Halifax

Nathaniel knew he was a Priestley, but he didn’t know quite how that had happened. An 1890 document stated that “Nathaniel Priestley, brazier or tinker, born near Bradford or Halifax about 1742, died 1828. Wanted his father’s name”. Presumably he knew who his mum was, though that is not recorded anywhere, either. What is known is that he was my Dad’s Great, Great, Great Grandad. The West Yorkshire Archive Service in Halifax holds hand-written Priestley family notebooks from the late seventeenth century onwards, so off we went to Yorkshire to see what we could find out.

The 11.15 Azuma from Doncaster was busy and on time. The elegant thirty-something foursome at the next table were up from London for a two-hour pre-booked lunch date in Harrogate. The upper middle class “Yah” now seems to have become an abbreviated “Yer” [but certainly nowhere near to a commonplace “Yeh”]. After Leeds, our Northern Class 195 DMU to Halifax was heading for the seaside at Blackpool with an altogether different clientele. I wondered if the cost of a weekend at the Lancashire resort for our six cheery fellow travellers was comparable to lunch for four at a fashionable restaurant in Harrogate.  

Central Halifax is full of character. The modern library that contains the WYAS is welded onto the remains of the Square Congregational church, dating from 1857 and still including the spire. This attractive and imaginative scheme was completed in 2017. Behind the ensemble is the Piece Hall, a magnificent Grade I listed masterpiece, constructed for the trading of woollen cloth by the thirty yard “piece”, in the eighteenth century. There are numerous solid Yorkstone buildings still surviving, from public and commercial to old mills with new functions. Since we were last in the centre of town, many of the narrow central streets have been pedestrianised, making it a very leisurely and welcoming place to stroll around.

The grand, old Grade II listed station building at Halifax was opened in 1855. The steel and glass structure that took its place on the adjacent site was completed in 2010, becoming the station’s new entrance and concourse. The original building became part of the tourist attraction, Eureka! The National Childrens’ Museum.  

There were no great revelations for us in the archive. Nathaniel’s dad did a very good job of concealing his son’s true identity - not only from his son but from the whole of his family thereafter. It was suspected, but never proved, that this was because he was a very wealthy man who was not married at the time - or, at least, not to the woman who bore this particular child. As a tinker and brazier whose own son married a 16-year-old gypsy girl, Nathaniel probably couldn’t ever afford a posh lunch in Harrogate, and maybe never made it to the seaside, either. However, the Priestleys can trace their ancestry back to that point 280 years ago and then beyond it over the many centuries that preceded the event. “Yeh”, we go right back - but then, of course, so does everyone else.