Gordon Bottomley – a new publication on this notable Keighley born poet, writer and art collector.

Gordon Bottomley is one of the most important literary figures to have been born in Keighley (1874). Despite the limitations he faced in society due to illness, his cultural reach extended into the national arena of the arts, embracing drama as well as poetry. It also extended into the art world and in all, he was a source of encouragement for change, development and innovation in these fields.

He wrote poetry and plays, becoming a leading figure in the Georgian Poetry movement before and during WW1 and his plays were often performed amongst the literary set and by young, upcoming actors such as Alastair Sim, Nigel Stock and John Laurie. He also championed experimental theatre of the 1930s, such as in the Japanese style and drama without scenery. He corresponded with Edward Thomas, the poet, from 1902-17 and this correspondence has thrown much light on Thomas’s poetic craft and of his working life.

Gordon and his wife, Emily (née Burton), built up an impressive collection of Pre-Raphaelite and late 19thC/early 20thC art and it was later gifted to the wonderful Tullie Museum and Gallery in Carlisle. Some of the collection has just been recently exhibited in the acclaimed touring exhibition: The Legend of King Arthur: A Pre-Raphaelite Love Story. Gordon also encouraged contemporary artists, some of whom illustrated his work such as Paul Nash, who became a great friend and life-long correspondent. Others included William Nicholson, William Rothenstein and Stanley Spencer. https://tullie.org.uk/

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new biographical work on Gordon Bottomley: Gordon Bottomley An Unexpected Life, edited and introduced by William Cooke, published in association with the Edward Thomas Fellowship. This is a great book because as well as having commentary and incite from the author, it consists chiefly of Gordon’s own words from his, “Outline Chronology”, as he called it, written towards the end of his life. It wasn’t really intended for publication, just as an aide-mémoire for a friend, but he has nevertheless produced a memoir that according to William Cooke, “vividly evokes the man, his extensive circle of friends and the period in which he lived.” Cooke has added three appendices to, “flesh out the text and bring it as close as possible to the autobiography that Bottomley might have written”, and the text has only been lightly edited.

This book is currently available as a special offer from the Edward Thomas Fellowship, together with William Cooke’s other publication on the correspondence between Edward Thomas and Gordon Bottomley, Comrades in Letters, please follow this link:
https://edward-thomas-fellowship.org.uk/category/latest-news/

Gordon Bottomley An Unexpected Life, Edited and introduced by William Cooke (William Cooke in association with the Edward Thomas Fellowship, 2023) ISBN 978-1-3999-4906-4

Both books, including Comrades in Letters will be available soon for loan and for reference in Keighley Local Studies Library.

Keighley Local Studies’ own Gordon Bottomley collections

Gordon Bottomley’s own works are out of print now but Keighley Library has an important collection of his publications, photographs, and published and original correspondence housed in the Library’s Yorkshire Authors’ Collection and its archive collections: BK60, BK352 and BK364.
The library also holds news cuttings and biographical articles, including a few written by local historian and former Reference Librarian, Ian Dewhirst MBE. An excellent introduction by him is The Nearly Man in Pennine Magazine, Aug/Sep 1983, pp19-20 and Gordon Bottomley – Yorkshire’s Georgian Poet and Lyrical Dramatist by Gordon Allen North in Yorkshire Ridings, Dec 1974, pp47-49.

Please give 24 hours’ notice to see archives.

To get a free guide to Gordon Bottomley and Keighley itself, please click on the link Local Studies Guides . The book Poet and Painter shown above is available in Keighley Local Studies Library for reference.

Gina Birdsall

Keighley Local Studies & Archives Assistant

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

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/

For current movers and shakers in Yorkshire:

Yorkshire Asian Young Achievers Awards: https://yayas.uk/

Yorkshire Awards: https://theyorkshiresociety.org/

Featuring past and current, notable and influential persons from the black community: https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/listings/region/yorkshire/

Black people in Bradford and Leeds: https://secretlibraryleeds.net/2021/10/07/before-windrush-black-people-in-leeds-bradford-1708-1948-part-i/

Keighley Local Studies Team

Crime Fiction and Reality

How do you write a prison based novel when you have never been inside yourself?

How do you help prisoners to aim for better lives when they come out of prison?

How do you research local history for novels set in previous decades?

Which prisoner covered himself in butter to fight, and delay his slippery arrest, after his football team lost a game?

These are just a few of the questions that were answered during the course of last Saturday afternoon with our two brilliant local authors and speakers – Frances Brody and Veronica Bird OBE.

You may know of the acclaimed author Frances Brody, as she is very well known for her very popular Kate Shackleton mysteries, some set in Yorkshire, including Haworth and Saltaire but you may not have heard of Veronica Bird OBE who was the first female governor of HMP Armley in Leeds and of her aptly named autobiography, Veronica’s Bird.

This dynamic duo who met through Frances’s research into her new series of novels, the Brackerley Prison mysteries, thoroughly informed and entertained their large audience. As well as the writing of her novels and her characters, Frances also spoke about local history research and the use of news cuttings in libraries including the valuable collection in Keighley Local Studies. She also included notes on the craft of creative writing and very helpfully to budding authors in the audience, gave some really good advice on making a start at writing a story or novel, overcoming writers’ block and on how to find interesting minor stories to set within the main plot.

Veronica spoke about her deprived upbringing and subsequent hard won career in some of Britain’s most challenging prisons. She also highlighted the lack of literacy amongst at least 50% of prisoners with consequential feelings of hopelessness and sadly an increased chance of re-offending on release. Both Veronica and Frances support the Shannon Trust that helps with learning to read and improve other basic skills so that prisoners, “can pursue wider opportunities and thrive in the community”. Veronica also told us some amusing stories of what can happen when the occasional slip-up in prison guard vigilance occurs such as the attempted sale of prison knickers at a local market stall. Never destined to be a best seller, however, not one pair was sold.

Veronica, now retired but still working with prison inmates, also works for various charities including Ukrainian refugees, and was awarded her OBE for her charitable works. On Saturday, both speakers raised funds for their chosen charities and Frances Brody very kindly donated to Bradford Libraries two large print versions of her novels, including A Murder Inside (the first prison based novel), as well as an audio version of A Mansion for Murder, her latest Kate Shackleton mystery.

We thank them both for a great afternoon of information, education and entertainment and thank Alice and Felicity, the volunteers who so efficiently supervised refreshments.

Keighley Local Studies Team

Frances Brody helps a new writer with a problem

Veronica re-enacts a prison visit with a guest actress

David Kirkley, Keighley’s gentlemanly historian

It was with great sadness that staff at Keighley Library heard of the recent death of David Kirkley. David had not only become a major contributor to Heritage Days and Keighley local history but also a friend to the library staff.

David was the other half of the Schools’ Heritage Group, together with Jan Rotheram. This was set up a few years ago and ever since, their wonderful photograph collection has provided a source of displays for Heritage Days and other events held in Keighley Library, in particular the Local Studies Library on the first floor. These displays always won a brilliant reception from locals, as families and friends pointed out their old school selves or others they recognised and reminisced about the “best days” of their lives. In 2022, David had put on another great display for us of local school sport photographs to accompany a talk on Keighley and football in the 1950s by Mike Halliwell.

Before Covid, David came at least once a week to Local Studies for a catch up with other locals, equally enthusiastic about Keighley’s history and we learned a lot from them and their projects in our turn.  David supported this historic library in both word and deed and was amongst the first to support the wonderful musical heritage events. We, the staff, always enjoyed chatting to him, he was a knowledgeable, reliable, kind and helpful gentleman and we shall all miss him very much indeed. We are not surprised that in other areas of his life such as the Cougars’ rugby club, he was held in such high regard, a local legend indeed.

Keighley Local Studies staff.

New Opening Hours

Please note our new opening times from next week, Monday 3rd April

Bradford Local Studies

Keighley Local Studies