Old Job Senior, the Rumbold’s Moor Hermit. An account of his Eccentricities & Remarkable Life. Printed and published by Thomas Harrison, Queen Street, Bingley. c.1880. 14 pages. No author is given. The account includes a verse ‘Elegy by Silas Cryer. (Reference: JND 116/4)

Old Job is dead, that droll old man,

   We ne’er shall see him more;

He used to wear a drab old coat.

   With buttons and bands before.

A low crowned hat, with brim much torn,

   To keep his old head warm;

His clogs were made of blocks of wood;

   His stockings straw and yarn.

So opens this account of Old Joe Senior, the Hermit of Rumbold’s Moor. The poem continues with another seven verses describing Job’s ragged appearance.  Here we content ourselves with the accompanying engraving, which is graphic enough!

            Job was not always so scruffy, or a hermit. “When young, he was a good-looking and spruce young man, employed amongst the famers in the neighbourhood, driving the plowing team, &c, and afterwards became a regular farm servant about Ilkley.”

            He later went to Whitkirk, near Leeds, where he courted a young woman, the result of which he became a father. The Parish authorities made him ‘pay the smart’, which cleared him out of money. The young woman later refused to have anything to do with him, probably because Job “… had already acquired indifferent habits, losing his sprightliness of appearance, and becoming careless and unsteady.” He returned to Ilkley, and continued as a farm labourer, and in winter, wool combing.

[He later] became acquainted with an old widow, living alone in a cottage near Coldstone Beck, Burley Wood Head, on the borders of Rumbold’s Moor … her little cottage stood within a small garden, she also claimed an adjoining field which had been left by her husband, and which he had taken from the common. Old Job again fell in love – if not with the widow, probably with her property.

Job and the widow, Mary Barret, married; she was eighty, he about sixty. After Mary’s death, catastrophe struck. Mary’s relatives determined to rid the old man off the property. Job resisted, but one day he returned to the cottage to find it in ruins. Job then built himself a sort of kennel with the largest of the stones from the rubble. “Here he lived for many years, forlorn, and poor, and miserable, in a place scarcely fit for a pig, and here he remained nearly to the time of his death.” He grew potatoes and other food on his land.

            Job, however, was a fine singer, able to sing ‘in four voices’ – alto, treble, tenor and bass – which he claimed to have learnt at the Leeds Parish Church. He went about the country in the winter season and sung at such places as Headingly Gardens, the Woolsorters’ Gardens in Bradford, and was once fetched to sing at the theatre in Leeds. Athough he was generally well supported, he would sleep in any outbuilding or smith’s shop.

Old Job died aged 77 and was buried in Burley churchyard.

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The Charities of Bradford. Government Inquiry by Arthur Cardew, Barrister at Law. 1894.

(Information reprinted from the Bradford Observer newspaper by William Byles and Sons.)

JND 18/15 (Please quote this number when the Local Studies library reopens if requesting this item.)

At ten o’clock on Tuesday, January 23^rd, 1894, Arthur Cardew, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Assistant Commissioner, opened an inquiry in Bradford’s town hall. This was on behalf of the Charity Commission who had been asked to look into all charities within the County Borough of Bradford, under the Charitable Trusts Acts 1853 to 1891, and the Charities Inquiries (Expenses) Act, 1892. The inquiry was instigated by the Bradford Council so as to ensure that local charities conformed to recent legislative changes.  Among those in the large attendance were the Mayor of Bradford (James Whitley), two aldermen (Smith Feather and William Lister), the Town Clerk, the Deputy Town Clerk, and two MPs (A. Illngworth and W .P. Byles).

The Town Council had originally thought to examine a few old-established and parochial charities, but the Charity Commission wanted all charities included so that the result would be a complete report valuable for future reference. [Like now!] The charities included large ones such as the Infirmary and the Grammar Schools which had from time to time had endowments given to them as sums of money to be invested and treated as capital. There were also many smaller charities. Over the years practice had varied and there had been occasional suspicions of financial malpractice and partiality. The Town Clerk took it that this inquiry was just to collect information and embody it in a report. The Commissioner assented. [The meeting must have breathed a sigh of relief to hear this, though some charity trustees were given a rough ride!]

Forty-eight charities were examined, ranging from the Grammar Schools, with benefactors such as John Crosse, Henry Brown, Titus Salt and S. C. Lister; the Bradford Infirmary; orphanages, convalescent homes, places of worship, and The Organists’ Charity. Information about their foundation, financial information and management were all investigated. For the information of researchers today, all 48 charities are listed here. Collectively they indicate how much education, health and social welfare in Victorian Bradford owe to charitable activity.

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The term ‘Happy Money’ came from the fact that the collector of rents for ‘The Poors’ Estate and Quit Rent’ (No. 3 below) was Mr Henry Happy! Of interest to local historians is that one of the council officials much involved in this inquiry was Thomas Empsall, whose large collection of books on local history was acquired by Bradford Libraries after his death.

THE CHARITIES

1. The Free Grammar School, including the scholarships of John Crosse, Henry Brown, Titus Salt, and S. C. Lister.
2. The Girls’ Grammar School, including the scholarships of Henry Brown and Titus Salt.
3. The Poors’ Estate and Quit Rents.
4. Richard Pollard’s Charity.
5. Mary Ann Jowett’s Charity.
6. William Field’s, or the Black Abbey Dole.
7. Thomas Farrand’s Charity.
8. Elizabeth Wadsworth’s Charity for Bradford Township.
9. John Appleyard’s Charity.
10. The Rev. Dr. Jobson’s Fund.
11. The Organists’ Charity.
12. Susannah Stott’s Charity.
13. The Bradford Lectureship.
14. William Wilson’s Charity.
15. Benjamin Illingworth’s Charity.
16. Mechanics’ Institute: Brown’s Endowment.
17. General Infirmary: Endowments of Musgrave, Semon, Leather, and Brown.
18. Fever Hospital: Nutter’s Endowment.
19. Eye and Ear Hospital: Semon’s Endowment.
20. Woodlands Convalescent Home: Nutter’s Endowment.
21. Orphanage for Boys: Nutter’s Endowment.
22. Orphan Home for Girls: Nutter’s Endowment.
23. Nutter’s Scholarship Charity.
24. Tradesmen’s Benevolent Institution: Nutter’s Endowment and Brown’s Endowment.
25. Tradesmen’s Home: Brown’s Endowment and Wright’s Endowment.
26. Spinsters’ Endowment Fund: Brown’s Endowment.
27. John Harrison’s Charity for the Blind.
28. Samuel Broadley’s Charities.
29. Bailey’s Endowment for Minister of Westgate Baptist Chapel.
30. Endowment of Old and New Wesleyan Chapels at Bradford Moor.
31. Endowment of Manchester Road Primitive Methodist Chapel.
32. Endowment of Salem Congregational Chapel in Manor Row.
33. Endowment of Kirkgate Wesleyan Chapel.
34. Endowment of Eastbrook Wesleyan Chapel.
    34A. Holling’s Charity for Friend’s Meeting House.

Township of Allerton

35. James Sagar’s Charity.
36. The British School.

Township of Bowling

37. Endowment of Dudley Hill Wesleyan Chapel and School.

Township of Horton

38. John Ashton’s Charity.
39. Elizabeth Rand’s Charity.
40. Dixon’s Charity for Chapel Lane Chapel.
41. Endowment of Great Wesleyan Chapel.

Township of Manningham

42. Elizabeth Rand’s Charity.

Parish of Calverley

43. Queen Elizabeth’s Dole.

Township of Pudsey

44. Lipton’s Charity.
45. Gibson’s Charity.
46. Neville’s Charity.
47. Simpson’s and Hay’s Charity
48. Elizabeth Wadsworth’s Charity for Calverley Township.

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