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 […]
Category: Halifax
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. […]
‘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”. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
PENELOPE HEMINGWAY 