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foundlings Genealogy Halifax Huddersfield Leeds West Riding

The Faux Foundling

One for the genealogists today so you might want to look away now if you’re not into this stuff! This is a blog post I have tried to start, many times. And given up on. Due to its complexity. So here it is – finally –  the  lengthy (sorry) story of how we finally broke […]

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antique textiles Halifax Huddersfield Leeds

“Upto My Saddle In Luddite Blood”

202 years ago this month, the show trial of a handful of Luddites ended, and men were hung at York Castle after a ‘Special Commission’ at York Assizes. They built the scaffold unusually high, so the crowd of thousands could see the men die, like a farmer hangs a few crows pour encourager les autres. […]

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antique textiles Halifax Hand spinning History West Riding

Pop Goes The Weasel

  ‘Yarnmaker’ No 18 is just out, and with it a piece I did about Great Wheels .   On a Ravelry thread in the Yarnmaker Group this week, someone referred to this picture, (above) and asked what the elderly lady was doing. The answer is… that is a click  or clock reel. AKA “weasel”. […]

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antique textiles Halifax Hand spinning History Huddersfield local history Minor's Head

“You’re Doing It (Even More) Wrong!” or How The Great Wheel Survived

I’ve hesitated about writing this post. In the same way I hesitate about commenting on YouTube videos that claim to be showing a certain spinning technique – and aren’t. But great wheels are one of my ‘things’. And I couldn’t bear to see inaccuracies stand as ‘facts’. So in the spirit of preserving this craft […]

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antique textiles Halifax handspinning History Huddersfield Textile Arts West Riding

Magenta Divine

They say “blood will out”, and so it seems to have proved. We broke the last brick wall in my family tree a few months back. Names included:  Lister, Smith, Dawson and Crabtree;  a long line of wool weavers, clothiers, and mill-owners in Longwood, near Huddersfield, and in Halifax.  My surname should have been the […]

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Genealogy Halifax Hand spinning History Huddersfield Leeds local history

White Cloth, Mixed Cloth, and High Horses

Writing of Leeds’ White and Mixed Cloth Halls, in 1814, Seacroft man George Walker said: “They are both open every Tuesday and Saturday morning for one hour; in which very limited time all the business is transacted. The cloth is arranged on low wooden stands; the manufacturer behind it, and the merchant or buyer passes […]

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Halifax handspinning History Huddersfield Leeds local history Textile Arts West Riding

“Those infatuated creatures calling themselves Luddites”

“A tribute to the merit of Captain Raynes, of the Stirlingshire militia,  was paid on the 4th … as an acknowledgement of … his indefatigable and unabated zeal in bringing to justice a number of those infatuated creatures calling themselves Luddites.” [Caledonian Mercury, Monday, November 30th, 1812]. In 1812, Yorkshire became the fulcrum of a […]