It was with great sadness that Keighley Library staff heard of the death of Steven Wood early Monday morning, 13^th July.

Steve, as he was known to us, was a great friend of the library and of its staff. As a well-known local historian and authority on the history of the Haworth area, he often visited the library for research purposes. He gave freely of his time and expertise when we had any particularly challenging enquiries and helped not only staff but many other researchers and even appeared on television programmes about the Brontës in Haworth.

 

Only recently, Steve helped library staff in the production of the Brontë trail booklet around Keighley, when we tried to work out the different routes the Brontës walked from Haworth to Keighley.  Some staff can also fondly recall a legendary winter ramble with him years ago and being thoroughly informed by him about the history and topography of the Haworth area, including water courses, so that by the end of the walk, it wasn’t just a drink that we hurried to the pub for on such a cold day.

Steve became a regular library volunteer, his work digitising the library’s archive collections on the Haworth area are of immense value. Always happy to share his research with us, his copies of databases, images and information were regularly deposited with the library as he kept abreast of developing digital technology from hard copy transcriptions of Haworth Parish registers to image indexes and maps and plans on CD.

Steve’s published works continue to be an invaluable source of information on Haworth and its locality and it’s a relief to note that he managed to complete his history of Haworth Parish Church that was a project he had set his heart on and his scholarship as an historian will be well showcased on publication. We look forward to adding this history to our library and to his collection of many other fine works here.

We shall miss our friend and chats with him about his other passion – books and book fairs that he used to visit. Steve was a regular bibliophile and knew such a lot on this subject that, again, he was happy to share with us. On a lighter note, he had a lovely sense of humour and would send us the occasional funny cartoon about having too many books in the house (like one or two staff here) and about libraries generally. At Christmas, he would shop for chocolate goodies and never fail to bring some in for a tea break. Steve was a lovely and very accomplished gentleman, generous with his time and knowledge, and we shall continue to miss him very much.

Keighley Local Studies Team