The Book Case

• Price: £6.95
• ISBN: 978-0-9556204-0-9
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Royd Press

• Edition: 2nd edition 2007
• Condition: New
• Availability: In stock (immediate despatch)

 

In 1849 Scottish investigative journalist Angus Bethune Reach toured the textile areas of the West Riding to report on the condition of the working class for the Morning Chronicle (which also published Mayhew's famous London reports). He visited Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Batley, Halifax, Bradford and Leeds; he praised some employers (Holdsworth's in Halifax, Marshall's in Leeds) but also found filth, squalor, extreme poverty, lethal working conditions and official apathy....

Reach interviewed a wide range of people, both management and workers, Yorkshire, Irish and immigrants from other parts of the country. His reports and the words of the people he spoke to bring to life how the glory days of the Yorkshire textile industry felt from the underside.

"It was cruel to see a hearty man trying to work day after day on nothing but bread and a little milk."

"…a choky, mildewy sort of odour … arising from the sodden smouldering piles as the workwomen tossed armfuls of rags from one heap to another"

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Huddersfield and Drewsbury
• Chapter 3: Halifax and Bradford
• Chapter 4: Leeds

• Price: £7.95
• ISBN: 978-0-9556204-4-7
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Royd Press

• Condition: New

 

In 1849, Angus Reach visited the textile towns around Manchester and sent his graphic reports to The Morning Chronicle. Reach visited the mills, interviewed management and workers and described what he saw; went into people’s homes, decent or filthy, talked to the tenants and described the interiors and furniture; he interviewed the Manchester druggists who were supplying an often lethal opium mixture for babies, and the parents affected, talked to teachers, booksellers and librarians to find out what people wanted, recorded the comments of the poor Irish immigrants and visited a Manchester music hall.

This book covers Manchester, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham, Egerton, Macclesfield, Middleton and Saddleworth. The latter towns were chosen as being different in some way from the "typical" cotton town, so that his reports on Manchester may stand for many of those not mentioned.

"A must-have for anyone researching the northern textile districts in 1849" - BBC Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine

"The heat, the stink, the flying dust were almost overpowering. … The boy … was covered from head to foot with the clinging fibres of floating wool."

"The public-houses and gin-shops were roaring full. Rows, and fights, and scuffles were every minute taking place within doors and in the streets. The whole street rung with shouting, screaming, and swearing, mingled with the jarring music of half-a-dozen bands."

• Price: £5.99
• ISBN: 978-0-9556204-6-1
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Royd Press

• Condition: New
• Availability: In stock (immediate despatch)

 

Takes us from the early struggle for survival on the bleak hilltops through the growth of the woollen industry and move down to the valley bottoms and Fustianopolis, up to the area's decline and revival.

• Price: £5.95
• ISBN: 978-0-9556204-1-6
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Royd Press

• Condition: New
• Availability: In stock (immediate despatch)

 

Hilltop handloom weaver's son Dick Wade is pleased to find a boy of his own age to play with, but is he a true friend? Whose is the injured dog found on the moors? And who is flooding the area with clipped and forged coins, bringing the London authorities in with their questions and house searches? A gripping story based on the real history of the Cragg Vale Coiners, giving a fascinating insight into life in the Calder Valley and the local weaving industry over 200 years ago.

• Price: £5.95
• ISBN: 978-0-9556204-2-3
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Royd Press

• Condition: New
• Availability: In stock (immediate despatch)

 

The second of our reprints of the respected Halifax novelist's exciting historical novels for young people - a 13-year-old boy starts work at a Calder Valley cropping shop in 1812 just as his friend's mill-owning father introduces the cropping frames that will put his skilled companions out of work. Ned's sympathies are with the Luddites who plot violence.

• Price: £5.95
• ISBN: 978-0-9556204-3-0
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Royd Press

• Condition: New
• Availability: In stock (immediate despatch)

 

First young Tom, newly arrived in the Calder Valley from Suffolk in 1722, loses his father; then he himself is threatened when as a weaver's apprentice, he uncovers a crime. The context is that of the daily life of business at a hilltop clothier's in the days of tenterfields, when cloth was stretched to dry on posts in the fields and sold through the Piece Hall in Halifax.

• Price: £9.99
• ISBN: 978-1-907197-000
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Royd Press

• Condition: New
• Availability: In stock (immediate despatch)

 

New from the author of Yorkshire Cotton, the result of over fifty years' research into the textile mills of the Yorkshire Dales, in the days when large mills employing considerable workforces - especially children - stood in popular beauty spots like Malhamdale and Aysgarth.

George Ingle gives the background to the development of over seventy mills in the Dales and explains how they frequently changed from spinning one fibre to another. These mills are described from their foundation to their demise - only one is still in production - with over 70 illustrations. The book shows how local cottage industries in the Dales such as hand-spinning, weaving and knitting began to be superseded in the late 18th century as mechanisation and industrialisation took on the large-scale supply of textiles of different kinds for the mass market.

Sites covered include the areas around Skipton, Settle and Sedbergh, Wharfedale and Littondale, together with the Washburn Valley, Wensleydale and Swaledale. Information about the firms, child labour, and hand-loom weavers' riots is included as well as details of the buildings, the machinery in them and their power sources.

• Price: £9.99
• ISBN: 978-0-9556204-7-8
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: Royd Press

• Condition: New
• Availability: In stock (immediate despatch)

 

The ancient hilltop village of Sowerby with its fine Georgian church can be seen for miles around. Jean Illingworth's engaging history weaves her own memories with the recollections of others in her local community to reveal a rich and detailed picture of the life and character of this "very special" place. Many old photographs and illustrations.

"Congratulations on doing such an important job!" - Sir Ernest Hall

"Brings Sowerby to life, and I love the photos" - Austin Mitchell MP

A story of the founding of Bolton High School for Girls and one of its early Headmistresses at a time of great social change. It includes many quotations from Miss Johnson's logbook detailing complaints and visits from parents.

ISBN: 978-0-9556204-8-5 Price: £6.99

Orders should be sent to Bolton School: please send a cheque for £7.99, which includes postage, to Mrs L Frew, Librarian, Bolton School Girls’ Division, Chorley New Road, Bolton BL1 4PB.

For further information telephone 01204 840201 01204 840201 or email: lfrew@girls.bolton.sch.uk

A new book of nonsense verse! The poems deal with, among other things, a ban on comic socks, a boy arrested for throwing a sausage, post-smoking-ban ashtrays, palindromes, anagrams and much more, including a short story about the Devil's visit to Rochdale. There's also a specially written poem about Liszt's breakfast at Hebden Bridge's White Lion pub on December 15th, 1840.

ISBN: 978-0-9556204-5-4 Price: £4.95

From Rossendale-based historian Chris Aspin, more light-hearted verse reflecting on the absurdities of modern life, with a Grand Opera included! The cover picture was done by Book Case member of staff Simon Manfield.

ISBN: 978-0-9556204-9-2 Price: £4.95

In Chris Aspin’s latest book of nonsense verse, Albert gets the better of the lion, Simple Simon dispenses wisdom, and other strange happenings abound! The cover cartoon was especially drawn by Dick Graham, ex-editorial cartoonist for the Manchester Evening News.

ISBN: 978-1-907197-017 Price: £4.95