Victorian vignettes
Bury the Leeds #9
Since starting this newsletter the sheer volume of newspapers that served Leeds across a good two hundred years has surprised me.
Leeds Central Library holds copies of an incredible 100-odd different papers that have covered the city and its environs.
It makes me feel nostalgic for a time I never knew, when there was a vibrant ecosystem for news, with local hacks competing for tips, scoops and scandals.
There’s of course the Yorkshire Evening Post, which we know, the Leeds Mercury, which we might have heard of, and then other now obscure titles forgotten by time, like the Skyrack Courier, Leeds Evening Express or the North Leeds News.
My current favourite is the Armley and Wortley News.
The lively four-page weekly was launched in 1889 by publisher J.W. Birdsall on Branch Road. It came out every Friday and cost a halfpenny.
In 1933, it was incorporated into a new paper called the Leeds Guardian which covered more of the city, but that folded in 1958.
As well as your court reports, world news, health tips, fashion advice, adverts, births, deaths and marriages, many Leeds papers had a gossip column.
These featured an anonymous reporter who would serve up tittle-tattle and comment on local goings-on in a breezy, conversational tone.
The Armley and Wortley News’s version was called ‘What the Sparrow Sees and Thinks’.
The sparrow was an all-seeing eye into life in late Victorian Leeds. Every week, there would be around 15 humorous vignettes that poked fun at working-class life as it was.
The tales largely revolved around family, church, the mill and the pub.
None of the characters featured were ever named to save their blushes.
Did they all really happen? We’ll never know.
The man who stood outside The Star Inn most evenings was convinced, though. He told the paper in 1890:
“Most papers are full of lies, but sparrow is generally near t'mark, an if I want to know owt, I lewk what sparrow says.”
Below, I’ve looked over a few sparrow stories that I enjoyed.
A mechanic’s shock (October, 1893)
An Armley mechanic was walking through Bramley, pushing his newborn baby in a pram, when he spotted a group of Wortley lads whom he had played rugby against the day before.
Armley evidently came up short, as the Wortley gang couldn’t resist some gloating at their opponent.
The sparrow said:
“Some mischievous Wortley fellows made him so excited about the previous day's rugby football match that he left the perambulator on the causeway and danced about the road to show how the Armley team only just missed scoring two tries.”
As he was gesticulating like a loon in the middle of the street, one of the Wortley fellows lifted the baby out of the pram and put a jacket in its place.
The Armley man was satisfied that he’d made his point, and was so pleased with himself that he never thought to see if the baby was still in situ.
He went home to his wife with the pram and assumed he’d discovered the secret formula for getting a baby to sleep.
He proudly told her:
“Nah then, who can't tak' care of a youngster? - it's as easy as being a foreman at t'Forge. It nivver muffed once all’t way!”
His wife was of course horrified to find a jacket in the place of her little angel.
The husband bolted out of the door back to Bramley to find the missing baby.
He returned to the street corner where he’d done the dance and found the Wortleyites still there, with the baby. They handed her back to him.
Fearful of an almighty rollicking from his Mrs, he sheepishly told the men.
“Nay, ye tak’ it to her - I darn’t go home an ahr yet!”
A unique clock (December, 1889)
There was a “certain gentleman” in Wortley who was the proud owner of a very unique clock.
One morning, while he lay in bed, the clock began to strike. The man generally counted each stroke, and he did so again on this occasion.
The sparrow said:
“On and on went this merry old blunderer until at last it suddenly ceased.”
But the man couldn’t make out what time it was. He sat up, turned his head to his wife and said:
"It's just struck 62, lass, what time will it be nah?”
A failed quest (June, 1890)
In 1890, the sparrow discussed how two Armley men had talked for months about an epic walking quest, making it sound like a Don Quixote-esque tramp through Leeds.
On the day of the walk, they started off from home at 6.30 am and bullishly expected to put in 20 miles before even having breakfast.
However, the sparrow was dubious:
“It must be understood that all their arrangements were planned over in a noted public house, and they were not abstainers.”
Just 20 minutes into their endeavour, the two men climbed the Hill Top in Armley and spotted the Travellers Rest pub.
One man said to the other:
“Dussant tha think at that sign owr t'door at that public-haase means thee an' me?'“
“Pfft course it does”, confirmed his companion happily.
The pair agreed to enter the pub and have a glass of ale each to start them on their way.
In they went, and many glasses of beer were had until they were totally incapable of going on a long hike.
It sounds like they could just about stumble out of the bar.
They returned home at the time they had agreed when they set out, but they’d walked just one mile in nearly 18 hours.
The pub was just too tempting. Maybe next time.
A street quarrel (May, 1890)
The sparrow reported hearing about a street quarrel in Armley involving two rival housewives.
It started after a woman sold a chair and a table to a neighbour across the street, but when the objects had been received, they were found to be damaged.
The saleswoman, however, refused to have them back or offer any sort of discount.
So the understandably miffed buyer took the chair and table, one at a time, and carried them across the street. She dumped them back at the home of the original owner.
Passive-aggressive stakes were raised when the saleswoman then took them back across the road to her neighbour.
And so began an amusing back-and-forth performance, as one carried the chair one way, the other carried the table the other way and vice versa, until both women were completely exhausted.
It provided ample entertainment for the entire street, who by now had gathered to jeer and hurrah as each woman took their turn.
Ultimately, one of the women (the sparrow didn’t say which) went into her house and locked the door, leaving both the table and chair outside.
A new pet (December, 1890)
The sparrow mentioned a bright young man who worked at Inghams cloth mill in Pudsey.
He'd bought two guinea pigs in Leeds, thinking they were rabbits, so when he got home and realised his error, he tried to persuade a neighbour they were in fact “French rabbits”.
Sources
Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
Armley and Wortley News, December 27, 1889.
Armley and Wortley News, May 30, 1890.
Armley and Wortley News, June 27, 1890.
Armley and Wortley News, December 12, 1890.
Armley and Wortley News, October 20, 1893.
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