An author researching the lives of the Bilbrough family, residents of Beech Grove Terrace in Woodhouse, Leeds, contacted us recently with a very specific interpretation request that needs the assistance of our readers…

One of the Bilbroughs in the family I am researching wrote some of his diary entries in a form of shorthand. I have been told it is not Pitman’s though to my untutored eye it looks rather similar. I would love to find someone who could decode these entries and I wondered if you would have any advice.

The writer is Alfred Bilbrough (1842 – 1915). He had two brothers: William Radford Bilbrough (Radford, Rad, WRB), and John; and a sister, Ann. All four wrote diaries and none of them married. They lived at 15 Beech Grove Terrace, now part of Botany House, University of Leeds.

Alfred’s parents were known to their adult children as Pa and Ma. Pa (Joseph Brooks Bilbrough) was a druggist and colour man with a shop at 73 Briggate. Alfred and John also worked there.

Pa had two brothers, John and Alfred, uncles to the diarists. Uncle John had two children: Henry, and Anna who was Mrs Joseph Town. These two were brought up by Pa and Ma after John died of TB in 1855.

Uncle Alfred married late and had one son, William Nelson Bilbrough, much younger than his first cousins.

I have attaching five coded entries and will be grateful for any suggestions.

You can see all the images below – please get in touch with us on localandfamilyhistory@leeds.gov.uk or via 0113 37 86982 if you can help translate these diary entries.

The image on the is a postcard (c.1900-1914) showing the Yorkshire College buildings on the right on College Road (now University Road). On the left are are the backs of the Beech Grove Terrace houses. At the end of the road in the distance is the Leeds Grammar School (now Leeds University Business School). In 1904, the Yorkshire College became the University of Leeds. These buildings on the right, designed by Alfred Waterhouse, are now the Edward Baines Memorial Wing of the University.