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Leeds, West Riding, Yorkshire, England The Land Family in Leeds Three generations of Lands were born in Leeds: Charles Land (1797), his son, John Land (1818) and several of the children of John Land. The Lands originally lived in and around Wakefield. In the late 1700s several branches of the Land family moved to Leeds. My branch of the Land family left Leeds in the mid 1800s and moved to outlying towns in Yorkshire. Since Leeds was the center for the local woolen cloth market, the Land ancestors who were woolen cloth weavers probably traveled to Leeds from their home towns. My branch of the Land family left Yorkshire in the 1880s. While some moved to Canada and later the US, others went directly to Philadelphia. Other Ancestors in Leeds Benjamin Law married Lydia Sheard in Leeds in 1801. See Benjamin Law Some Information on Leeds Leeds changed dramatically in the years right after the Lands left. Most of the city, as it now exists, was build in Victorian times (1837-1901). Little remains of Leeds from the days when the Lands were living there. The Leeds church was rebuilt in 1841, thirty years after Benjamin Law and Lydia Sheard were married there. Leeds is located on the Aire River in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Leeds originated as an Anglo-Saxon town. The Romans were in the Leeds. The Venerable Bede mentioned the Leeds (Loidis) parish church (St Peter) in his Ecclesiastical History in 730. Leeds was listed in the Domesday Book in 1086 with a priest, a church, a mill and a meadowland. In 1207 the Lord of the Manor build a town near the parish church of St Peter at the river crossing. A new road, Briggate, became the center of the town. The medieval parish covered 34 square miles. Local weavers in the West Riding of Yorkshire brought their cloth to the cloth market in Leeds and by the 16th century Leeds was an important cloth finishing center. Gas lighting came to Leeds in 1819. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal (completed in 1816) and the railroad (1848) made the city the commercial center of West Yorkshire. A cholera epidemic in 1832 drew attention to poor sanitary conditions. But it was not until 1852 that the main sewers updated. The new Town Hall was opened by Queen Victoria in 1858 Roundhay Park was purchased in 1872 as a public park for the use of the people. According to The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales by John Marius Wilson, published in 1870.
"Leeds is a great town, a township and a parish in the district of Yorkshire. The town is on the river Aire, 24 miles southwest of York. It is the largest town in Yorkshire, the capital of West Riding, and was the center of the woollen manufacturing in the mid-1800's. It was probably the site of an early Roman settlement, as many Roman relics have been found in the area. The Venerable Bede mentioned it in 650. There are Saxon ruins in the area. By 1642 Leeds was a prosperous cloth-manufacturing town. It was devastated in the great plague of 1644-45, when a fifth of the population died. It rallied to become one of the great manufacturing centers of England. Population in 1821 was 83,746. By 1861 it had grown to 207,165."Industrial Leeds was apparently not an attractive city: "The manufacturing cities of England are none of them very attractive or pleasing in appearance, but Leeds is, perhaps, the ugliest and least attractive town in all England. In Birmingham, Manchester, and other such cities, among the mass of chimneys and factories, are scattered, here and there, splendid newsrooms, or clubs, and interesting exchanges, banks, railway-stations, or Wellington and Nelson monuments. Leeds has none of these".Things improved for Leeds in Victorian times when many changes were made. It is now quite a charming city. In Leeds in 1839 only 3.7 percent of the houses were owner-occupied. Roundhay Park, purchased for £139,000 by Leeds City Council in 1872, was opened to the public. At the time the purchase was regarded as a waste of tax payers money, due to it's distance of 4 miles from the smoky town center. 1872 Most of Boar Lane was remodeled in 1868.
The Leeds Directories
The 1798 Leeds Directory The first directory available on microfilm through LDS is a reprint of the 1798 Directory. There is no indication when the reprint was published. The introduction to the reprint gives a variety of statistics. Included are some of the people and types of occupations listed in the original directory. There include:
Letters were delivered in the town once a day. There were three dispatches from town every day, one each to the north, south and west. I don't know what happened to mail going east. There was no mail to London on Friday and no mail from London on Tuesday. Mail was dispatched to Europe twice a week and to the West Indies twice a month. Mail was dispatched to America, only "on the Monday preceding the first Wednesday in every calendar month". Couches left at least once a day form various inns for London, Manchester, Sheffield, Hull, Newcastle, Liverpool and York. There were no Lands listed in the directory. Charles Land moved from Wakefield to Leeds sometime between the birth of his son, James, in Wakefield in 1789 and the birth of his son, Charles "Louis" Land, who, was baptized in the Leeds parish church on September 3, 1797. According to the baptismal record Charles Land's address in 1797 was St James Street, Leeds.
The 1830 Leeds Directory Wm Parson and Wm White published a directory of Leeds and the "Clothing District of Yorkshire" in 1830. This directory contained three separate categories for the city of Leeds : by name, by occupation and by address. There were five Lands listed in this directory:
In 1830 there were 6 coaches to and from London every day, plus enumerable others to most of the major cities in England both near and far. The stated time to London was 24 hours. There were 8 Church of England Churches listed and 23 "Dissenting and Methodist Chapels". These included four Independent Chapels; Salem, Albion, Queen-Street, and Bethel. In 1830 The children of Charles Lewis Land were baptized in Queen Street Chapel, which is listed as having Sunday services at 10:30AM and 6:00PM and a prayer meeting at 3:00PM on Sunday , plus Monday prayer meeting and a Thursday sermon at 7:00PM. The Independent chapels all seem to have had a few more meetings that the other Protestant denominations and the Church of England.
These directories contained some unusual and interesting stuff like the following tax rates.
Under the heading "Legacies Value 20 or more" where listed the following rates:
There were taxes on servants, with bachelors paying a higher tax for there servants than others. There were taxes on: carriages with four wheels, horses, hair powder (every person wearing hair powder paid a tax of 1 pound, 3 shillings and 6 pence per year), dogs, and windows. There was also an "Account of the Public Funded Dept. of Great Britain and Ireland" from 1828, which listed the dept of Great Britain at 772,845,773 pounds, 16 shillings and 10 _ pence and the dept of Ireland at 32, 056,496 pounds, 9 shillings, and 9 pence.
The 1834 Directory The 1834 directory did not include a publisher's name. In addition to the town of Leeds it included the towns of Birstall and Drighlington, but not the town of Batley. There were 6 Lands listed in Leeds:
There were no family members listed in either Birstall or Drighlington. By 1834 the Queen's Street Chapel had dropped the 3:00 Sunday prayer meeting.
The 1837 Leeds White's Directory According to White's 1837 Directory the population increased from 1801 to 1837 by the following amounts:
The number of dwellings in Holbeck went from 1,536 in 1821 to 11,210 in 1831. The number of dwellings in Hunslet went from 1,736 in 1821 to 12,074 in 1831. The waters of the river Aire were polluted by the many dye houses. There were two bridges across the Aire which connected Leeds and Holbeck. The air, though in many places infected with smoke from the engine chimneys of numerous mills and factories, is generally salubrious, as is evident from the remarkable instances of longevity which have occurred in the parish. Asiatic Cholera "ravaged" the area between May and November of 1832. At least 1,817 people were affected and 702 died. There was also a severe flu epidemic in 1837 which killed many.
The 1842 Leeds Directory The 1842 directory was published by William White. There were seven Lands listed including:
The 1857-58 Leeds Directory The 1857-8 directory was published by William White. The only related Land listed in Leeds was James Dunford Land, clerk, on Caledonia terrace. Other Lands listed were:
There was no listing for William Law in Batley.
The 1861 Leeds Directory The 1861 Directory was published by William White. The description of Leeds includes the following comments "It has long held a distinguished place among the opulent commercial towns of the kingdom, and is pleasantly seated on the rive Aire,.....the greater part of the town being upon the gently rising acclivities on the north side of the Aire: and the rest, with the populous suburbs in Hunslet and Holbeck, occupying a low champaign tract on the south side of the river. It is situated at the north-eastern extremity of the great clothing district, of which it is the principal mart; and is distant 24 miles S.W. by W. of York; 9 miles N. by W. of Wakefield; 24 miles E. by N. of Bradford; 18 miles E.N.E. of Halifax; 16 miles N.E. of Huddersfield; 33 miles N of Sheffield; 40 miles N.E. of Manchester; and 186 miles N.N.W. of London...... The population of the township of Leeds increased from 30,669 in 1801 to 101,343 in 1851, and in the same period, the number of inhabitants in Hunslet and Holbeck increased from 9995 to 33, 618, swelling the total population of the town and suburbs in 1851 to 134,961 souls, of whom more than 10,000, are somewhat detached from the great body of the town, being in the villages of Hunslet, Holbeck, Woodhouse, Woodhouse Carr, and Buslingthorpe, distant more than a mile from the centre of the town, but connected with it by long ranges of factories, houses, and handsome villa, extending on the different road, and round the margins of the moors or commons at Woodhouse, Holbeck and Hunsworth."The only related Land listed in Leeds was James Dunford Land, "traveller", at 8 Caledonia terrace. (A traveller was a traveling salesman.) Other Lands in the directory were:
The 1863 Leeds Directory The Jones's Mercantile Directory of Leeds was published in 1863. There were no cloth dressers listed in Leeds.
Under the description of Leeds,
" The 1872-72 Leeds Directory The 1872-3 directory was published by Porter's. In 1871 the population of Leeds had increased to 139,349 in town and 119,851 out of town for a total on 259,200 in the borough. This directory contains a rather wordy history of Leeds and the section written by John Holmes contained some interesting information: On the Civil War
"........it is singular what little documentary evidence we have of the time
of the residents of Leeds, as to their views and transactions. Harrison, the benefactor
of Leeds, was fined, as one of the disaffected towards the Puritans; and the vicar (Robinson)
of Leeds was displaced on account of his loyalty. The Puritans who complained bitterly of
prosecution for their religious opinions under Charles, became prosecutors in turn,
when they came to power....After Cromwell's crowing victory at Worchester,
the Royalist were completely crushed, and Charles himself fled for protection to the
Scots, whom he had so badly treated before. The Scotch took Charles a prisoner, and gave
him up to the English Parliament, for a consideration....."
"In 1645, the plaque came to Leeds, after visiting several of the towns about.
1325 deaths are reported, so that it must have been a severe infliction.
Leeds had the cholera in 1832 and 1848; but on neither occasion were the victims
anything like so numerous in ratio to the population. Thanks to better
sanitary arrangements, and to greater scientific skill and treatment.
In the whole Borough, 702 died in the first case, and over 2,000 in the second attack."
The Trade "The trade of large towns, though less fixed then, had begun to centre. Wakefield and Leeds had grown in the woolen trade more than York. Leeds then employed machinery, driven by a "water-wheel, which carried both rape and log grinding," a fulling stocks, a twisting mill of 80 bobbins! a stone for grinding scythes, sickles, and white smiths plates; and another manufactory where "strong and large pieces of iron and steel were turned in an engine, suitable in mill of malt, tobacco, corn, etc. Jacks are also made in a curious method,-- the wheels and axles and all moving parts, which formerly, and now by most, are filed, being turned down to exactness, and the teeth cut in an engine; also, fowling-pieces, fine razors, succors, and lancets are made grinded, and polisher" (Ducatus) Before 1679, "the cloth woven in Leeds went to full, dye, and finish in Holland." Between 1670 and 1715: "all along the water to Leeds, mills were established to grind dye-wares, to press oil, to full cloths, and, ultimately, to dye and finish."Around this same period in the cloth market of Leeds, several thousand pound of cloth, have been known to pass hands, in a few hours, and in comparative silence."The author quotes extensively from Ralph Thoresby, a Leeds cloth manufacturer by trade and an historian by avocation, who wrote a history of Leeds in 1715. He says of Thoresby at one point, "Thoresby's piety was frequently grieved and shocked, by the drinking customs which prevailed, even in what is called good society, and among the godly themselves. We see constantly that the company which began the conversation most religiously, ended in getting all full of the spirit of alcohol, before they separated."Note: Ralph Thoresby history was published in 1830. Public services in Leeds
"Popular education, opposed at first as dangerous to the interests and position of the upper classes, was commenced in Leeds by the Sunday Schools, about 1750, and flourished chiefly among the Methodists and Dissenters. The National Schools were founded in Kirkgate, 1812, and the Lancasterian School later in the same year. From then, except in the extension of Sunday School, education advanced little until 1838, when Zion School was commenced, at New Worthy, which first received a Government grant, under the minutes for promoting National education, 1857. The contention for National education, and the efforts of Dr. Hook, and the Churchmen of Leeds, gave a vast impulse to the institutions for educating the poor from 1837; and the number of Schools erected form that time may be counted by scores, if not by hundreds.....Dr. Hook, elected to be Vicar of Leeds, March, 1837, came to meet the opposition of both Churchmen and Dissenters; and he left June, 1864, with the love and regards of both Dissenters and Churchmen......When he came, there were but seven Churches in the township, and he left over twenty......The Dissenter, whether, Unitarians, Independents, Congregationalists, Baptists, or Quakers, took from and body under Charles 1 and 11. Abuses originated their leaving the Church, and persecutions knit them together and gave them solidity. Their first Chapel in Leeds was build 1673.......Call Lane chapel followed in 1691. The Independents began to grow in Leeds under a Mr Edwards, 1755, in a little Chapel called the White Chapel, because it was near the ten White Cloth Hall....Afterwards, that congregation erected the chapel still in Hunslet Lane (Salem Chapel) and subsequently the removed to the present East Parade Chapel, 1839......Methodism was introduced by John Wesley himself, first in 1742, at Birstall and Leeds."Changes in the cloth industry
"The demand for clothe, from 1780 to 1790, induced the introduction of steam power, the spindle, and the jenny to Leeds.......The last of the old hand-spun, and hand-worked cloth manufacturers Mr Armitage, lived in Carr Hall Hunslet...."Mr Armitage died circa 1818 "Mr Armitage used himself to go to London on horseback to buy wool. He was four days and three nights on the road, if a good journey. He then delivered the wool, to be spun by hand, about Oulton, Rothwell, Beeston, etc; had it woven in his tenants houses; dyed and finished on his own premises; and then he would himself stand in the markets of Sheffield and other towns at their several fairs with a stall in the streets. And this primitive method of manufacture and trading.....even down to 1815 or 1820. Then cloth shops began to be opened, and travelers to take to the rounds of the principal; and the old fairs and bartering, pack-horses and stalls, became as effete and displaced as did the old spinning wheel for the mule, and the mule for the self-acting Jenny. The hand-loom kept its place in the cloth weaving up to 1823-30. The improvements and progress, however great, were not without both evil and opposition. At first the introduction of power displaced the hand-spinner, cropper, and the weaver. And whatever may be said and proved of the ultimate, that did evil to them then. And, ignorant of any future good to others, the old operatives, feeling the present reductions and displacements, like human nature in ignorance, "kicked against the pricks." The story of the Luddite riots and conspiracies, from 1800 to 1825-27, deserves writing by the ablest penman and thinker. Suffice to say, that though two or three violent mobs rose to protest, and to break windows when new machinery was introduced to Leeds, Leeds has never been violent in "demonstrations" as ever Bradford....The attempt to bring power-looms into cloth weaving at Gotts, Bean Ing Mill, in 1825-6, led a long and pitiful strike. The weavers resisted the reductions of wages threatened, and Gott gave up the contest; he did not introduce looms into his new mill, and it stood empty or idle for perhaps thirty years. Cloth was woven elsewhere; and gradually the power-loom has been introduced without lowering wages, as it was purposed to do, and as it actually did for a whole generation in the Lancashire cotton district. In Leeds no one now opposes machinery."There were some environmental repercussions, "In 1840 Charles Knight, in The Land we Live in, gave an account of Leeds illustrated by wood engravings. One vignette, pictured only tall chimneys, each vomiting forth a dense black smoke. There was much truth in the picture; and Leeds became known as the "Smokey"The Leeds directories are on LDS microfilms
These directories were like phone books before the telephone. Not everyone was listed and in many places a fee was paid to have ones name included. I do not know if this was true for the Leeds directories. From M Tait, 1888 Leeds was connected to the mid land railway in 1839, Bradford to Leeds in 1846 and the network connecting the major town of the area was finished with in the next 10 years. Leeds town hall opened by the queen in 1858. Parish church entirely rebuilt in 1840. Population in 1801 53, 163 in 1881 310,000 Yorkshire Scenes Lore and Legends M Tait, 1888 |
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