Wakefield Historical Publications

New Publication 

‘Diary of a Wakefield Man: John Edward Bowman, 1868-1953’ by Lorraine Simpson

 

John Bowman kept diaries for 69 years, mostly charting his life in a vibrant Wakefield and how he and the city lived through two World Wars and a global pandemic. He writes about the people in his life: family and friends, neighbours and customers and the Quaker community he was part of. These diaries show us a way of life lost to us today.

They have been transcribed by our member Lorraine Simpson, a relative of John Bowman.

£9.95 for 500 pages. Postage £3.00. Contact us at: info@wakefieldhistoricalsociety.org.uk

 

‘John Smeaton and the Calder Navigation’ by Lesley Taylor and Shirley Levon.
Wakefield Historical Publications WHP46


Fresh from his acclaimed work on the Eddystone Lighthouse, John Smeaton was employed by the Calder Navigation Commissioners to superintend and construct a navigation beyond Wakefield up the Calder valley towards Halifax. His detailed journal of this work from 1760 to 1763 is fully transcribed in the book. It describes the construction of the cuts, locks and weirs as work continued from Wakefield through Horbury, Dewsbury, Mirfield and Brighouse.

A long introduction explores the many years before the scheme came to fruition. The story is peopled by merchants and aristocrats, surveyors and engineers, suppliers and contractors, craftsmen and labourers. There are conflicts between interest groups, disappointments in Parliament, and many delays. The practical requirements are also brought into sharp focus: the planning, negotiating and financing, and the sourcing of materials and equipment as the work began.

In his journal Smeaton, considered to be the first British civil engineer, provides an exceptional insight into 18thcentury construction techniques and the many problems that were encountered in the hugely ambitious scheme for this volatile Pennine river

This book costs £19.95 and you can buy the book through our Society: info@wakefieldhistoricalsociety.org.uk.

‘The Buildings of Tudor and Stuart Wakefield’ by Peter Brears
Wakefield Historical Publications WHP45

Until the 1950s Wakefield was a city with many timber framed buildings, richly decorated with carvings. In the late 1950s/early 1960s almost all was swept away in redevelopment of the town centre. At the time a teenage Peter Brears was recording buildings as they were demolished and saving carvings and plaster mouldings for Wakefield’s City Museum. In his book Peter provides his own meticulously detailed drawings and paintings reconstructing Wakefield’s lost buildings. These are accompanied by a scholarly text discussing Wakefield’s architectural heritage, together with notes, appendix and index.

Peter Brears’ book costs £19.95 and you can buy the book through our Society: info@wakefieldhistoricalsociety.org.uk

 

 

The following books are still available, although some only in very small numbers. Send cheques, including postage and packing, to Wakefield Historical Publications at 18 St John’s Square, Wakefield, West Yorkshire WF1 2RA. For multiple books phone for a postage price. Enquiries to tel. 0797 144 9463 or info@wakefieldhistoricalsociety.org.uk

WHP5 George Gissing and Wakefield, by Clifford Brook £3.00 +£1.50 p&p
WHP9

Charles Waterton of Walton Hall, by Sir Norman Moore

£1.00 +£1.50 p&p
WHP10 The Castleford Pottery, by Diane Edwards Roussel £20.00 +£3.90 p&p
WHP14 The Medieval Monuments of Harewood, by Richard Knowles £5.00 +£2.00 p&p
WHP18 Drawings of Wakefield, by Joe Clay (paperback) £5.00 (reduced) +£2.80 p&p
WHP19 Wakefield Canal Trail, by John Goodchild £1.00 +£1.50 p&p
WHP20 Fifty Years of the ABC Regal, by Kate Taylor £1.00 +£1.50 p&p
WHP23

Attorney at Large, by John Goodchild

£5.00 +£2.00 p&p
WHP25 Coals from Sharlston, by John Goodchild £3.00 +£1.50 p&p
WHP27 Thomas Lloyd of Armley Mills, by Peter Brears £1.00 (reduced) + £1.50 p&p
WHP28 Mine and Men, by John Goodchild £3.00 +£1.50 p&p
WHP29 Landscape Gardens in West Yorkshire, by George Sheeran, hardback £5.00 (reduced) +£2.80 p&p
WHP33 Woolley Trail, by Geoffrey Markham £1.00 +£1.50 p&p
WHP35 Right Royal, Wakefield Theatre 1776-1994, by C.M.P. Taylor £9.95+£2.80 p&p
WHP36 The Making of a West Riding Clothing Village, Pudsey to 1780, by Ruth Strong £6.00 (reduced) +£2.00 p&p
WHP37 Before the National Coalmining Museum, a new history of Caphouse Colliery and Denby Grange Colliery, by John Goodchild £3.00 +£1.50 p&p
WHP38 The Compleat Housekeeper, by Peter Brears, hardback £8.00 (reduced) +£2.80 p&p
WHP39 Watermills and Furnaces of the Dearne Valley and its Tributaries, by Tom Umpleby £20.00 (reduced) +£3.90 p&p
WHP41 Wakefield’s First Railway and its Collieries, by John Goodchild £4.00 +£2.00 p&p
WHP43 Worthies of Wakefield, edited by Kate Taylor £5.00 (reduced) +£2.80 p&p
WHP44 The Pious Undertaking Progresses, the later history of the Chantry Chapel on Wakefield Bridge, by Kate Taylor £3.00 +£1.50

The Wakefield Historical Publications books and booklets below are out of stock, however they may be available in Wakefield Local Studies Library, or for sale at Rickaro Books in Horbury or at online booksellers like www.abebooks.co.uk

Coal Kings of Yorkshire, by John Goodchild, hardback (WHP 1)
Samuel Buck’s Yorkshire Sketchbook (WHP 2)
Woolley Hall, by Geoffrey Markham (WHP 3)
Christopher Saxton. Elizabethan Mapmaker, by Ifor M. Evans and Heather Lawrence (WHP 4)
Sandal Castle Excavation Report, by P. Mayes and L. A. S. Butler (WHP 6)
The Development of Wakefield in maps, plans and views, described by John Goodchild (WHP 7)
Wakefield and Wool, by John Goodchild (WHP 8)
Hemsworth High Hall, by G. Holdsworth (WHP 11)
Golden Threads, the Barnsley Linen Industry in the 18th and 19th  Centuries, by John Goodchild (WHP 12)
Caphouse Colliery and the Denby Grange Collieries, by John Goodchild (WHP 13)
Walks about Wakefield, by W.S. Banks (WHP 15)
The Inventor of the Marine Chronometer, by Eric Whittle (WHP 16)
The Gentlewoman’s Kitchen, by Peter Brears (WHP 17)
Memories of Merry Wakefield, by Henry Clarkson (WHP 21)
Coals from Barnsley, by John Goodchild (WHP 22)
The Aire and Calder Navigation, by Peter Smith (WHP 24)
Sandal Castle, Wakefield, The history and archaeology of a medieval castle, by Lawrence Butler (WHP 30)
Aspects of Medieval Wakefield, by John Goodchild (WHP 31)
The Children were Orderly, the story of Woolley School, by C.M.P. (Kate) Taylor (WHP 32)
A Newmillerdam Trail, by John Goodchild (WHP 34)
Bretton, the Beaumonts and a Bureaucracy, by S.J. Wright (WHP 40)
This Pious Undertaking, the Chantry Chapel on Wakefield Bridge in the 19th and 20th Centuries, by Kate Taylor (WHP 42)

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