the opening of Ramsden’s new fish and chip restaurant at Guiseley in 1931. Aubrey Edward Singer (1927–2007), broadcasting executive, was born at Mornington Villas, Manningham, Bradford. His father was a technician in the textile industry, and his mother was head of music at Bradford Girls’ Grammar School. Billie Honor Whitelaw (1932–2014), actress, born in Coventry, moved with her family to Bradford, where she was educated at Thornton grammar school and the City High School for Girls. Her mother sent her to the Bradford Civic Playhouse, where she responded to the tuition at the drama school run by J. B. Priestley and Esme Church. Brian Anthony Bedford (1935–2016), actor, born in Morley, Yorkshire, the son of a postal worker, and a factory weaver, was educated at St Bede’s School in Bradford. After leaving school he joined the Bradford Civic Theatre as an amateur.
SPORT
Trevor John French Foster (1914–2005), rugby league player, joined Bradford Northern in 1938. He was the first recipient (in 1998) of the lord mayor of Bradford’s lifetime achievement award and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bradford University in 2002, the same year that a road near Bradford’s Odsal Stadium was named Trevor Foster Way. Leonard Francis [Len] Shackleton (1922–2000), footballer, born at Wapping Road, Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a journeyman house painter, was educated at Carlton high school, which had a good reputation for football, and progressed to play for Bradford schools. While still at school he signed amateur forms for Bradford Park Avenue. A permanent memorial to his life was opened in the museum at Bradford Park Avenue’s Horsfall Stadium in April 2001.
In addition, there are references to the cricketers Sydney Francis Barnes (1873–1967), George Herbert Hirst (1871–1954), Sir John Berry [Jack] Hobbs, (1882–1963) playing at some point in their lives in the Bradford League. In rugby league, Augustus John Ferdinand [Gus] Risman (1911–1994) coached Bradford Northern in retirement, and Clive Sullivan (1943–1985) had an unsuccessful trial with the club. The Harrogate schoolteacher, footballer, and soldier, Donald Simpson Bell, (1890–1916), awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in 1916, played football professionally for Bradford Park Avenue from 1913 to 1914. Ronald [Ron] Greenwood (1921–2006) played for Bradford Park Avenue for three seasons from 1946. The footballer and journalist Colin Campbell McKechnie Veitch (1881–1938) managed Bradford City for eighteen months from 1926 and Willie Watson (1920–2004) did so for two years from 1966.
HISTORIANS, ANTIQUARIANS, ARCHAEOLOGISTS
Benjamin Bartlet (1714–1787), numismatist and topographer, born in Bradford the son of bookseller and apothecary in a prominent position in the town, opposite the market cross at the bottom of Westgate, belonged to a Quaker family. His grandfather and father suffered the seizure of goods for absenting themselves from the parish church. John James (1811–1867), antiquary, born at West Witton, Wensleydale, had a minimal education before working at a lime kiln. He became clerk to a Bradford solicitor named Tolson, who encouraged him to compile The History and Topography of Bradford (1841). He edited the poems of John Nicholson (1790–1843), the Airedale poet. In 1857 he published a History of the Worsted Manufacture in England from the Earliest Times. Frederic Seebohm (1833–1912), historian and banker, was born at Hillside House, Bradford, the son of a wool merchant and a prominent and active minister of the Society of Friends, who had come to Bradford from Friedensthal, in the principality of Waldeck-Pyrmont. William Cunningham (1849–1919), economic historian and Church of England clergyman, served as an extension lecturer (1874–8) in Leeds, Bradford, and Liverpool, and teaching as many as 600 students per term. Henry de Beltgens Gibbins (1865–1907), economic historian, born at Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony, was educated at Bradford grammar school. He was killed by a fall from a train in the Thackley Tunnel between Leeds and Bradford. (John) Lawrence Le Breton Hammond (1872–1949), historian and journalist, was born at Drighlington, Yorkshire, the son of local rector, attended Bradford grammar school where, along with his friend and classmate Sir William Rothenstein, he earned a reputation as a fiery radical. Sir (Robert Eric) Mortimer Wheeler (1890–1976), archaeologist and broadcaster, born in Glasgow, the son of a journalist, grew up in Saltaire and nearby Shipley, attending Bradford grammar school. Geoffrey Barraclough (1908–1984), historian, born in Bradford, the son of a wool merchant, attended Bradford grammar school. Alan Louis Charles Bullock, Baron Bullock (1914–2004), historian and college head, born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, the son of a Unitarian minister who became minister at Chapel Lane, Bradford, in 1926, and secured a place for his son at Bradford grammar school. Sir James Clarke (Jim) Holt (1922–2014), historian and college head, born at Albert Avenue, Idle, near Bradford, the son of a schoolmaster, attended Bradford Grammar School, where he was taught history in the sixth form by two masters whom he revered, C. S. Hall and L. J. V. Shepherd.
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Helene Reynard [formerly Reinherz] (1875–1947), economist and college administrator, was born in Vienna, but her family emigrated to Bradford, where her father owned a woollen mill, and she was educated at Bradford Girls’ Grammar School. Ida Caroline Ward (1880–1949), phonetician and scholar of west African languages, born at Bradford, the daughter of a wool merchant, went to school in Bradford. Sir Henry Clay (1883–1954), economist, was born in Germany, where his father, a Bradford woollen manufacturer, was in business before returning to Yorkshire, where Clay went to Bradford grammar school. Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox (1914–2010), classical scholar and essayist, was born at Hollings Road, Manningham, Bradford, the son of a professional musician and jazz pianist. John William House (1919–1984), geographer, the son of a railway clerk, was born in Bradford, grew up at Lidget Green, in inner Bradford, and was educated at Bradford grammar school. Norman Crowther Hunt, Baron Crowther-Hunt (1920–1987), constitutional scholar and television and radio broadcaster, born at Bradford the son of a master butcher, was educated at Belle Vue high school, Bradford. (Ronald) Godfrey Lienhardt (1921–1993), anthropologist, born at Fernbank Road, Bradford, was the son of a textile merchant from Switzerland. Geoffrey Bownas (1923–2011), Japanese scholar, born at Yeadon, the son of a telephone engineer, attended Sandal School, Baildon (1928–33), where he was coached for scholarship examinations, enabling him to enter Bradford grammar school. Maurice Harry Peston, Baron Peston (1931–2016), economist, born in Stepney, London, was evacuated to Bradford in the early stages of the Second World War, attending Belle Vue Boys’ School.
LAW AND POLICE
Edward Hailstone (1818–1890), solicitor, was born in Bradford and qualified as a solicitor, succeeding to his father’s practice. He was churchwarden at Bradford parish church, where he stopped the supply of beer to the choir on Sunday, promoted the building of St George’s Hall, and helped to found the Bradford Festival Choral Society. William Thomas Shave Daniel (1806–1891), law reformer, born at Stapenhill, Derbyshire, was made county court judge for district 11, which straddled the Pennines and had its principal court at Bradford, where he made his home. He was one of the best-known of the county court judges. Sir Robert Peacock (1859–1926), police officer, joined the Bradford police force as a constable in 1878, gaining promotion to acting sergeant in 1881. Albert Pierrepoint (1905–1992), executioner, was born at Green End, Clayton, Bradford. His father was a clogger and executioner. Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (1907–1992), legal philosopher, born at Harrogate, Yorkshire, was to Bradford grammar school, where he enjoyed the good teaching and friendly companionship, and where he became head boy.
HEROISM
(Barbara) Jane Harrison (1945–1968), air steward, born at Kingsdale Crescent, Bradford, the daughter of a policeman, attended Greystones School, Bradford. In 1969 she was posthumously awarded the George Cross, having died attempting to rescue passengers from a burning aircraft in 1968. She is commemorated in a memorial window at Bradford City Hall.
BRADFORD’S DISTRICT
ADDINGHAM
William Langton, (1803–1881), banker, was born at Farfield, near Addingham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of a banker. His sister, Anne Langton, (1804–1893), artist and author, was also born at Addingham. Betty Lockwood, Baroness Lockwood (1924–2019), political organizer and public servant, was latterly resident at Addingham.
BAILDON
(James) Theodore Bent (1852–1897), traveller and antiquary, was born at Baildon, Yorkshire. (Dennis) Brian Close (1931–2015), cricketer and footballer, born at Rawdon, was latterly resident at Baildon. John Noel Buxton (1933–2009), computer scientist, was born at Shipley Hospital, to parents whose home was at Lucy Hall Drive, Baildon. His father worked for the Yorkshire Post. Buxton attended Bradford grammar school.
BIERLEY
Brewer Samuel (bap. 1669, d. 1743?), botanist, moved to Yorkshire in 1727, living initially at Bingley and later at North Bierley, near Bradford, close to his patron, Dr Richard Richardson. He died at North Bierley. George Stringer Bull (1799–1865), Church of England clergyman and social reformer, born in Essex the son of a clergyman, was perpetual curate of Byerley (Bierley), near Bradford, from 1826 until 1839. Known as ‘Parson Bull of Byerley’, he allied himself with Michael Sadler, Richard Oastler, and John Wood in the movement to reduce the working hours of children and young people and earned the nickname ‘the Ten Hours Parson’.
BINGLEY
Abraham Shackleton (1696–1771), schoolmaster, was born at Shackleton House, Harden, near Bingley, Yorkshire, the son of a yeoman farmer who had joined the Society of Friends.
William Twiss (1744/5–1827), military engineer, bought a home at Myrtle Grove, Bingley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire after his retirement in 1810. He gave £340 to Bingley national school in 1814, employed eight gardeners, and was carried about town in a sedan by two liveried servants. He died at Harden Grange and was buried in the parish church of All Saints, Bingley, where a memorial tablet was placed.
John Nicholson (1790–1843), poet, known as the Airedale Poet, born at Weardley, near Harewood, in Wharfedale, son of a wool-sorter employed at a mill at Eldwick, near Bingley, in Airedale. He attended Bingley grammar school and was then apprenticed as a wool-sorter in the mill at Eldwick. In 1818 he was employed as a wool-sorter at Shipley Fields Mill, and then similar work at Harden Beck, near Bingley. His play The Siege of Bradford (1821), performed in Bradford, at Thompson’s Theatre, told the story of Bradford’s part in the civil war. His best-known long poem, Airedale in Ancient Times, was published in 1825. From 1833 he was employed in the warehouse of Titus Salt at Bradford, where he lived in Mill Street. He died while attempting to cross the River Aire by the stepping stones above Shipley. His funeral was held at Bingley parish church. Benjamin Gott (1762–1840), cloth merchant and manufacturer, born at Woodhall, Calverley, near Leeds, was educated at Bingley grammar school and then, in 1780, apprenticed with the Leeds merchant house of Wormald and Fountaine. George Busk (1807–1886), surgeon and naturalist, born in St Petersburg, the son of a merchant, was educated at Dr Hartley’s school, Bingley. Walter Butler Cheadle (1835–1910), physician, born at Colne, Lancashire, the son of the vicar, was educated at Bingley grammar school. Helen Marion Wodehouse (1880–1964), philosopher and college head, accepted in 1911 the post of principal of the new teacher training college at Bingley, where she battled against those who argued that teacher training was unnecessary. Chrystabel Prudence Goldsmith Procter, (1894–1982), horticulturist, moved in 1925 to a post at Bingley Training College in Yorkshire, where she spent seven years and learned to cope with land that was stony and exposed. Frank William Walbank (1909–2008), ancient historian, born at Cleveland Terrace, Bingley, the son of an elementary schoolmaster, proceeded, on scholarships, to Bradford Grammar School. Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001), astronomer, was born at Milnerfield Villas, Gilstead, a village on the edge of the moors above the town of Bingley. His father was a woollen rag merchant and his mother was a teacher. As a small boy he walked six miles a day to school in Eldwick, from where he gained a place at Bingley grammar school.
BURLEY IN WHARFEDALE
Frances Egerton Arnold- Forster (1857–1921), ecclesiastical historian, born in India, was orphaned. She and her siblings were adopted and brought up by their maternal aunt, Jane Martha Arnold, daughter of Thomas Arnold, and her husband, the Bradford manufacturer and politician W. E. Forster, at their home at Burley in Wharfedale. Sir (John) William Watson (1858–1935), poet and literary critic, born at Peel Place, Burley in Wharfedale, Yorkshire, was the son of a master grocer.
COTTINGLEY
William Wickham, (1761–1840), politician, diplomatist, and founder of a British foreign secret service, was born in October 1761 at Cottingley. His mother was daughter and heir of William Lamplugh of Cottingley, vicar of Dewsbury, Yorkshire. William Ferrand [formerly Busfeild] (1809–1889), politician, was born on 26 April 1809 at Cottingley Bridge, near Bingley. He was educated at Bingley grammar school and was articled to solicitors at Bradford and Keighley. When in 1837 Busfeild’s mother inherited her brother’s considerable property, he became her manager, residing at Harden Grange, Cottingley. He supported the factory reform movement and helped to establish a short time committee at Bradford. He died at St Ives, near Bingley, and was buried at Bingley church. James Allan Mackereth (1871–1948), poet and novelist, born in Ambleside, Westmorland, was employed as a banker’s clerk at the Bradford Old Bank, and lived in the suburb of Manningham. Following his marriage, he settled at Stocka House on the moorland periphery of Cottingley in the parish of Bingley. He later became well-known locally for his homage To a Great City (1934), in which he referred to his early years in banking in Bradford and contrasted the industrial city with its rural periphery. He was dubbed ‘the bard of Cottingley’. Frances Griffiths (1907–1986), photographer, was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, the daughter of a soldier, and during the First World War lived in in Cottingley, on the outskirts of Bradford with the family of her cousin Elsie Wright (1901–1988). Their fairy photographs, made as a joke, became a sensation (‘the Cottingley fairies’), and attracted the attention of those interested in the paranormal.
HAWORTH
Robert Towne (1592/3?–1664), clergyman and ejected minister, had moved to Haworth by 1655, but he was ejected from the living in 1662. He continued to minister to a dissenting congregation there until his death; he was buried at Haworth. He owned a small estate in Addingham.
William Grimshaw (1708–1763), Church of England clergyman, was appointed perpetual curate of Haworth in 1742, a chapelry of ease in the parish of Bradford, and remained at Haworth until his death. His energetic preaching set off a noisy revival, and he became a local legend. Echoes of his words can be found in the Brontë novels. Patrick Brontë [formerly Prunty, Brunty], (1777–1861), Church of England clergyman and author, was in 1815 appointed perpetual curate of Thornton, near Bradford, where his three novelist daughters and his son were born. In 1820 the family moved to Haworth, where his surviving children spent most of their lives: Charlotte Brontë [married name Nicholls; pseud. Currer Bell] (1816–1855), novelist; (Patrick) Branwell Brontë (1817–1848), writer and painter; Emily Jane Brontë [pseud. Ellis Bell] (1818–1848), novelist and poet; Anne Brontë, [pseud. Acton Bell] (1820–1849), novelist and poet. Sir Arthur Newsholme (1857–1943), public health official and epidemiologist, was born in Haworth, the son of a wool stapler or merchant. His father had been Patrick Brontë’s churchwarden. Newsholme attended a Wesleyan Sunday school and a free grammar school in Haworth before spending a year at Keighley grammar school. Winifred Eveleen Gérin [née Bourne; other married name Lock] (1901–1981), biographer, born in Hamburg, Germany, moved to Haworth in 1955, and bought a house on the edge of the Haworth Moor within sight of the Brontë parsonage and began her lifelong work on the Brontës. Victor Robert [Bob] Barclay (1911–1987), musician and bandleader, moved away from Leeds to live in Haworth. Sir Peter Lewis Gregson (1936–2015), civil servant, was born at Brockleigh, Mill Hill, Haworth, Yorkshire, the son of a teacher in the local elementary school.
IDLE
William Vint (1768–1834), Congregational minister, was appointed minister at Idle in Yorkshire in 1790 and began teaching theology students there. An academy was founded at Idle in 1800, with Vint, as sole tutor, and was successful, being renamed the Airedale Independent College in 1826, directed by Vint until his last illness, after which the college moved to Undercliffe, near Bradford. He died in Idle and was buried in the graveyard of his chapel. Among the students who attended Vint’s academy at Idle was James Parsons, (1799–1877), Congregational minister, born in Leeds. Joseph Wright (1855–1930), philologist and dialectologist, born at Park Hill, Thackley, in the township of Idle, near Bradford, the son of a woollen cloth weaver and quarryman, started work aged six at nearby Windhill, leading a donkey-cart, and aged seven began work at Titus Salt’s mill near Shipley, before obtaining work as a wool-sorter at Bingley, studying at night school and the mechanics’ institute at Bradford. He later moved to Oxford, where he held a professorship and completed the English Dialect Dictionary. Sir Robert Yewdall Jennings (1913–2004), jurist, international lawyer, and judge, was born at Sherborne Villas, Town Lane, Idle, near Bradford, Yorkshire. His mother was a mill worker, and his father worked for a small company making paper tubes for wrapping yarn. Sir James Clarke (Jim) Holt (1922–2014), historian and college head, born at Albert Avenue, Idle, Yorkshire, the son of a schoolmaster, attended Bradford Grammar School.
ILKLEY
Thomas Fairfax, first Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1560–1640), diplomat, soldier, and horse breeder, built a mansion house at Denton, near Ilkley, in Wharfedale, where he could pursue his interest in horses and horsemanship: his stud at Denton was one of the best in the country. Richard Huddleston [Hudleston], (1583–1655), Benedictine monk, died at Stockeld Park, Ilkley, Yorkshire, the seat of the Middletons. Sir John Lowther, second baronet (bap. 1642, d. 1706), politician and industrialist, orphaned in infancy and in the guardianship of trustees, was educated at a school in Ilkley. Sir Henry Ibbetson, first baronet (1708–1761), cloth merchant, was born in Leeds, a member of a merchant dynasty, exporting West Riding cloth. In 1717 he purchased the 2,000-acre Denton Hall estate, near Ilkley, from the Fairfax family. John Smedley (1803–1874), hydropathy practitioner and Free Methodist leader, devoted his life to promoting hydropathy after being restored to health at Dr MacLeod’s hydropathic establishment at Ben Rhydding, near Ilkley. Thomas Bowman Stephenson (1839–1912), Wesleyan Methodist minister and founder of the National Children’s Home and Orphanage, London, became superintendent minister at Ilkley, whereupon the training of deaconesses was also moved there, and he became warden of the Deaconess Institute. Jasper Whitfield Snowdon, (1844–1885), bell-ringer and author, was born at Ilkley, Yorkshire, son of the vicar of Ilkley. He was buried at Ilkley, where a memorial window was erected in his memory. William Harbutt Dawson (1860–1948), journalist and civil servant, attended the Skipton grammar school and Ilkley College before working for his father’s paper, which became the West Yorkshire Pioneer. Eva Margaret Gilpin [married name Sadler] (1868–1940), headmistress and educationist, went to Ilkley in 1892 as governess to her Quaker cousins, William and Anna Harvey of Ilkley. Among the guests of the Harveys was the educationist Michael Edward Sadler who brought his son, Michael Thomas Harvey Sadler (later Sadleir), the future bibliographer and novelist, to live with the Harvey family and be placed under the care of Eva Gilpin during term time. William Stewart Arnold (1882–1953), exponent of modern technical education in the Middle East and painter, born in Ilkley, was trained at Bradford Technical College and the Royal College of Art, and was employed as a textile designer in Bradford until 1911. Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe [formerly Muff], (1882–1974), architect, born at Sunny Bank, Ilkley, Yorkshire, the son of a linen draper, was educated at Wharfedale School, Ilkley. Alice Brook Jenkins [née Glyde] (1886–1967), abortion campaigner, was born in Church Street, Ilkley, Yorkshire, to a single mother and servant. Her five siblings became involved in radical politics, her brother as an Independent Labour Party alderman and her four sisters in the suffragette movement. She won a scholarship to a grammar school in Yorkshire but could not afford to go to university, and so she pursued her education as a pupil-teacher, combining study with work, and moved to Ealing, west London. Frances Beatrice Bradfield, (1895–1967), aeronautical engineer, born in Leicester, the daughter of a Wesleyan minister, spent some of her early life in Ilkley, where her father was appointed in 1907 as warden of the Wesley Deaconess Institute and where she attended a high school in Burley in Wharfedale. Dorothy Hincksman Farrar (1899–1987), Methodist deaconess and preacher, born in Halifax, graduated from London University, and then spent time at the Wesley Deaconess College at Ilkley, the only college in Great Britain engaged exclusively in training full-time women workers for the Methodist church, and there she was challenged to preach by the warden. John Gordon Dower (1900–1947), architect and promoter of national parks, was born at Ashburn Place, Ilkley. His father was a steel merchant in Leeds and a Methodist lay preacher. He was a pupil at Ghyll Royd preparatory school, Ilkley. Daphne Adrianna Steele (1927–2004), nurse and midwife, born on the Essequibo coast of British Guiana (from 1966, Guyana), was appointed in 1964 matron at St Winifred’s Maternity Home in Ilkley, the first Black person appointed a matron of any NHS hospital. She lived in Ilkley for more than forty years and was an active member of the congregation at Christchurch Methodist Church in Ilkley. Evelyn Florence Kark [née Gordine; known as Lucie Clayton] (1928–1997), college head, was educated in the north London suburb of Queensbury, before being evacuated to Ilkley, Yorkshire, during the Second World War.
Several people in the ODNB are recorded as moving to Ilkley in retirement or later life: William George Victor [Bill] Balchin (1916–2007), geographer, moved in retirement in 1978 to Ilkley; Dame Fanny Waterman (1920–2020), pianist, piano teacher, and co-founder of the Leeds International Piano Competition, spent her last months at a residential home in Ilkley; Patricia [Pat] Kirkwood (1921–2007), actress and singer, latterly married a former president of the Bradford and Bingley Building Society, and made her home at Ilkley; Donald Leighton Baverstock (1924–1995), television producer and executive, associated with the long-running soap opera, Emmerdale Farm, was buried at Ilkley cemetery; Thomas [Tom] Jackson (1925–2003), trade unionist, moved to Ilkley in retirement, set up a small antiquarian bookselling, and chaired the Ilkley Literature Festival; Willis Edward Hall (1929–2005), playwright, born at Hunslet, Leeds, and latterly settled at Ghyll Mews, Ilkley. John Arthur Cunliffe (1933–2018), children’s writer and actor, spent his later life in Ilkley; Sir David Charles Jones (1943–2019), businessman, a board member of the supermarket chain Morrisons, moved in retirement to Langbar Road, Ilkley, near Ilkley Golf Club; Delia Davin (1944–2016), China scholar, was latterly resident in Eaton Road, Ilkley.
A composer from Canterbury, Kent, Thomas Clark (bap. 1775, d. 1859), was responsible for the tune, 'Cranbrook', originally set to a sacred text, but later sung to the Yorkshire words 'On Ilkla Moor baht 'at'.
KEIGHLEY
Miles Gale (1647–1721), antiquary and Church of England clergyman, born at Farnley Hall, near Otley, in Yorkshire, became the rector of Keighley in 1680, a post he held for forty-one years, and was a trustee of the new school in Keighley, the foundations of which were laid in 1716. His disputes with his fellow trustees were narrated in his 'History of the free school in Kighley' (1713). John Jackson, (1729/30–1806), actor and theatre manager, was possibly born in Keighley, Yorkshire, where his father, a Church of England clergyman, had his principal living. George Nicholson (1760–1825), printer, was born in Keighley into a family of printers, and in 1781 started a business in Bradford. Richard Longden Hattersley (1820–1900), manufacturer of textile machinery, born at Keighley the son of a textile machine maker, was educated at a private school in Keighley, and at Mr Turley’s West House, Yeadon, near Leeds, before starting work, at the age of fifteen, as an apprentice in his father’s business. As a major employer in Keighley, Hattersley played a significant role in the affairs of the town. He held a variety of civic offices between 1869 and 1894, including being elected as mayor in 1883. Stephen Parkinson (1823–1889), mathematician, was born at Keighley, the son of a land agent. John Wareing Bardsley (1835–1904), bishop of Carlisle, was born at Keighley, the son of a clergyman. John Tiplady Carrodus (1836–1895), violinist, born at Braithwaite, near Keighley, son of a barber, had his first lessons on the violin from his father and gave a concert at Keighley in 1845. He made appearances at the Bradford Festival (1853; 1856; 1859), and in 1895, was presented with the freedom of Keighley in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of his first public appearance there. Sir Prince Smith, first baronet (1840–1922), worsted machinery manufacturer, born at Keighley, entered the family business at Waggon Fold, Keighley. Sir Swire Smith, (1842–1918), promoter of technical education, born at Keighley, Yorkshire, was educated at the local national school and at Wesley College, Sheffield, before serving an apprenticeship with a Keighley worsted manufacturer. By the age of twenty he was in business on his own account. Concerned to promote technical education, he promoted the new Keighley trade school council and the Mechanics’ Institute. Keighley was his permanent residence, and he was elected MP for the Keighley division in 1915. Philip Snowden, Viscount Snowden (1864–1937), politician, born near Cowling in the Yorkshire Pennines, the son of a weaver, he was chosen as parliamentary candidate of the ILP at Keighley in 1895, became editor of the Keighley Labour Journal in 1898, and was elected a member of Keighley school board from 1899. Sir Abraham [Abe] Bailey, first baronet (1864–1940), financier and politician in South Africa, born at Cradock, Cape Colony, the son of a shopkeeper from Keighley, was educated in England at the Keighley trade and grammar School and worked for a while in a textile firm. George James Wardle, (1865–1947), trade union leader and politician, born in Derbyshire, the son of a coal miner, moved at a young age to Keighley where, for five years to the age of thirteen, he worked as a half-timer yet managed to excel at his Wesleyan Methodist school. He became involved in ILP politics in Keighley, before moving to London. Alfred Fowler, (1868–1940), astrophysicist, whose father was employed in a mill, attended two elementary schools in Keighley and then entered the Keighley trade and grammar school in 1880, from where he was awarded a Devonshire exhibition to the Normal School of Science (later absorbed into the Imperial College of Science and Technology) at South Kensington, becoming, at the age of fourteen, probably the youngest student ever admitted there. Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (1868–1945), orientalist, was born at Keighley, Yorkshire, the son of a surgeon. Leonard James Spencer (1870–1959), mineralogist and geologist, the son of a schoolmaster, was educated at Keighley trade and grammar school and from the age of thirteen at Bradford Technical College where his father was headmaster of the day school department. Albert Arthur [Alf] Purcell (1872–1935), trade unionist and socialist, born in London to Irish parents, spent much of his childhood in Keighley, where he received an elementary education and began his first job, as a half-timer in a woollen mill, at the age of nine. Gordon Bottomley (1874–1948), poet and playwright, born at Eboracum Street, Keighley, Yorkshire, the son of a cashier at a worsted mill, was educated at Keighley grammar school, and began work as a junior bank clerk. Jesse Cooper Dawes (1878–1955), sanitary inspector, was appointed in 1911 chief sanitary inspector and cleansing superintendent at Keighley, Yorkshire, a position he held for the next ten years and where he established a reputation for his work in slum clearance and salvage recovery. Margaret Wintringham [née Longbottom], (1879–1955), politician, born at Oldfield, Keighley, the daughter of a schoolmaster, was educated at Keighley Girls’ Grammar School. Ethel Snowden [née Annakin], (1881–1951), socialist, suffragist, and peace campaigner, was a schoolteacher and member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in Leeds. She gave her first socialist lecture to the Keighley Labour Institute in 1903, marking the beginning of nearly two decades of propaganda work as a speaker and a writer for socialism, women’s suffrage, and peace. John Rupert Firth (1890–1960), linguistic scholar, born at Keighley, the son of a bookkeeper, was educated at Keighley grammar school and the University of Leeds. Sir John Brown Bolton (1902–1980), politician in the Isle of Man and accountant, was educated at Keighley trade and grammar school, and started training as an accountant in Keighley. Geoffrey Tillotson (1905–1969), literary scholar, attended Keighley trade and grammar school. Eric Treacy (1907–1978), bishop of Wakefield and railway photographer, was rector of Keighley. (Elizabeth) Mary Wilkinson (1909–2001), German scholar, was born at Belgrave Road, Keighley, the daughter of a post office overseer. John Charles Hatch, Baron Hatch of Lusby (1917–1992), author and politician, the son of a temperance advocate and a headmistress, was brought up in Yorkshire, and his early education was at Keighley Boys’ Grammar School. Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (1921–2016), historian, university administrator, and college head, born at Emily Street, Keighley, where his parents were running a greengrocer’s. He won a scholarship to Keighley Grammar School. Sir Wilfred Halliday [Bill] Cockcroft (1923–1999), mathematician, educationist and university administrator, born at Holden House Nursing Home, Oakworth, near Keighley, the son of a plumber in the Keighley building trade, was educated at Keighley Boys’ Grammar School where he launched on a career in mathematics by George (Dick) Cadman, the senior mathematics master at the grammar school for many years. David William Dewhirst (1926–2012), astronomer and historian of astronomy, born at Silver Grove, Utley, near Keighley, the son of a solicitor, attended Keighley Boys’ Grammar School. William Reginald Mitchell (Bill or W. R.) (1928–2015), journalist and author, born at Skipton, the son of a cotton warp dresser, completed his education at Keighley College of Commerce, leaving at the age of fifteen to enter the world of journalism. He was a supporter of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. Claire Berenice Rayner [née Berkovitch] (1931–2010), writer, broadcaster, and social campaigner, born in Stepney, London, won a scholarship to the City of London Girls’ School, which had moved from war-torn London to Keighley in Yorkshire. Reginald Bernard John [Reg] Gadney (1941–2018), novelist, screenwriter, and painter, was born at Malsis Hall preparatory school, Cross Hills, near Keighley, the son of the school’s headmaster. David Godfrey Pettifor (1945–2017), theoretical physicist, was born at the Victoria Hospital in Keighley, Yorkshire, the son of an engineer and a shorthand typist.
MENSTON
Eric Mowbray Knight [pseud. Richard Hallas] (1897–1943), author and journalist, was born in Menston, the son of a Quaker wholesale jeweller.
Sir Clifford George Jarrett (1909–1995), civil servant, moved in 1976 from Chislehurst to Derry Hill, Menston, near Ilkley, where he died.
Horniblow [married name Dalton], (Emilie) Hilda (1886–1950), chief controller of Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps and educationist, settled in later life at Menston-in-Wharfedale, where she died. Sir Clifford George Jarrett (1909–1995), civil servant, moved in retirement from Chislehurst, Kent, to Derry Hill, Menston, near Ilkley.
OXENHOPE
Sir Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979), historian, was born at Oxenhope, the son of the chief clerk at a Keighley woollen mill. He was educated at Keighley trade and grammar school. Marion Greenwood Bidder [née Marion Greenwood] (1862–1932), physiologist, born in Myton, Hull, daughter of a shipping agent and Baptist lay preacher, moved to Oxenhope, Yorkshire, when she was seven, and attended Bradford Girls’ Grammar School as one of its first pupils.
QUEENSBURY
William Foster (1821–1884), worsted manufacturer and merchant, born at Low Fold, Clayton, Queenshead (later Queensbury), near Bradford, Yorkshire, the son of a worsted cloth merchant, was educated at the nonconformist academy of Joseph Hinchliffe at Horton House, Bradford. He joined his father at Prospect House, Queensbury, in his successful business in the domestic worsted trade. From a warehouse adjoining Prospect House, pieces of worsted cloth, woven in the cottages of local hand-loom weavers, were stored before their sale at the piece halls of Bradford or Halifax.
SALTAIRE
Salt, Sir Titus, first baronet (1803–1876), textile manufacturer and politician, born at Morley, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, was the son of a wool stapler who set up in business in Bradford. Salt joined his father’s firm and worked on overcoming the technical difficulties of producing mixed fabrics. He came to dominate the alpaca market, and had five mills in the Bradford area. At mid-century he concentrated production at a new mill beside the river Aire, outside Bradford, on a site he named Saltaire, and also constructed a model village to house the workers. He was buried in the Congregational church at Saltaire. The Leeds poet Eliza Craven Green, [real name Elizabeth Green, née Craven] (1803–1866), collected and edited in 1862 the poems of James Waddington (the ‘bard of Saltaire’), a wool sorter in Salt’s employment, who had been betrothed to Green’s daughter before his early death. Sir James Roberts, first baronet (1848–1935), mill owner and benefactor, born at Lane Ends, Oakworth, near Haworth, Yorkshire, was the son of a weaver from Harden, near Bingley, Yorkshire. When Salt’s Mill at Saltaire went into liquidation in 1892, Roberts, with partners, bought the premises and the village, and subsequently bought out the other partners. He gifted the park in Saltaire to the local council in 1920. Roberts also played a prominent role in the conversion of the Brontës’ former home into a museum of international standing, giving £3,000 to purchase the parsonage for the Brontë Society. Arthur Raistrick (1896–1991), industrial archaeologist and pacifist, was born in Saltaire, Yorkshire, the son of an engineer. His mother and several aunts and uncles were employed in Titus Salt’s mill. His father was a founder member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), formed in nearby Bradford. He was educated at Drummond Road elementary school in Shipley, and won a scholarship to Bradford grammar school. He left at the age of sixteen to become an engineering apprentice, continuing his education at evening classes. James Charles [Jim] Laker (1922–1986), cricketer, born at Frizinghall, Bradford, the son of a stonemason and a schoolteacher, was educated at Salts high school, Saltaire, where, as a schoolboy, he was something of a batsman and quick bowler. Cecil Antonio [Tony] Richardson (1928–1991), theatre and film director, was born at Bingley Road, Saltaire, Shipley, the son of a pharmacist. Jonathan Silver (1949–1997), businessman and gallery owner, born in Bradford, was educated at the University of Leeds, where he studied textiles and art history. He established a chain of men’s clothes shops with headquarters in Bradford, and began to purchase redundant mill buildings in Yorkshire. In 1987 he bought Salts Mill in Saltaire, which had closed in 1986 and was in danger of demolition, developing it as an arts and business centre, notable for exhibitions of work by the Bradford-born painter David Hockney. In 2001 Saltaire was designated a UNESCO world heritage site.
SHIPLEY
Richard Goldsbrough (1821–1886), wool broker, born at Shipley the son of a butcher, was apprenticed for seven years at the age of fourteen to John and Lupton Dawson, wool staplers of Bradford, where he set up in business. He emigrated to Australia in 1847, where he developed wool exports. Amelia Edith Barr [née Huddleston], (1831–1919), novelist, the daughter of a Methodist minister, she spent her early childhood in Shipley. Peter Taylor Forsyth (1848–1921), Congregational minister, was ordained minister at the Congregational church in Shipley, in 1876. Concemore Thomas Thwaites [Charlie] Cramp (1876–1933), trade unionist, was employed by the Midland Railway, initially as a platform porter at Shipley. Sir Douglas Mawson (1882–1958), scientist and explorer in Antarctica, was born at Shipley. Ruby Constance Annie Ferguson [née Ashby] (1899–1966), novelist and children’s author, born at Hebden Bridge, the daughter of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, spent part of her childhood in Shipley, from where she was educated at Bradford Girls’ Grammar School. Victor Robert [Bob] Barclay (1911–1987), musician and bandleader, moved to Shipley, Yorkshire, and played with the brass band of Salt’s (Saltaire) Ltd. Michael Bernard Wharton (1913–2006), satirical journalist, was born at Glenhurst Road, Shipley, the son of a woollen stuff merchant from a family of German-Jewish origin, and attended Bradford grammar school. William Gaskill (1930–2016), theatre director, born at Highfield Terrace, Shipley, was educated at Salt High School, Shipley, where his father was a teacher, and later headmaster. He and his fellow student, Tony Richardson, attended the classes run by Esmé Church at the Bradford Civic Playhouse.
STEETON
Robert Fairfax (1666–1725), naval officer, baptized at Steeton Chapel, was the son of a landowner at Steeton and Newton Kyme.
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This month’s update to the ODNB also adds portrait likenesses to eleven biographies connected with Bradford and West Yorkshire: Sir Edward Baines (1800–1890), journalist, politician, and educationist; Gordon Bottomley (1874–1948), poet and playwright; Anne Brontë [pseud. Acton Bell] (1820–1849), novelist and poet; Emily Jane Brontë [pseud. Ellis Bell] (1818–1848), novelist and poet; Sir Wilfred Halliday [Bill] Cockcroft (1923–1999), mathematician, educationist, and university administrator; Richard Ernst Eurich (1903–1992), painter; Frances Griffiths (1907–1986), photographer; Richard Longden Hattersley (1820–1900), manufacturer of textile machinery; Sir Isaac Holden, first baronet (1807–1897), inventor of a wool-combing machine, entrepreneur, and politician; Alfred Illingworth (1827–1907), worsted spinner and politician; and Sir Arthur Newsholme, (1857–1943), public health official and epidemiologist.
The Oxford DNB is updated regularly throughout the year, giving you access to the most up-to-date and accurate information available.
Discover a full list of entries added this year.
