For the last two years, Keighley Local Studies has put on a series of lectures on family and local history by Jude Rhodes, professional genealogist, local historian and accomplished speaker. Jude has covered topics as diverse as back-to-back housing, nursing history and one place studies and a history of mental health and asylums. Each talk has been fully illustrated with a power point presentation and library staff have put out displays of related original documents, gathered from the wonderful Keighley Local Studies’ archive that covers the Keighley district.
By popular demand, Jude is back with us starting in September on a topic close to our hearts, please come along, refreshments are provided. Details on the attached poster.
Keighley Local Studies has a full programme of talks and events for Autumn/Winter, and details of these will be available on this site, on social media and in the library shortly, please look out for them.
ISBN 978-0-00-855641-9 (William Collins, imprint HarperCollins, 2025)
Out on the 14th August, this first, comprehensive biography of Asa Briggs has received excellent reviews in the press. Find out how this scholarship boy at Keighley Boys’ Grammar School became, “one of the best-known historians of his generation, his name on a cover a guarantee of substantial sales,” champion of the Open University and the WEA.
Written by critically acclaimed biographer Adam Sisman, who visited Keighley Local Studies for local research, this biography is impressive in detail but reads well and entertainingly, as is to be expected from an acclaimed biographer of historians, Huge Trevor-Roper, A.J.P. Taylor as well as other important cultural and literary figures Boswell, Wordsworth and Shelley and most recently John Le Carré.
Particularly fascinating is Sisman’s careful reveal of the developing historian from student through to maturity – from his own background in the newly urbanised non-conformist culture, economy and local politics of his Northern hometown through WW2 events, global travel and study and the influence of other working historians during his time at, among others, Cambridge, Oxford and Leeds Universities. Later, one can also draw parallels with the champions of Keighley Mechanics’ Institute, of which Briggs’ grammar school was a part, and Briggs’ own championing of the value of education for all, through his dedicated involvement with the Open University, the WEA and the Commonwealth of Learning.
Briggs may have felt frustrations in his life that this biography does not ignore, but he still achieved much and was one of the great visionaries who fuelled the meritocratic changes in post war England, widened the scope of educational opportunities for generations, and wrote history that was about the many, and written for everyone to consider and interpret, not just a privileged few. A fine legacy indeed.
Comments:
His work remains significant, and his life story offers valuable insights into the intellectual and social history of his time. Summary comment William Whyte, Literary Review, August 2025
“The historian Asa Briggs was both a jet-setter and a grafter, as this superb biography shows…”
Ann Dinsdale (author and Principal Curator of Haworth Parsonage Museum) and Sharon Wright author (“The Mother of the Brontes”), journalist, and playwright, have joined their great knowledge and expertise and buddied up to produce a lively, beautifully illustrated and fascinating book on some of the buildings that inspired the Brontë sisters and their writing and housed the remarkable and challenging lives of Brontë family members.
Their journey takes them around Britain and Ireland as they get privileged access to private houses and reveal the history of these buildings and their inspiration for the Brontës. Brontë Parsonage secrets and those of their Thornton birthplace are revealed, as are the legends and ghosts of the real Wuthering Heights. We go to Ulster and Cornwall to look at their family heritage influences and these literary supersleuths even follow Branwell on a Victorian pub crawl around the inns and taverns that he visited.
The book is beautifully written in the voices of these two acclaimed authors who have certainly done their homework, providing an entertaining and always well researched read. If you needed any kind of bonus, there is an exclusive interview with award-winning writer and director Sally Wainwright who reveals why and how she built an eerie replica of Haworth Parsonage in the 1840s on the moors for her BBC biopic, “To Walk Invisible” and the foreword to this classic is written by Rebecca Fraser, author and broadcaster. For those of you who wonder where Brussels is in all this, there are masterly plans afoot for a sequel investigation so don’t put away your travelling cape and magnifying glass yet.
Comments:
‘A gripping tour through time with the Brontë house detectives.’ Araminta Hall
‘Personal and poetic, authoritative and richly evocative, this is a biography like no other: a family history laid out in brick and stone.’ Kathryn Sutherland
‘Full of insight, compassion and exciting new discoveries’ Stacey Halls
The History Society held another of their research sessions at Keighley Local Studies Library on the morning of Saturday 31st May 2025. Around twenty members attended, with Angela, Gina and Janet from the library staff opening up various photographic archives and maps of the area for people to peruse.
The session started with History Society committee member Tim Neal talking to attendees about 3D or stereoscopic photography. Many of those there could remember the phenomenon of View-Masters that were around from the 1950s to the 1980s. These handheld viewers used to be loaded with a cardboard circular disc holding seven different colour stereoscopic photos. When looking through the viewer these images appeared in 3D. Tim had brought along half-a-dozen View-Master viewers and a selection of geographical and event-based discs covering subjects as varied as Princess Margaret’s wedding in 1960 to a mid-century of Ottawa in Canada. Members were able to peruse these at their leisure.
Mel Whitaker, writing after the event: “Tim’s collection of ‘View Masters’ brought back many happy memories for all of us who had owned one – and really impressed those who had never seen one before!”
People were then introduced to a collection of card-backed slides from the library’s collection. These were stereoscope images of Keighley in the Victorian era. Local historian Eddie Kelly had already studied the cards and had been able to conclude that they must have been produced around 1895, judging by some of the businesses depicted and the development of some of the buildings in some of the pictures. Using either the vintage wooden viewer or modern plastic equivalents, attendees were able to see Victorian Keighley brought back to life in 3D.
Accompanying these stereoscopic images were selections of photographs, organised by area of town, from a variety of the library’s archive collections, showing the town from the 1900s to the 1960s. It was a period that saw enormous changes in the landscape of the town.
Andy Wade, writing after the event: “Had an excellent session in Keighley Library’s Local Studies room looking at stereoscopic photographs and some of the old photo archives and in particular, the chance to talk about what we were looking at, as there were some unique views of Keighley which I’ve never seen before.”
Finally, bringing us right up to date, the staff had set up the library’s virtual reality equipment, enabling members to view 3D recreations of a 1970s living room, and to explore potential habitats fifty years in the future.
Several members also brought their own items to add to collections, and could also explore their own research lines of query with the staff and the amazing resources that the library has to offer. The session was summed up by society member Jean McClennon: “An excellent and interesting session, thanks very much to all involved.”
The History Society will be holding another similar session on Saturday 18th October, focusing in how to use the library’s resources to research the history of your own home.
Tim Neal Keighley & District Local History Society 1st June 2025
In Bradford we have churches, ancient and modern, Established and Nonconformist, which, in their charm, ambience and spirituality equal anything to be found in any other town or city in England. This illustrated talk will look, not only at the history and architecture of such churches, but also the characters who filled their pulpits and sat in the pews, and the intriguing stories linked to them.
Thursday 24th April 1.15pm
Bradford Local Studies Library, Margaret McMillan Tower, Princes Way, BD1 1NN.
These talks are given by members of FoBALS (Friends of Bradford Archives & Local Studies) with Bradford Local Studies Library and West Yorkshire Archives Bradford. Doors open at 1pm for a 1.15pm start. Free entry to all events. Booking essential.
For more information or to book a place please telephone or email Bradford Local Studies Library, Telephone 01274 433688, Email local.studies@bradford.gov.uk.
