Yorkshire Grit

It’s Yorkshire Day on Tuesday, 1st August, on which we celebrate all that is wonderful about this unique place and the communities and individuals who have worked so hard to make it the renowned county that it is.

You will of course have heard of some of the big names such as the Brontës, Anne Lister, Lady Ann Clifford, Amy Johnson, Harold Wilson, William Wilberforce, John Smeaton, Fred Hoyle but there are many others who are less well known who were/are equally possessed of wide ranging talents, skills and achievements across the arts, politics, science and industry who should be included when we pause to think of Yorkshire endeavour down the ages.

Consequently, rather than present the biography of one person, we thought that we would bookmark sites and publications for your own exploration and subject interests, we hope you find this interesting and while you may not agree with some of the choices, maybe try to write your own definitive list, based on your own interests.

First up is a study of three Yorkshire women highlighted by Catherine Warr, Engagement Fellow for the British Association of Local History: Catimandua, Queen of the Brigantes’ tribe; Betty Beecroft, pioneering industrial businesswoman in the 18th Century and Flora Sands who was the only British woman to serve during the First World War as a soldier – in the Serbian army.

https://www.balh.org.uk/blog-three-important-yorkshire-women-who-aren-t-the-brontes-2022-03-07

Catimandua, Queen of the Brigantes’ tribe

The Queen’s Award winning volunteer group Men of Worth have been putting local servicemen and women on their website for some years now. For a more close to home biographical search, please follow this link: http://www.menofworth.com/

For more women in history, check out the Women’s History Network site. This is a national association and charity for the promotion of women’s history and indeed for the encouragement of everyone interested in it. Members now include working historians, researchers, independent scholars and many others who believe in giving women their voice within the pages of history.

https://womenshistorynetwork.org/tag/west-yorkshire/

“Yorkshire Greats” is a more traditional list with online biographical access to some on the site below but for a full list go no further than Bradford Library bookshelves for copies of this book and for full details of John Ingram’s chosen fifty “Yorkshire Greats” .https://www.biographyonline.net/people/great-yorkshire-people.html

The Bradford Antiquary series, The Journal of the Bradford Historical and Antiquarian Society 1878-2023 is held in our Local Studies Libraries and there are many very interesting, well researched articles on people even closer to home, such as Hiram Craven, who solved the engineering obstacles of a bridge over the Ouse and built York’s Ouse Bridge, walking from Oakworth to York every day with his workmen to do it, see, “A Remarkable Family: The Cravens of Cullingworth” by Angela Holmes, (3rd Series, No. 11, p65).

Check out their searchable database for articles that may interest you for when you come into the library.: https://www.bradfordhistorical.org.uk

If you would like to direct your interests specifically towards art, look no further than Colin Neville’s wonderful web site, Not Just Hockney, https://www.notjusthockney.info/ where he looks into the local lives of artists of the past and very much of the present with full illustrations. Colin has published a number of beautifully produced books about artists of the Bradford District and these are available for loan and reference within Bradford Libraries. We now have a full collection, including those pictured.

If the sciences are more your bag, then please take a look at the Yorkshire Philosophical Society pages. Here in a series of short, noted biographical articles, members of the Society highlight some of the scientists and innovators from the region, with searchable free access to these articles, such as the one on the remarkable May Sybil Leslie, an English chemist born in Woodlesford, Yorkshire.
https://www.ypsyork.org/resources/yorkshire-scientists-and-innovators/

For those of you wanting to know specifically about brave influencers of the past in the LGBTQ community, Historic England have established an ongoing project that highlights the history of persons and places including in Yorkshire, that you may find of interest:

https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/lgbtq-heritage-project/