This week’s local history quiz focuses on famous (and not so famous) people connected to Leeds and its past over the last 400-years or so. As always, you can find most (but not all!) of the answers on the blog, with some searching. The full-set of answers can be be found at the bottom of the questions…

• 1. Which Leeds merchant and antiquarian collector wrote the Ducatus Leodiensis (1715), the first written history of the town?

a. John Harrison
b. Ralph Thoresby
c. Richard Sykes

• 2. Which 19th-century entertainer, the first Black circus owner in England, is buried in Leeds?

a. Pablo Fanque
b. Mr. Kite
c. Joseph Grimaldi

• 3. Staying with the circus – which Swiss-born, Leeds-based performer counted Marilyn Monroe among her celebrity friends?

a.  Mary Brewer
b. Olga Denver
c. Susannah Marlaw

• 4. Who was the first Member of Parliament for Leeds?

a. Adam Baynes
b. Thomas Macaulay
c. Edward Baines Senior

• 5. Which 19th-century Radical, Chartist, publisher and bookseller was reputedly the ‘Lady Ludd’ figure who led political protests on Briggate in 1812?

a. James Mann
b. Richard Carlile
c. Alice Mann

• 6. Which Holbeck musician formed the Rhythm Girls, an all-female swing group, in 1939?

a. Ivy Benson
b. Ivy Branson
c. Ivy Bunsen

• 7. Samuel Schofield was a familiar figure on the streets of Leeds toward the end of the 19th-century. What was he better known as?

a. Sam the Cigarette Man
b. Sam the Newsman
c. Sam the Tram-man

• 8. More pseudonyms: which Leeds doctor published the 1946 novel By Their Deeds under the name of Alan Peters?

a. Isaac Hipshon
b. Alan Bennett
c. Ian Harker

• 9. Which two of the following three women were elected as the joint-first female Councillor in Leeds? (in 1921)

a. Maud Dightam and Gertrude Dennison
b. Maud Dightam and Bertha Quinn
c. Gertrude Dennison and Jessie Kitson

• 10. Which ‘Friend’ was employed as a tailor by Sir John Barran, for whom he revolutionised garment manufacturing?

a. Harry
b. Herman
c. Hector

• 11. Who was known as the ‘Poppy Lady of Leeds’?

a. Annie Tunnington
b. Laurie Tunnington
c. Judith Tunnington

• 12. Which Leeds Suffragette famously smashed a showcase at the Jewel House of the Tower of London?

a. Mary Gawthorpe
b. Leonora Cohen
c. Alice Cliff Scatcherd

• 13. Which Leeds man was minister for the Mill Hill Chapel in the late 18th-century?

a. Joseph Priestley
b. Walter Farquhar Hook
c. John Killingbeck

• 14. The Central Library holds a small-but-significant collection of original materials relating to which Leeds artist?

a. Joseph Rhodes
b. John Atkinson Grimshaw
c. Jacob Kramer

• 15. Name Leeds’ first Councillor of African-Caribbean heritage.

a. Cedric Clarke
b. Norma Hutchinson
c. There have been none to date

• 16. Which legendary Leeds family owned and edited the Leeds Mercury through the 19th-century?

a. The Wrights
b. The Baines
c. The Dennisons

• 17. Who was the first Chief Librarian in Leeds?

a. Thomas W. Hand
b. F.G.B. Hutchings
c. James Yates

• 18. Which 18th-century intellectual and philanthropist granted a substantial gift toward the building of the Holy Trinity Church on Boar Lane?

a. Lady Elizabeth Hastings
b. Anna Sykes
c. Frances Mary Richardson Currer

• 19. Which Leeds man was executed in 1587 for preaching the Catholic faith?

a. Anthony West
b. Edmund Sykes
c. Richard Lumby

• 20. Which Leeds-born actor played Yara Greyjoy on HBO’s hit Game of Thrones series?

a. Kelli Hollis
b. Gaynor Faye
c. Gemma Whelan

*****

Open the PDF for the answers…