Youngmans Restaurant features as stop five in the Edible Leeds trail. Librarian Helen Skilbeck takes a closer look at the history of the restaurant and the family behind the name. Gerald Priestland famously called Leeds “the intellectual capital of fish and chips” – and he had a point, with the town’s love of the dish…
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Turkey by Moxon
Time to start thinking about how you’re going to cook that turkey. Luckily for you our Librarian, Helen Skilbeck, is back on day 11 of our Advent Calendar with more Christmas recipes from the Local Studies collections. Elizabeth Moxon was a writer on cookery and is known chiefly for her sole publication, ‘English Housewifry, Exemplified…
Mince Pies by ‘The Prudent Housewife’
For day 8 of our Advent Calendar, Librarian Helen Skilbeck shares her favourite heritage mince pie recipe with you all. Ann Peckham was from Leeds and wrote a book entitled ‘The complete English cook or prudent housewife’. Our copy shown here is the fourth edition dating from 1770. In her preface Peckham states – ‘the…
Christmas Pudding
Day 2 of our Heritage & Special Collections Advent Calendar. Today librarian Helen Skilbeck has a Christmas Pudding recipe for you. Please let us know if you give it a go. The Leeds company Goodall, Backhouse and Co. produced a range of ‘household specialities’ including Yorkshire Relish, egg and custard powder, ginger beer powder, quinine…
Whale Tales
This week sees librarian Helen Skilbeck investigate some whale tales from the 1950s. At a recent virtual coffee morning I talked to an engaging group from Rothwell about some of the treasures of the Local and Family History Library. Afterwards one of the gentleman asked if I had any information about the whale that came…
West Leeds Boys High School
As part of our ongoing Armley Treasures series, librarian Helen Skilbeck looks at the early history of the West Leeds Boys High School. This is a companion piece to the West Leeds Girls High School blog post of August 2020 by Josh Flint. The school opened in September 1907 and was ‘planned not as a…
The Chapeltown Uprising of 1981 – commemorating and investigating.
This week sees the 40th anniversary of the uprising in Chapeltown, where the weekend of 11/12th of July saw social unrest around Roundhay Road and Chapeltown Road. This coincided with other protests that year in Brixton, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham as well as smaller uprisings in Bradford, Halifax and Hull. Leeds Libraries, West Yorkshire Archives,…
Glimpses of Mary Gawthorpe
As International Women’s Day approaches, we look at some inspirational women of Leeds, as chosen by Local and Family History staff. Here librarian, Helen Skilbeck, reveals her admiration of a local suffragist. A personal favourite of mine is Mary Gawthorpe (1881-1973) who was a teacher, suffragist, suffragette, organiser and public speaker for the WSPU (Women’s…
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