Within these pages you’ll find the story of the York “they” don’t want YORK: to tell you about. Music, poets, football and beer along with fights for women’s rights and Gay Liberation – just the story of AWALK another Friday night in York in fact! ONT ta HEWI les of riot, LDSID rebellion an E d revolution

Paul Furness In association with the York Alternative History Group 23 22 24 ate ierg 20 Coll

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St at R io o n ad York: The route oss r F ive lly R 3 t di e a 2 e cc r Pi t 5 S Clifford’s 4 r e w Tower o 1 T 26

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Different Cities, Different Stories 4

Stops on the walk: 1 A bloody, oppressive history… 6 2 Marching against ‘Yorkshire Slavery’ 9 3 Yorkshire’s Guantanamo 10 4 Scotland, the Luddites and Peterloo 12 5 The judicial murder of General Ludd 14 6 “Shoe Jews” and the Mystery Plays 16 7 Whatever happened to Moby Dick? 18 8 Sex and the City 19 9 The Feminist Fashionista! 21 10 The York Virtuosi 23 11 Gay’s the Word! 24 12 Poets Corner 27 13 Votes for Women! 29 14 Where there’s muck… 30 15 Doctor Slop and George Stubbs 32 16 Hey Hey Red Rhino! 33 17 It’s not all Baroque and Early Music! 35 18 A Clash of Arms 36 19 An Irish Poet and the Yorkshire Miners 37 20 Racism treads the boards 38 21 Lesbian wedding bells! 40 22 The World Turned Upside Down 43 23 William Baines and the Silent Screen 45 24 Chartism, football and beer… 46 25 An American and Karl Marx 48 26 Shakespeare’s Yorkshire Tragedy and another drunken tale 50

Afterword 52

p3 Different Cities, Different Stories…

In Alan Bennett's Talking Head “A Northerners have been shipped out Chip in the Sugar”, Graham's mother to Selby and the suburbs, which is visits York and tells him that nothing where all the better shops are? has changed – it’s the same as it Meanwhile, those mean streets of ever was - which is the popular and the inner city which they left behind old-fashioned image that the tourist have become a dumping ground for chiefs want to sell us hook, line and the southern middle class who, with sinker about this town. Walking not a Cockney or an Essex drawl along the elegant, 19th century among their shrill Hertfordshire Clifford Street, and then turning left whines, you will hear squealing with into Tower Street, there was – until barely concealed delight about how recently - a signpost pointing you in lucky they are to be living in lovely the direction of the Castle Museum York. Part of the sequestering of which read “Victorian Street – this this brash Yorkshire capital is a way”. Regardless of the fact that you sanitisation of its history and an had just strolled down a blisteringly ignorance of its past. No scandalous good example of one, this sign is but poets for them or the likes of Guy one indication of the branding – or Fawkes either – it’s all Dick Turpin maybe that should be blanding – of A-Go-Go these days! York has been the Olde Worlde City of York. As if the reduced to a city of drab, makeshift gorgeous reality of the place was not festivals that encourage everyone to enough to bring people here by the dress up as Romans or Vikings and thousand, the movers and shakers, live off expensive chocolate the great and the good – for which handouts. A manager at one such you should read the well-off and the tasty attraction once told me that mediocre – are all in it together visitors to York “are surprised about when it comes to selling an idolatrous its connections with chocolate – no image of York. John Barry, the man one knows it’s made here”. Well, who wrote “Goldfinger” and most of pardon me for biting off a chunk, but the other James Bond theme tunes, all anyone has to do is look at a Kit- said that the city he was born in was Kat wrapper or sniff the air for burnt among the most beautiful in the cocoa at certain times of the week to world but that it was as dull as ditch realise that York is, in the words of water, too. The novelist Kate the immortal John Cooper Clark, Atkinson, who was born and brought Candy Town. And so with the rest of up in Stonegate, said that most of it...It’s all getting a little like if the cap the people she grew up with no fits in this part of Yorkshire and, at longer use the centre of town. And times, it feels as if we are drowning why should they, when the chippy in an enormous pile of slightly soiled p4 antique lace. Yet walk through those same streets on a weekend or when This is one whopper of an the races are on and it all comes alive again – that magical, foul- urban stroll to do in one go mouthed raucous enjoyment of life and you may want to split that is what this old city is really all about. it into two or even three So why do we know so little manageable sections. But about York, one of the best- documented and most photographed you can do the whole thing cities in Europe? The stories in this if you want to. Walk it as lucky bag of a little book are in part an answer to that neglect and are you like. Few of the stops not told for keeping up appearances are marked by plaques so in order to market York's very pay attention to what’s saleable past [where are trading standards when you need them?] around you as you go: that’s but are, instead, those of people the whole point! who tried to make the world we live in a better place for all of us to wander around - and not just to sell We start this walk at us a shed load of twinkling tourist tat while we are at it. Clifford’s Tower, the most substantial part of York Enjoy! Castle still to stand.

p5 WALK stop 1 A bloody, oppressive history… Clifford’s Tower - see map p8 The four buildings that surround the tragic. The city had a large Jewish circular Eye of York – Clifford’s Tower, community, with many homes in the Law Courts, the Debtors Prison and Jubbergate, a Synagogue in Coney the Female Prison [both of which are Street and a cemetery north of the city now the Castle Museum] and the bits of walls at Jewbury. Josce and Benedict the main gateway and walls facing the were two Jewish merchants from York river Foss, behind the museum - are all who were in London for the coronation that remain of the once mighty York of Richard I when these riots broke out Castle. Built for William the Conqueror, – and they had to leave quick. Benedict it was one of two castles, one on each got as far as Northampton, where he side of the river Ouse – the other was tortured and forced to convert to survives today as a lovelorn, overgrown Christianity. He didn't survive and, back lump called Baile Hill at the end of in York, racist mobs rampaged through Skeldergate. The Norman Conquest the streets and murdered his widow and didn't take place here until 1069, three children. Josce, who made it home years after that of England, when York – safely, then led his community to seek the cosmopolitan capitol city of a refuge in Clifford’s Tower. What started country with its own language and out as a place of refuge became, over culture called Northumbria – was the coming week, one of captivity until destroyed during the Harrying of the on Friday 16 March – the Sabbath Eve North. William celebrated Christmas Day before the feast of Passover – the 150 that year by lounging in a throne on the men, women and children under siege battlements of Clifford’s Tower and, his were dead. While we don’t know for golden crown glinting in the winter sun, certain what happened next, later watched as the city below him was reports suggest they may have killed torched. Throughout Yorkshire, William themselves. The last man standing then unleashed a reign of terror during which set fire to the wooden Tower. The few an estimated 100,000 people were who survived this onslaught were massacred. It wasn't just humans that hunted down and slaughtered. Although were destroyed. Farms and livestock the Jewish community in York did were obliterated, too, and the land salted return, they were forced out again to prevent crops being grown for decades when the entire Jewish population of to come. Famine followed and, when the England was deported in 1290 – they Domesday Book was written in 1086 – were only allowed back in 1656, after almost 20 years afterwards - most of the monarchy was abolished. Although Yorkshire was still recorded as “waste”. the Clifford’s Tower you see today is not York Castle has been a place of the same building where the pogrom horror from the very start and, when took place, in 1902 an archaeological anti-Jewish riots erupted in London in dig revealed burnt wooden timbers just 12 1190, the repercussions in York would be feet below the surface. p6 For over 800 years, as the United York prostrate themselves in the dirt at Kingdom established itself in a Fulford Cross as he accepted bags of bloodbath, York Castle was a place gold and pleas for their sorry, rebellious of cruelty and repression. Rhys ap little lives. As for Robert Aske, the leader Maredudd, a member of the Welsh Royal of the revolt, Henry had something very family, led a prolonged revolt against the special in mind for him. Taken to London English in 1287 and, in 1292, he was and tried for High Treason, Aske was caught, dragged through the streets of returned to York in manacles and, on 12 York and brought here for execution. In July 1537, mounted a scaffold to be 1295, after another revolt led by Madog encased in an iron cage which was then ap Llewellyn, the last native Prince of hoisted to the top of Clifford’s Tower and Wales, many of those captured were dangled over the side until he was dead. also imprisoned here. The same thing His body was then left to rot until his happened during the border wars with skeleton collapsed in a heap. Scotland in the 14th century. Yorkshire's Something truly horrible happened own rebels fared little better and, when in front of the Tower during the reign of the Reformation was in full swing and Elizabeth I when a law passed in 1530 Catholicism was ousted in favour of made it illegal for foreign-born Gypsies Protestantism, it not only closed the to settle in England and, although an monasteries but brought widespread estimated 10,000 already lived here, unemployment to those dependent any more caught could be hung on the upon them for work, education and spot; this was the law for the next 253 medical provision – in this part of the years until it was repealed in 1783! When world, which is famously littered with a ship carrying Gypsies to England was ecclesiastical ruins, it must have been intercepted in 1530, the captain was like having a major multi-national fined and the passengers executed. pulling the plugs in a time of recession. Seventeen years later, anyone suspected When it erupted in 1536, the Pilgrimage of being a Gypsy was branded on of Grace really was one big bad revolt the breast. In 1596, 106 Yorkshire that was hidden from history – passed “Egyptians” were rounded up and off today as a religious skirmish [if, brought to York for trial. Although the indeed, it gets a mention in the history bulk of them could prove they were books at all] the revolt was centred born here, nine of them couldn't and, in on York and, at its height, was able to front of those who had been acquitted muster 40,000 armed men to prevent – including their own relatives and the Kings troops from passing the children, who were forced to watch – southern border of Yorkshire in the they were strung up and murdered. lands around Doncaster. The revolt was almost successful when Henry VIII The roundabout of grass at the hoodwinked them into accepting their heart of all these buildings is the demands – on condition that they stand Eye of York, the epicentre of York down their peoples militia. Within weeks, Castle and the centre of the 216 of the leaders were rounded up and Yorkshire Universe – the mythical executed as Henry paraded up the Great meeting of the East, North and North Road to watch the councillors of West Ridings! p7 WALK stop 1 WALK T o stop w 2 e r S t Clifford’s r e e Tower t Eye WAL of York K The stop 3 Law WALK Courts stop 4 Debtor’s Prison

War Memorial River Ouse e ridg e B gat WALK lder Ske stop 5 River Foss

p8 WALK stop 2 Marching Against ‘Yorkshire Slavery’ The Eye of York - see map p8

It was here that the anti-slavery This ragbag army of the dispossessed politician William Wilberforce made arrived in York during a violent the first great speech of his career thunderstorm and, after resting at when, at the end of a long, foul day the Knavesmire, entered the city in March 1784, he spoke for over an through Micklegate Bar, paraded hour in front of a vast crowd. James down the street and crossed Ouse Boswell, the Scottish writer famous Bridge to Castlegate. This narrow little for his “Life” of Dr Johnson, was street saw an endless procession of shivering in the wind, hail and rain over 20,000 exhausted and rain- which lashed down when “I saw sodden people pass through it to the what seemed a mere shrimp mount Eye of York, roaring their support for upon the table; but as I listened, he Oastler and his “Ten Hour Bill”. A few grew and grew, until the shrimp hours later, they reassembled and became a whale”. In the York Tavern marched all the way back again. afterwards [Betty's cafe is there When Edmund Baines, editor of the now], the debate went on until a cry 'Leeds Mercury', falsely accused the of “Wilberforce and Liberty!” rang out marchers of rioting at York, a mob across the city. Next day, he returned gathered outside his newspaper to the Castle Yard and was elected MP office and burnt an effigy of him. for Yorkshire – we had two for the In York, another effigy of Baines entire county! – a seat he would win wearing a placard around its neck four times until he retired in 1812. calling him “the Great Liar of the Richard Oastler [the man with North” was paraded through the the statue in Bradford] wrote to the streets on the back of a donkey. 'Leeds Mercury' on 16 October 1830 And then it was shot. about the plight of “thousands of little children” who were “compelled With your back to Clifford’s Tower, the to labour from six o'clock in the building in front of you – now part of morning to seven in the evening” the Castle Museum – is the Debtors with “only thirty minutes allowed for Prison. Built in 1705, it replaced eating”, and compared it to slavery. Oastler was one of the leading voices buildings which were part of the in the fight for a ten hour day for original Castle. These later buildings factory kids and, in 1832, he put were, by 1780, so over-crowded that his feet where his mouth was and another – female – prison was built organised a “Pilgrimage to York”. next to it (on your left). Despite Thousands of people from the towns these names, both buildings were in and villages of the West Riding fact always used as general prisons converged on Leeds to join “the for men and women alike. March Against Yorkshire Slavery”. p9 WALK stop 3 Yorkshire’s Guantanamo The Debtor’s Prison - see map p8 Jennet Preston was one of 12 women 'Sheffield Iris', Anti-Slavery activist from around Pendle Hill in Lancashire and campaigner for the rights of who were charged with “practising chimney sweeps, was imprisoned the devilish Arts called Witchcraft” in here twice – first for reporting a 1612. As she lived at Gisburn, on the riot and again for writing about the Yorkshire side of the border, she was Fall of the Bastille during the French sent for trial at York on a trumped- Revolution. While he was in his up charge of causing the death of cell, the man who wrote the hymn a dying man - without even being “Angels From the Realms of Glory” present! Found guilty of practising also wrote a book of poems called “charms and sorceries”, this so- “Prison Amusements” - to avoid called Pendle Witch was executed another arrest, it was published as in the Castle Yard a few days the work of Paul Positive. afterwards. For centuries, there was As the Industrial Revolution no religious freedom in this country rampaged through the valleys of the and Catholics were routinely rounded West Riding, uprisings against the up and imprisoned here. Those who injustice and exploitation that came indulged in non-conformist worship, with it were widespread. By the such as Quakers, could expect similar time the National Charter Association treatment and, for over a hundred was founded in 1840 to agitate for years, 500 of them [including their political reform and better working founder, George Fox] were conditions, York Castle had become incarcerated at York. After the the Guantanamo Bay of its day – English Revolution, James Parker and it was bursting at the seams was locked up for cursing the king. with Northern political prisoners. “I served Oliver Cromwell for seven When Robert Gammage published years as a soldier”, he said, “as for his famous “History of the Chartist the king I am not beholden to him. Movement” in 1854, he devotes an I care not a fart for him”. In 1663, entire chapter to the prisoners kept 26 of the men arrested in Leeds after at York – and conditions were grim. the Farnley Wood Plot failed to bring In 1836, 25 blanket weavers from down the monarchy were brought Huddersfield were held in chains – here and hanged, drawn and 12 of them were transported to quartered, their heads cut off and Australia, never to see their families displayed on pikes above the lofty again. Peter Hoey, a Barnsley hand- Bars of York. loom weaver convicted for sedition, Freedom of Speech barely existed lost a leg after being manacled for in times gone by, and newspapers so long, and Samuel Holberry – who were tightly controlled. In 1794, was suffering from tuberculosis and James Montgomery, the editor of the was so weak he couldn't even hold a p10 pen - was worked to death on the rally at the Knavesmire. To raise treadmill; upwards of 50,000 people money for the cause, a lined the streets of Sheffield for his commemorative medal was issued funeral in 1842. Conditions were with an image of O'Connor on one better for Fergus O'Connor, the leader side and York Castle on the other – of the Chartists, when he was none are in York, but the People's sentenced to 18 months for libel in History Museum in Manchester 1840. Tensions were high after the usually has one on display. As late Newport rising in Wales the previous as the First World War, York was still year and, when O'Connor wrote an playing its part in state-sponsored editorial in his Leeds-based paper repression when large numbers 'The Northern Star' – the most of Conscientious Objectors were radical newspaper of the 19th century brought to the castle and, once the which was read aloud to customers Aliens Restriction Act became law in in the pubs of York – he was charged August 1914, German-born residents with libel. When “the Lion of Freedom” of Yorkshire were rounded up and was released from his cell on 31 herded off to prison – so many of August 1841, he was greeted by the them in fact that tents had to be set biggest demonstration York had ever up on the Eye of York to house them. seen. Dressed in a fustian suit - the The situation became farcical when symbol of the worker - made by the Karl Lorenz, a 25 year old who had clothiers of Leeds, he was seated in lived in York since he was 16, was a “triumphant car” made of green prosecuted for spending an afternoon velvet with a pink trim in the shape in Harrogate – no one had told him of the Horn of Plenty and, with brass that he needed a permit to do so! bands blaring and tens of thousands of people cheering, he was paraded through the streets to an enormous

To your right are the Law Courts, which are still in use today and rarely open to casual visitors – unless you have been done for something!

p11 WALK stop 4 Scotland, the Luddites and Peterloo The Law Courts - see map p8 After the first Jacobite Rebellion in death, Reid's body was cut into four 1715, 60 Scottish prisoners were kept pieces and his severed head impaled shackled to the walls of a group of on a spike above Micklegate Bar – as damp, dark, rodent infested prison a warning to all would-be insurgents. cells which stood here until the Law On January 4, in the New Year of Courts were built in 1777. As they 1812,Yorkshire's Luddites were led in were miles from home and prisoners chains from the Debtors Prison to the didn't have the money to pay for Court House – a building deliberately their own food and drink, disease designed to resemble the stately was rife and they dropped like flies homes of the landed gentry. The overnight. After the second Rebellion city was in a state of unrest as it in 1745, when invasion was feared swarmed with thousands of and long queues of the wealthy lined General Ludd’s supporters who, like the roads out of York for the safety Spartacus before him, was one of of the isolated moors, around 250 those great anonymous working Scots – including 9 “rebel bitches” – class heroes who is everyone and were frog-marched to jail after the no-one at the same time. A first battle of Culloden finally put an end action included attacking Rawfolds to the hopes of Bonnie Prince Charlie Mill, near Halifax, which the Luddites gaining Jacobite success. After intended to burn down because the standing trial accused of High new weaving machines the owners Treason, 48 were transported on a installed were used as an excuse one way journey to slavery in the to put people out of work. Then – United States and the rest were shortly afterwards – the assassination invited to draw lots to see who lived of William Horsfall [who once or died – on three consecutive boasted he would “ride up to his Sundays in November 1746, 22 saddle girth in Luddite blood”] led Jacobites were slowly hung, their to suspected Luddites in the West hearts cut out while they were still Riding being rounded up and shipped beating and burned in front of them off to York to stand trial. Imagine, as they died. One of them was a 19 then, the impact of this building, the year old piper called Robert Reid. He likes of which they may well have pleaded not guilty as, he told the seen but almost certainly would not judge, he was a musician and had have entered [unless they were never taken up arms in his life. The employed as a servant, that is] and judge declared that the bagpipe was knowing that, in all likelihood, they a Scottish instrument of war and would never come out of it alive. It sentenced young Reid to join his took the Southern judge [who had comrades on the scaffold all the difficulty understanding Yorkshire same. After suffering this gruesome dialect] just a single day to condemn p12 these men to death. And then lived in or around York for 20 years, another day to do the same again. who once insisted that “nothing On August 16 1819, a massive and less than a small massacre of peaceful rally calling for political magistrates” would do to bring reform was held at St Peter’s Field in British justice back in check, sat Manchester. Fearing the size of the through the whole thing. Without the crowd, the authorities gave the money to get here, the 10 accused order to attack and, after soldiers and 140 witnesses left at 6 in the on horseback rampaged through the morning on 13 March, crossed the demonstrators cutting them down Pennines on foot and, after picking with sabres, 11 people were sliced up supporters at Leeds, arrived in to death and 500 more lay brutally York the following night. They hardly injured. Mass arrests followed. had time to recover before, 2 days Ordinarily, this trial would take later, the trial began. It lasted until place at Lancaster but, fearing unrest 27 March, after which the 5 convicted if it did so, it was moved across the were sentenced in London in May; Pennines to the far away city of Henry “Orator” Hunt was given 2 York instead. This is the building in years and 6 months and Samuel which those charged with “Alleged Bamford, who would eke out the rest Conspiracy to Alter the Law by Force of his life flogging Lancashire dialect and Threats and for Convening and verse around the Manchester pubs, Attending an Illegal, Riotous and and two others were given a year Tumultuos Meeting at Manchester” each in Lincoln jail. were tried; Sydney Smith, the famous wit, writer and parson who

Walk back towards Clifford’s Tower, turn left and walk down the slope towards the main road. Turn left again and follow the pavement around the back of the Law Courts until, where it joins the Castle Museum, next to the busy road and near the roundabout, you will see a raised bit of ground close to the wall.

p13 WALK stop 5 The judicial murder of General Ludd Behind the Law Courts - see map p8 Nobody really gives this a second men...on whose countenances nature glance as they go about their daily lives, had not imprinted the features of but the reason the ground is raised – assassins”. On 16 January, a further 14 and why there is a door in the wall Luddites were hung – 7 in the morning behind it, too – is because this was and 7 at noon so, the Hanging Judge where the scaffold on which the quipped, “they could hang the more Yorkshire Luddites were executed in comfortably” and were then left 1813 was built. On January 6 1813, dangling for an hour. York, newspapers William Thorpe, Thomas Smith and a 23 reported, was noticeably quiet for days year old wool cropper from Huddersfield afterwards. Seven of the bodies were called George Mellor – who was more claimed by families and taken away for than likely the local General Ludd – burial but the rest, after the humiliation were sentenced to death for conspiracy of public dissection, were buried in the and murder; to this day, it has never Castle Yard where little children visiting been proved that they were guilty or the museum now amuse themselves not. It took the jury just 25 minutes to with a game of Victorian skittles. But return a verdict. “Justice” was swift in the sentence passed on the Luddites those days and, 2 days later, still in was not yet complete. “I fear danger their leg irons and bound at the wrists, from this vile set of villains is far from they were led to their death outside over”, one mill owner wrote in the the castle walls at 9 in the morning. aftermath of these judicial killings. It Fearing a rescue attempt by the was time to use another weapon to supporters who covered St Georges suppress the radical ideas of Luddism: Fields to the edge of both rivers – defamation. For over 200 years the Skeldergate Bridge and its roads did not name Luddite has been used to yet exist - a line of armed soldiers discredit these young men as anti- separated the scaffold from the vast technological hoodlums – without a crowd which, as the trapdoor opened shred of evidence to suggest that this and the execution commenced, was the case. All they ever wanted emitted a loud and sorrowful groan. to do was work to feed their families. “And thus have perished in the very With their deaths the “Ludding bloom of life”, Edward Baines reported times” came to an end in “this in the 'Leeds Mercury', “three young deluded county”.

Retrace your steps to the zebra crossing, cross the road and turn left, following the road around and over Skeldergate Bridge. Take the first right into Skeldergate itself. Stop at the nondescript building called Chaplin House on your left, between Emperor’s Gym and the big Georgian Town House, part of Lady Anne Middleton’s Hotel. p14 WALK

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p15 WALK stop 6 “Shoe Jews” and the Mystery Plays Lady Anne Middleton’s Hotel - see map p15

Hans Hess, the son of Germany's Back in Germany, his mother second largest shoe manufacturer, was packed up the family art collection born in the city of Erfurt in 1908. His and took it to Switzerland in 1934. father ran the factory as a socialist [he Over the coming years, she was fought in the First World War before forced to sell most of it to survive and manning the barricades during the 1919 the rest was either looted or stolen revolution] and later became one of by museums; in 2006, Kirchners the founding members of the Bauhaus masterpiece “Berlin Street Scene” was [the most influential 20th century finally given back to Hess's daughter. school of art and design in the world] After Kristallnacht in November 1938 and friends with the great German (when the Jews in Germany had their artists of the day, such as Paul Klee, shops and businesses ransacked), the Wassily Kandinsky, Max Pechstein, shoe factory was taken over by the Ernst Kirchner, and the composer Nazis and his uncle who ran it fled to Arnold Schoenberg. The Hess family Holland, where he was rounded up house, which was known to everyone and sent to his death at Sobibor. The as Hotel Hess, was filled with art from rest of the Hess family were gassed at top to bottom. Ironically, as the Nazi Theresienstadt concentration camp. Reich gathered pace, the Hess shoe Shortly afterwards, his mother finally factory began to dominate the market arrived in London from Switzerland. [they produced around 6,000 pairs a Left penniless, Hans Hess was one day] until, ridiculed as “Shoe Jews”, of the few voices warning the English their home was attacked and Hans left establishment about the reality of the to work in Berlin. He moved in with concentration camps – but nobody Elizabeth Hauptman, the playwright was listening. Instead, he wrote anti- Bertolt Brecht's girlfriend, just two Nazi propaganda for a communist months before his father’s sudden organisation on the Finchley Road death on Christmas Eve 1931. By 1933, in North London (where there was when he was only 25, his family was a concentration of Jewish refugees) publicly denounced not just as Jews called the Committee of the Friends but as “lovers of Bolshevik Art”. After of the German Peoples Front. Finding his Berlin flat was ransacked and a job with the Left Book Club and Hauptman was hauled off to a torture meeting George Orwell, Hess founded chamber, Hess’s situation became the Free German League of Culture increasingly perilous when he was fired in 1939 which he ran until he was from his job simply for being Jewish. deported to Canada as an Enemy Deciding to flee from Germany, Hess Alien. Back in England by 1943, he went to Paris and, when the Nazis worked as an agricultural labourer, began to close in again, he escaped by married, became a father and moved boat to England in the winter of 1936. to York when he was appointed p16 director of the York Art Gallery in 1947. in 1961, he published an influential He lived in this house for almost 20 account of the Blue Rider artist and years. Now one of six buildings used old family friend, “Lyonel Feininger”. by Lady Anne Middleton's Hotel, the Apart from dragging York Art Gallery house is named after the film star kicking and screaming into the 20th Charlie Chaplin, one of the many century – it took him all of the 20 friends of Hess who stayed here; years he lived here to do so, he said – others include the composer the most important thing Hess did for Benjamin Britten and his partner, the York was revive the Mystery Plays, tenor Peter Pears, and the jazz singer that unique cycle of communal plays Cleo Laine and her partner, the charting the story of the medieval musician John Dankworth. One man world view from creation to who recalled coming here in 1963 was armageddon which had been Peter Gill, the playwright who was suppressed since 1569. When the then the Assistant Director of the York Festival of Britain never got north of Mystery Plays. “They being refugees”, Watford in 1951, Hess decided to put he wrote, “it had an atmosphere quite York on the map by starting a Festival of its own, filled with books and of the Arts with the Plays at the heart paintings”. That night, as “talk turned of it – and, thanks to a German Jewish to the intellectual consequences of the asylum seeker, they have continued Russian Revolution”, Hess gave Gill a to be performed ever since; the York copy of “Ten Days That Shook the Festival, sadly, was not so lucky and World” by the American journalist was abandoned by the council in the John Reed. It took Peter Gill just under 1980s. York's loss was Leicester's gain 40 years to return the compliment when, in 1967, he finally called it a day when, long after the death of Hans and took his art collection with him – Hess in 1975, he wrote “The York consequently the New Walk Gallery Realist” about this time back in the has, thanks to Hans Hess, the biggest Sixties. Hess wrote three of his own collection of German expressionist art books in this house, a memoir of his in Britain. childhood called “Thanks in Colour”, a study of the artist George Grosz and,

Stay on the same side of the road and continue along Skeldergate until you come to Carrs Lane. Turn left into this delightful alley and, at the top, turn right into the abandoned churchyard. Take a seat. The next stop is the complex of newer houses in front of you, outside the churchyard on Bishophill Senior.

p17 WALK stop 7 Whatever happened to Moby Dick? Bishophill House - see map p15 Bishophill House was the York home manuscript of a novel called “Billy of Thomas Fairfax, commander of Budd” found in his desk after his death the New Model Army under Oliver in 1891 suggests that he did. Finally Cromwell, who lived at Nun Monkton published in 1924, it tells the tale of House near Bilbrough. Built in the young, handsome Billy Budd, 1660s, it had 29 fireplaces and was everyone's favourite sailor aboard HMS the biggest house in town – all the Bellipotent – all except, that is, John visual images of 18th c York show it Claggart, who accuses Budd of being dominating this part of the city. After a subversive lefty about to start a Fairfax led the Parliamentarian troops mutiny. As Budd stammers, he doesn't to victory at Marston Moor in 1644, make himself clear and a fight starts he discovered that his house had in which Claggart is killed. The ship’s been ransacked by Royalists but was captain, Edward Fairfax Vere – get it? astonished that it survived the cannon - whose nickname is Starry – get it fire and moved back in. again? - finds Budd guilty at a court In 1637, Fairfax had married Anne martial and, as dawn rises over the de Vere. Their daughter Mary was born ocean, he is hanged from the rigging. here in 1638 and, in 1650, her father Vere is then killed in a skirmish with hired the poet Andrew Marvell as her the revolutionary French and, racked teacher; she grew up to marry Marvell's with guilt, dies repeating the name friend, the notorious libertine George “Billy Budd, Billy Budd” over and over Villiers. Marvell not only lived here again. Such has been this little gem’s when he was in York but worshipped influence that it has been turned into at the next door church of St Mary an opera by Benjamin Britten and Bishophill Senior [it was demolished in even a song by the Pope of Mope, 1963], which the Fairfax family treated Morrissey himself. almost as a private chapel. Not averse There is even another connection to a bit of flattery, Marvell described between Herman Melville and York. “Black Tom” - who had long, jet black On 28 April 1825, a sperm whale was hair and dark eyes - as a “Northern washed up on a part of the Yorkshire Hercules” and his wife as the bright coast belonging to the family from and shining “Starry Vere”; the Pittsfield Burton Constable Hall. Christopher home of the American writer Herman Sykes, an amateur scientist with the Melville is now a museum and, in his Yorkshire Philosophical Society, went library, the last page of his copy of along to inspect the carcass. The 58 Marvell's “Collected Poems” has foot long “Monster washed upon the been inscribed with this quote. When shore at Holderness” was then taken Melville came to York in 1856, did he to a specially built lab at Hull were it know of these connections? The was dissected by a Cambridge doctor p18 called James Alderson. When he 1970s, when part of the museums published “An Account of the S.Whale natural history collection began to rot, cast on shore at Tunstall, 1825”, the decision was taken to close the Melville bought a copy – and it was open air swimming pool behind the this which inspired “Moby Dick” in Hospitium and fill it with them. It now 1851. Although the bones were seems highly likely that the heart of returned to Burton Constable Moby Dick is buried in Museum Gardens. [where they can still be seen], the three foot long heart was bottled in formaldehyde and given to Sykes who, in turn, gave it to the York County Hospital on Monkgate. Eventually, it Walk along the same side of the was transferred to the Yorkshire street until you come to Bishophill Museum. What then became of the Junior. The big house numbered pickled heart of the worlds most 11-13 on your right, now divided into famous fish is anyone's guess, but its flats, is our next stop. not where it’s supposed to be. In the

WALK stop 8 Sex and the City 11-13 Bishophill Junior - see map p15 Prostitution has always done good snuffed can still be seen outside a business in York and, in medieval few town houses such as 23 High times, when visitors to the Mystery Petergate. But it was the 19th c which Plays went in search of more carnal really brought sex workers to town entertainment they found it in the in their droves – the Water Lanes, brothels of Gropecunt Street – Grape which led from Castlegate all the Lane's original name; wax tablets way down to the river, were so dating from 1350 tell us how one crowded with whores that the lovelorn client turned to poetry when respectable Quakers of Castlegate the object of his lust didn't say yes objected to them gathering on street but didn't say no either! In Georgian corners in “flashy clothes” and days, gay visitors like William yelling enticements to passers-by. Beckford came looking for “a nice Although prostitutes were regularly York patapouf” which could be found dragged before the Minster courts for a price outside the Assembly and charged with “fornication”, the Rooms, where “link boys” carrying authorities did not have it easy flaming torches lighted the way when Ann McDonald, sick of police home for lonely gentlemen; the harassment, was seen “lurching horns in which the “links” were down Walmgate with a sickle in her p19 hand and flourished it about her for the Friendless and Fallen” to be head” at the boys in blue who, trained as servants. They had to sign when they attempted to close down a pledge relinquishing the sinful life Priscilla Barnett's floating brothel, and obey a strict set of rules – work were tipped into the river by the was done in silence, they could not working girls. Best of all is Sarah receive letters, family visits were Heaton, a Madam who did her time short and supervised and “lying, and left Bishophill prison in July 1844 swearing, dishonesty, repeated dressed to the nines and, met by a disobedience and cross misbehaviour horse and cart, was paraded through shall be punished by the committee”. the streets “proceeded by a band of Although neighbours reported seeing music” and “followed by prostitutes” the “bad girls” marched off to church back to her brothel in Bedern where, each Sunday morning, not all were the 'York Herald' reported, “scenes of saved as the streets surrounding the revelry, debauchery and prostitution Home were hot beds of vice – were carried on with impunity...at all Skeldergate alone could boast 60 hours of the night”. It was scenes brothels in 1871! Reports of girls like this that led to the Female climbing over the walls to earn a bit Penitentiary, a “refuge for fallen of ready cash were not uncommon women”, opening its doors in this before the Home finally closed its house in 1845. Women desperate doors in 1918. to escape the cycle of poverty and exploitation that working the streets brought with it came to this “Home

Continue walking straight ahead, cross over Fetter Lane and, ahead of you on the left, go into Trinity Lane. On your left, stop at another building converted into flats: numbers 2-12 is the next stop.

p20 WALK stop 9 The Feminist Fashionista! 2-12 TrinityLane - see map p15

For all its pretensions, the Mount middle-class women staying at home public school started life in an old all day, and started the Girls Guild of soap works here in 1785 to teach the Good Life to promote female “useful needlework, knitting, the education in working class Hoxton English Language and arithmetic” to after the famous Match Girls Strike girls – something John Strange Winter at Bryant and May's factory in Bow, heartily agreed with. As nice girls in 1888. didn't write fiction, Henrietta Eliza One of a growing number of Vaughan Palmer, who was born here women to assert themselves before in 1856, chose this appropriately the Suffragettes came to town, in masculine name as the author of over 1893 John Strange Winter set up the 100 swashbuckling tales of barrack No-Crinoline League and took on the room life in the British Empire. fashion industry – so ending the Expelled from school for “high spirits”, manufacture of restrictive female this vicar’s daughter was brought up clothing. She also set up the Royal in a military family and published her Society for the Protection of Birds first dreadful story, “Clotildes by campaigning against the use of Vengence, or the story of the French feathers and exotic plumage in hat Revolution”, when she was 14! With manufacture. In 1896 – long before titles such as “Private Tinker and the Body Shop or Lush had ever been Other Stories”, “Cavalry Life” and thought of – Winter turned her hobby “A Blaze of Glory”, she even had John of making natural hair tonics and skin Ruskin [who really should have creams into a thriving business and, in known better] as a fan. Although the 1906, won the Gold Medal at the awful “Bootles Baby: a story of the International Hygiene exhibition in Scarlet Lancers” sold over 2 million Vienna. In 1911, she slipped leaving a copies, her own life is far more lift at Earls Court tube station and, a interesting than the pulp fiction from year later, died from her injuries. She which she made her living. Married at was only 55 and, in accordance with Fulford in 1884, they moved to York her wishes, her funeral was to be a House in the London suburb of Putney thoroughly modern and recently soon afterwards and began a family. legalised cremation. In 1891 she started “Winters Weekly”, the first women's magazine to hit the high street, became first President of Walk along to Micklegate, turn the Writers Club in 1892 and also right and cross over the road. President of the Society of Women To the right of Ken Spelman’s Journalists. She was a founder famous second-hand bookshop is member of the League of the Silver our next stop, 68 Micklegate. Card, which tackled alcoholism in p21 lls Wa ty Ci

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In the 18th century the North began Horace Walpole called “the York to change – industrialisation in the Virtuosi”. Over the years they Pennine dales to the west of York included the Tadcaster brewer Sam brought about scientific innovation Smith, the French artist Jacques on an unprecedented scale and, in Parmentier, the architect John Etty Scotland, groups of people questioning [who sometimes brought along his the world around them, started apprentice, a young Dutch wood what is now call the Enlightenment. carver called Grinling Gibbons, who South of the border, York had its would soon become the greatest own little gang of enquiring craftsman of his day], the sculptor intellectuals known as the Virtuosi Samuel Carpenter and the London – and they met here, in Henry Gyles art dealer, Pierce Tempest. More local house. An artist [his sketch of artists were Francis Place, who lodged Stonehenge is now in the Tate] who here for some time and went on single-handedly revived the lost art of sketching tours of Wales with Gyles, glass painting, Gyles spent his entire John Lambert, son of the famous life in this house – he was born here Parliamentarian leader with the same in 1640 and died here in 1709 [he is name and whose portrait of Gyles is buried across the street at St Martin- now in the British Museum, and Cum-Gregory]. William Lodge, whose translation of The house had two cellars – one “The Painters Voyage to Italy” by for coal, the other for wine – a dining Giacomo Barri was a cult read among room next to the kitchen on the the Milordi flocking to Florence and ground floor [now a shop, this is Naples on the Grand Tour – a sort where all the socialising happened], of 18th century gap year for a sitting room and three bedrooms on aristocratic youth. the first floor and, above that, another Scientists and inventors galore 5 bedrooms. And, given all the people came to Micklegate, including the who came here, he certainly needed mathematician Thomas Kirke, the them. In 1702, Ralph Thoresby [whose physician Moses Ashenden, the “cabinet of curiosities” in Leeds was brothers Thomas and Joshua Mann one of the first museums] wrote in his [who made funeral brasses, compasses diary how he “sat up late with a and silver sundials], the antiquarian parcel of artists I had got on my vicar of Keighley, Miles Gale, and a hands” at Honest Hals - the handful of other curious curates. affectionate nickname of the jovial Mr Another scientist, Nathaniel Johnson, Gyles. For 40 years from around 1670, even persuaded his friend Issac Gyles kept open house – a provincial Newton – who discovered gravity salon, no less – for an informal when an apple fell on his head – to gathering of people who the writer take a look at the work of York's very p23 own Spiderman, Martin Lister. One ridge in the southern Mare Serenitatis of the principal figures in the Virtuosi, of the Moon named after him – Lister came to York to practise became a Fellow of the Royal Society, medicine in 1670 and, 8 years later, a national organisation set up to climbed the Minster's central tower promote scientific achievement. Lister to watch how spiders fell to earth and probably met an amateur scientist wrote a book about it. He wrote called Geoffrey Copley at Henry Gyles another pioneering book about snails house who, on his death in 1709, left – complete with gorgeous illustrations the Royal Society the money to fund of shells by his daughters, Anna and the Copley Medal which, next in Susanna – and a guidebook to Paris importance to the Nobel Prize, has before, in 1685, he conducted the been awarded to the likes of Charles autopsy on Charles II. Offered a job he Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein couldn't refuse, he then moved to and Stephen Hawking. Not that you'd London as the personal doctor to the know it in York. next monarch, that plump lesbian Queen Anne. Back in 1671, however, Martin Lister – who has a wrinkle

Stay on this side of the street and walk downhill towards the river. Cross Ouse Bridge and, just before the church of St Michael Spurriergate (its now a café where you can get a nice cup of Yorkshire tea and a Yorkshire curd tart!), you will see an alley called Church Lane on your left. Go down here and stop, just past the shops, at the top of another alley leading down to the river.

WALK stop 11 Gay’s the Word! Church Lane - see map p22

You are now standing in what was Dringhouses called John Chesterman once a gay cottage - a gentleman's in a gents near the unemployment lavatory where, in 1956, two gay kids office in Parliament Street, it was love met and changed the course of across the urinals at second sight English history. When 16 year old when they met again here. They soon Stuart Feather, who lived above his began to socialise with a gang of gay parents’ fish and chip shop in Acomb kids who met in the back room of the and was an apprentice engineer at Punch Bowl on Stonegate. Their friend Cook, Traughton and Simms, met a 19 David Harbottle was arrested in this year old architectural student from same cottage, his life was ruined after p24 being named and shamed in the local commemoration of the gay victims press. The injustice of this made both of Nazi genocide at the Whitehall boys question society and, when the Cenotaph in 1971, started 'Gay Wolfenden Report hit the headlines International Times' - one of the after it was published in 1957 world’s first gay newspapers - and [although it recommended legalising began a series of hilarious interventions homosexuality, being gay would against the moralist Mary Whitehouse remain illegal for another decade], and her right-wing Festival of Light. they went around town buying every Meanwhile, Stuart Feather did what he newspaper they could get before had always wanted to do and became going into Dean’s Park to read them. an actor [he played Pontius Pilate's son When two of Feather's workmates in the 1957 York Mystery Plays] when cycled past, the inevitable happened he and the notorious Bette Bourne and he was greeted by “hoots, whistles began the “radical drag revue” Bloolips and jeers” at work and demoted – with and toured the world. the corresponding drop in wages – to But it was something these two helping “the factory dimwit” fetching young men from York did in 1972 that and carrying. Shortly afterwards, they has left its mark on history. On 27 moved to Huddersfield and, in 1960, to November that year, they organised London. Here they threw themselves the first ever Gay Pride parade when into the counter-cultural underground, 150 people marched through Highbury went on Anti-Vietnam War Fields in London – the same event today demonstrations, supported Black attracts crowds of over 1 million and, of Power and the Women's Liberation course, York has its own somewhat Movement and, while listening to smaller version! In 2000, Stuart Feather Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa and the was present when a plaque was unveiled Grateful Dead, Chesterman nursed at the site commemorating this Feather through the long night of landmark in gay history. his first dark acid trip. By 1963 [when Stuart Feather remembers being in In front of the shops and the the upstairs bar at Betty's the night pub, you will see another alley at Kennedy was shot] they were no longer a couple but would remain inseparable, the side of the church. Walk along lifelong friends until John Chesterman it and then left into Coney died in 1996. Street. Keep going for about 300 In 1970, Stuart Feather joined the metres until you are at the Gay Liberation Front “in what I reckon junction with New Street. On your was the third week of its existence” right you will see a black and and, when he told Chesterman about it white building. The white buildings [he was now living in a Hippy commune and brought them all along with him!], to its right were also once part Chesterman joined the “Manifesto of it and this is obvious once you group”, drafted an alternative List of look. The one numbered 20 is the GLF Demands, organised a one we are interested in. p25 NO. 9 Gillygate Red Rhino WALK WALK stop stop 16 17 WALK stop 19 BoothamBar The Minster H ig s ’ h d P WAL r K et a e e n r The YorkArms st c op o ga 18 a e l te L P Statue of t No.9 Constantine S The Theatre Royal L ow Pe Boyes - te The Red House rg at site of e WALK G

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When Thomas Jefferson Hogg met the not a good move. Hogg had fallen in poet Percy Bysshe Shelley at Oxford love with Harriet and, when Shelley University in 1810, they hit it off from went south in search of money, the start. They not only wrote poetry they slept together. Although Harriet together but did chemical experiments believed in Free Love and her marital that caused explosions that singed status meant little to her, Hogg had their hair and, in 1811, wrote a small difficulty accepting this and, when book together called “The Necessity Shelley returned, he walked into an of Atheism” which, Shelley said, was uncomfortable atmosphere. After 5 on sale for about 20 minutes before days on the road, Shelley was they were hauled before the university exhausted and brought little money authorities and thrown out. “Expelled! back with him. To complicate matters, Expelled for atheism!” Shelley blurted Eliza Westbrook, Harriet's sister, had out. His parents were not quite so turned up. The next few days were jubilant – and neither were Hoggs! spent wandering around the city, Called home to Teesdale, they found enjoying its pubs and bookshops and Hogg a job with a solicitors firm in visiting the Minster, which Shelley York which he hated – he told Shelley dismissed as “a gigantic pile of it was “like harnessing a racehorse to superstition” – but the uncomfortable a dung cart”. Shelley said he would atmosphere lingered. Eventually, come to York, too, and Hogg booked Shelley took Hogg for a 4 hour walk him a room. The poet never turned along the river to Clifton Ings to talk up. Next thing he heard was that things over before, the problem Shelley had married Harriet Westbrook seemingly solved, returning to Coney and was bringing her with him so that Street. Two days later, Hogg came all three of them could live together. home from work to find them gone. While having breakfast one day, He was devastated by Harriet's Hogg received a letter telling him they absence and bombarded her with love had been in York the previous night letters. When Shelley wrote to him but, unable to find him, had gone to saying “the very sight of them casts Edinburgh. Hogg was on the next her into her gloom”, Hogg wrote a coach. Six weeks later, his employers begging letter of apology asking her demanded his return to York and so all to forgive him. By the end of 1811, all three arrived back at Hogg's lodgings. three were emotionally exhausted His landlady had let his room and and the letters stopped. For an entire refused to allow them in so, as it was year, Hogg and Shelley dropped out of night-time and raining, they took the each other’s lives. first rooms they could find – here, Hogg began to write “Memoirs above the shop owned by two elderly of Prince Alexy Haimatoff” in this sisters both called Miss Dancer. It was building. Alexy, who is obviously p27 Shelley, travels to Istanbul and falls and rarely saw Shelley again. While in love with a slave girl, buys her but, reading the 'Morning Chronicle' over sadly, she dies on the way back to breakfast on 12 August 1822, Hogg England. Alexy is then initiated into read that Shelley had died in a boating the mysteries of a secret and accident in Italy on 8 July. He was somewhat flamboyant religion before heartbroken and went straight to the arriving home to health, wealth and Minster, walking around it for hours happiness with a buxom new bride. trying to come to terms with his loss. Published under the pen name of John On the way home, he came past here Brown in 1813, it is one of the rarest to see where, for a few short weeks in books on the planet - only two copies 1811, he had been blissfully happy. are known to exist – and Shelley liked “York”, he later wrote, “is a city of it very much indeed. The year before, melancholy presages, I always meet when Hogg was in London, the with something disagreeable here, friendship was back on when Shelley and feel relieved when I escape from turned up out of the blue and literally this odious place”. He moved to knocked on his door. Then, in July London where, as the chief beneficiary 1814, Shelley left Harriet and eloped of Shelley's will, the poet’s parents with Mary Godwin whose mother, entrusted him with writing “The Life Mary Wolstonecraft – author of “The of Percy Bysshe Shelley” but, when Vindication of the Rights of Women” the first two volumes published in – knew York well as she was brought 1858 turned out to be all about him, up in nearby Beverley. A year later they withdrew their support and and Hogg was writing love letters to future volumes were never written. the future author of “Frankenstein” Thomas Jefferson Hogg then lived with asking for locks of her hair! In 1816, Jane Williams [whose husband Edward when the dreadful news arrived that had also drowned with Shelley] until, Harriet had drowned herself, Hogg “unhappy, gout-stricken, and was distraught. He returned to overweight”, he died in 1862. York and worked the Northern circuit of law courts repeatedly and monotonously for the rest of his life,

Make a sharp turn right into New Street and stop at No. 8, on the other side of the street. You can sit here for a coffee outside if the weather Is good.

p28 WALK stop 13 Votes for Women! 8 New Street - see map p26

In 1911, this was the York headquarters Some of these new recruits of the Women's Social and Political were among a group who were Union when they moved from photographed at York station in 35 Coney Street before, in 1913, January 1913 as they left for London moving again to Colby Chambers in to protest at the House of Commons. Coppergate. When so few of us vote Annie Seymour Pearson was arrested these days, we tend to forget that for obstruction and became York's until 1918 most men couldn't vote and first “Suffragette Martyr” after a stint that all women didn't have the right in Holloway jail. More to the point, her until 1928 – when it was only brought home at 58 Heworth Green became about by militant agitation; when the a “safe house” for activists and, later Suffragettes marched through the that year, it played a key role in the streets crying “VOTES FOR WOMEN!”, escape of “the Doncaster Arsonists”. they did so amid considerable One day Violet Key Jones, a former opposition. In this building, they hunger striker who had been forcibly welcomed visitors with tea served in fed through a tube while in prison, china cups and saucers decorated in who was well liked and respected in the Suffragette colours of purple, York, was seen catching a train for white and green, held meetings and Doncaster where she moved into a discussed tactics. They then went out house full of militant women. Shortly and chalked pavements with slogans, afterwards, one of these women and sold 'The Suffragette' newspaper in an 18 year-old boy called Harry Coney Street and the Parliament Johnson [who left his parents Street marketplace before, in the exasperated by being “habitually busy year of 1913, they poured petrol in the presence of Suffragettes”] into post boxes and set them alight set off to fire-bomb an empty house. before heading off to the Art Gallery Disturbed by the caretaker, they ran to chain themselves to chairs at a from the scene and into the arms of meeting addressed by Philip Snowden, the police. the MP for Blackburn. Following a When May Dennis, that other rally at the Festival Concert Rooms woman in the dock, refused to accept on Museum Street [it was demolished the authority of the court they were in 1974], several women joined the sent to Armley Jail on remand and ranks after the Bradford Suffragette May Dennis, who was now unmasked Mrs. Beldon told a packed audience as the notorious Suffragette arsonist about her arrest outside Parliament Lilian Lenton, went on hunger strike on “Black Friday”, 18 November 1910, until she was released and smuggled when a demonstration was attacked out of the country. Harry Johnson, by police. who was tried first and sentenced to p29 a year’s hard labour, also went on except that he hadn't really, it was a hunger strike until he, too, was small Suffragette dressed as a boy and released and placed under 24-hour Harry was hidden in a cupboard inside surveillance at his parents’ house until he could make his way to safety. back in Donny. As his movements And then he was never heard of could not be restricted, when he told again. The woman who organised this the police he wanted to visit friends intricate escape was none other than in York they ordered a taxi and took Violet Key Jones herself, who then him there! Having arrived at Seymour returned to New Street to organise a Pearson's home in Heworth, it was series of radical Suffragette afternoons made clear they were not welcome called Cafe Chantant. She was in her inside and told to wait in the street mid-forties by the time women finally until, alerted to activity at the back got the vote. of the house, they realised that Harry Johnson had given them the slip –

Walk towards Davygate at the top of New Street and turn left. Stay on this side of the street and continue till you cross St Helen’s Square and arrive in Blake Street. Look out for No. 18.

WALK stop 14 Where there’s muck… 18 Blake Street - see map p26

Arthur Joseph Munby was born at R D Blackmore dedicated his famous Clifton in York in 1828 and brought up novel “Lorna Doone” to him – but, in this building. Educated at St Peters unbeknown to everyone, Munby had public school, he went to Cambridge a dirty little secret: he liked mucky University before working in London women. In fact, the muckier the as a solicitor – all solidly respectable better – and it all began here when he stuff. Described as “a patriotic developed a sexual infatuation with Yorkshireman” by all who knew him, the family servant, Hannah Rooke. All he also wrote poetry and hung around his life, Munby kept a diary – 60 of with the Pre Raphaelites – them still exist – in which he p30 documented his obsession with months before his own death in 1910. working-class women. It began His brother was so horrified that he with the “flither lasses” who gutted urged the rest of the family to remain herrings for a living at Flamborough silent. One woman in York who never and continued with long walks had very much to say about him was across the Wolds in search of burly Hannah Rooke, the family servant milkmaids. In Lancashire, he went who was living out her old age at out of his way to take photographs of Lady Anne Middleton’s Hospital on female colliers – and it was all never Skeldergate where, when hearing that innocent fun. Crossing the street in a certain gentleman from her past London one day, he saw “a tall, was about to visit, she took great care hulking wench of 18, rolling along not to wash. Munby's diaries, which like a sailor” and asked her what she were given to the British Library and did. When she replied “Sir, I scrapes remained unknown until the 1980s, trotters” his passion was ignited and have now become a valuable record he gave her one in a cheap lodging of working class women's lives; house. In 1853, when he was 25, he ironically, the only reason we know met a 21 year-old “maid of all work” what female coalminers looked like is called Hannah Culwick who became because of the photographs that Munby the love of his life. Theirs was a took to titillate his own pleasure. submissive, sexually subservient, master and slave relationship – she was always careful not to wash for her “massa” [whose idea of sexual foreplay was to watch her climb up the chimney] and rarely spent a night with him before their secret marriage in 1873 . Although Munby passed his Keep walking until you come to wife off as his servant, for years she Duncombe Place. The building slept on the floor under her husband’s known as the Red House is bed until she became ill and moved back to her native Shropshire. Even straight in front of you on the the separation became part of the other side of the road. It is sexual excitement, and she looked now an antiques centre so can forward to washing her husband’s be visited. feet when he visited. Eventually Munby became blind and the visits stopped sometime before Hannah's death in 1909. Subservient to the end, her gravestone says “she was for 36 years of pure and unbroken love the wedded wife of Arthur Munby of Clifton Holme, York”. He only told his brother about her six p31 WALK stop 15 Doctor Slop and George Stubbs The Red House - see map p26

Born in Essex in 1710, Dr John Burton protestant establishment hated him was living here when he married Mary with a vengeance – and none more so Henson at the Minster in 1735. Five than the Reverend Jacques Sterne. years later, he had become the top When Bonnie Prince Charlie physician and “man midwife” at the marched his army into the Lake District County Hospital on Monkgate. Burton in 1745, Burton just happened to be in began his studies at Leiden in the Lancashire and, when he returned to Netherlands, where he saw a York, he found a city in panic – fearing contraption shaped like a lobster claw invasion, the rich were leaving in to be used during childbirth and came droves. Sterne engineered it so that up with the idea for a “Whimsical Burton was arrested and thrown into Contrivance” he called an Obstetric the Castle prison, where he was kept Forceps. As his findings were published without charge for three months then in Scottish journals, the London based dragged off to the Tower of London on Dr Smellie [I kid you not!] claimed to a trumped-up charge of treason. When have invented them until, in 1751, Burton was later released due to lack of Burton published a book called “An evidence and swanned his way back Essay Towards a Complete System into York, Sterne was apoplectic with of Midwifery” with 18 illustrations by rage and persuaded his nephew, the a young artist called George Stubbs. novelist Laurence Sterne, to turn his Originally from Liverpool, Stubbs came anger into satire – which is how John to York from Leeds around 1745 and Burton became Doctor Slop, the man- lodged in Coney Street for several years, midwife who arrives at Shandy Hall making portraits of local merchants with a set of “vile instruments” and such as George Fothergill [which is in “obstetrical engines” to deliver our hero the Ferens Gallery at Hull] before Burton in “The Life and Opinions of Tristram provided him with the corpses of Shandy, Gentleman” when it was first pregnant women to cut up and sketch; published on Coney Street in 1759. The Stubbs certainly knew the Red House real Dr Slop moved across the river and well. As Burton was a Jacobite and close died in Micklegate in 1771. He was buried friends with the Scottish leaders Flora in Holy Trinity, where a flamboyant MacDonald and Malcolm MacLeod monument to his life's work can be [who both stayed here],York's seen near the altar.

If you’ve gone into the Red House, come out again, turn right and then sharp right again into St Leonard’s Place. Walk past the Theatre Royal until you come to Bootham Bar. Bear left and then turn right into Gillygate. Cross the road and walk up Gillygate to No. 9, the shop with the recessed doorway and a black and white mosaic doorstep. p32 WALK stop 16 Hey Hey Red Rhino! No. 9 Gillygate - see map p26

During the Punk heyday of the late warehouse in Eldon Street in The 1970s, independent record stores with Groves. After Mark E Smith threw labels attached to them sprang up Marc Riley out of The Fall, he started everywhere – and Red Rhino Records a band called The Creepers in 1982 opened its shop here in June 1977. and signed up to this new York label. Founded by Tony K [this Bradford “Red Rhino was a brilliant place to lad used the first letter of his Polish be”, he said, “the warehouse was surname, Kostrzewa, because no one full of enthusiastic kids bouncing could pronounce it!] and his wife around, with records everywhere Gerri, the shop and label played a and bands industrially putting not inconsiderable part in rock' n' roll records into sleeves” – he forgot to history by releasing over 125 original mention the table football game that singles and albums by some of the they pounded all day long! His most influential bands around for over “Rock' n 'Roll Liquorice Flavour” a decade. The shop, whose logo was album was released by Red Rhino in indeed a red rhinoceros, was packed 1988. Other bands mopped up by the with vinyl from floor to ceiling, label include the Mekons, Red Lorry covered in posters and crowded with Yellow Lorry, Chumbawumba, the kids from dawn till dusk all listening to Skeletal Family, Zoviet France, Zoot impromptu gigs by passing musicians and the Roots [which included a such as Robert Fripp, Michelle young saxophonist called Snake Shocked, The Clash and even Davies] and The Whisky Priests; the Hawkwind who, apparently, drank one major band from York that got lots of tea here! Comedians Frank away was the Redskins when they Sidebottom and Harry Enfield [who signed to Decca in 1982. The label’s was then at York University] bought biggest flop came in 1983, when an singles and albums from staff who, EP titled “It” by a young Sheffield like Kelvin Knight, were also musicians band called Pulp almost vanished – he played drums with the Leeds without trace – Jarvis Cocker, who band Delta 5. One of the first singles was still at school, would have to Red Rhino issued was in 1980 by a ska wait until 1995 before “Common revival band from Hull called Akrylykz People” made him a household whose singer, Roland Gift, was later name. Red Rhino introduced the recruited by Fine Young Cannibals. American Butt Hole Surfers to a The same year, they organised the European audience when they got distribution of an EP called “Mutant the album “Rembrandt Pussyhorse” Moments” by another Leeds band into shops across the continent and, called Soft Cell – Mark Almond’s first- closer to home, Sisters of Mercy ever recording – which led to the were yet another Leeds band [whose formation of a Red Rhino Distribution first ever gig was at York University p33 in 1981] represented by the label in sad and humiliating end to a great their early years. story. There was one final album in But the biggest success came at the pipeline, though. “'Til Things Are Christmas 1984 when a comedy punk Better” contained a whole stack of version of “Nellie the Elephant” sang Johnny Cash songs re-recorded for laughs by the Toy Dolls sold over with the approval of the Man in Black half a million copies. It paid at least himself by the likes of That Petrol some of the bills. By the time Red Emotion, Gaye Bikers on Acid, Pete Rhino moved to a bigger shop at 73 Shelley, Marc Almond, Cabaret Goodramgate [where Simon Stephens, Voltaire and the Mekons to raise one of that generation of brilliant, money for the Terrance Higgins Trust “in-yer-face” playwrights who was into AIDS research. With artwork by a student at York University in 1988, that King Mekon himself, Jon was never out of it - “I loved Red Langford, and produced by Marc Riley Rhino”, he said, “I spent a fucking without his Creepers, it was the last fortune there!”] the distribution leg of thing that Red Rhino ever did. Gerri the business was going down the pan and Tony K shut up the shop and fast and, in 1989, it folded and took moved to Leeds where, on May Day the shop with it. That week, the best- in 2008, Tony died. selling music magazine 'Sounds' ran with the headline “Dead Rhino – indie distributor in receivership”. It was a

Retrace your steps and cross to the other side of Gillygate. Turn around the corner on your right and go through Bootham Bar into High Petergate. Again, on your right, stop at the restaurant at No. 9.

p34 WALK stop 17 It’s not all Baroque and Early Music! No. 9 High Petergate - see map p26

If you feel like a well-deserved drink turned into one of the North’s most by now, go to the upstairs bar and iconic music venues – Louis grab the seat next to the Rolling Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Jerry Lee Stones graffiti – they turned up here Lewis and Count Basie all played here after a gig in Leeds in 1968 [the year and, in 1963, The Beatles took to the “Beggars Banquet” came out] when stage four times. When films were it was a coffee bar known as Pete screened, Prendergast's son became Maddens. They borrowed a lipstick the boy projectionist until, deciding from the waitress to write their that he too wanted to be a musician, names on the wall [it includes that of he booked a few organ lessons from Brian Jones who, a year later, would Francis Jackson in the Minster and be found dead in a swimming pool] grew up to become John Barry, the and it’s been preserved ever since. man who composed most of the This wasn't the first time they had James Bond theme tunes as well as been to York, as they played two gigs “Midnight Cowboy” and “Born Free” at the Rialto on Fishergate on 26 - imagine walking into the Minster February 1964. One of the songs they with “Goldfinger” blasting out on sang was “Not Fade Away” [“Little By that huge organ! Unforgivably, it all Little” was the B Side] which had been came tumbling down in 2003 when released just four days before and was York Council sanctioned an act of at number three in the Hit Parade, cultural vandalism and allowed its causing that weeks 'Melody Maker' to demolition – so that a car park could screech “Would You Let Your Sister Go be built next to the Mecca Bingo hall. Out With A Rolling Stone?”. The Rialto was a fabulous Art Deco cinema from the 1930s which Jack Prendergast

Return to the street, turn right, cross over and stop at the York Arms. You might as well have another swift one!

p35 WALK stop 18 A Clash of Arms The York Arms - see map p26

The Clash were at the height of their the pub for a spontaneous gig on the fame when they decided to go Up Minster steps. When the police arrived North busking in 1985. The idea was to move them on, pandemonium to grab a bunch of acoustic guitars, broke out and, when Strummer was leave their wallets at home, cadge grabbed by one eager constable, places to sleep along the way and The Clash belted out a rousing live off what went into a hat. Joe rendition of “I Fought The Law” – Strummer called it “the best tour we which was accompanied by hundreds ever did” and, on 8 May, they arrived of Yorkshire voices! Then it was back in York at dinnertime and started to the pub before gate crashing an playing to a few startled onlookers 18th birthday party at the late-night outside Browns frumpy department Roxy on Bootham in search of a fan’s store in Saint Sampson's Square. The sofa for the night. The next day, The rest of the day was spent drinking at Clash visited the Red Rhino shop on the York Arms, a pub which was then Gillygate, sang a few songs for the popular with musicians and gay customers and played another gig people, with Joe Strummer standing which packed Kings Square before outside talking to the kids and Paul returning to the York Arms for another Simenon strumming away at his afternoon of drinking. This was when guitar in the tiny front room inside. Joe Strummer gave an interview to a Around 7 that night, about a hundred freelance journalist and threatened to people followed The Clash along High kill him when he discovered he was Petergate as they strummed and sang really from the BBC. When that their way like punk Pied Pipers to the afternoon’s 'Yorkshire Evening Press' car park at Saint John’s College [it blurted “Roll Up! Punk band The Clash wasn't a university then] for another busk in York!” it was time to finish sing-a-long. Turfed out by the college their drinks, leave town and head for security, they played and sang their Newcastle. Next year, The Clash put way down Gillygate back to the York away their guitars and called it a day. Arms before, around 9pm, they left The band was dead.

It is impossible to ignore York Minster. Every gift shop in town sells something with its image on it. But, if you can afford to get in, go to the South Choir Aisle and, near the entrance to the crypt, look out for the Yorkshire Miners’ Memorial. Look down because, appropriately enough, it’s at floor level. p36 WALK stop 19 An Irish Poet and the Yorkshire Miners York Minster - see map p26

Until it was closed down pit by pit after moved to Barcelona, he began to the defeat of the Miners’ Strike in 1985, translate the Catalan poets whose Yorkshire could boast the largest work and language was suppressed coalfield in Europe and the great by Franco's fascist government. After cathedrals of this part of the world all many years away, he arrived back in celebrate that fact – Selby, Wakefield Dublin penniless in 1968 and, out of the and, further North, Durham all have blue in 1971, took a flight to Yorkshire memorials to the miners who lost their when he was given the job in Leeds. lives digging coal. In York, this small His book “Watching the Morning Grow” model of a miner working underground was published around the same time he at Barnsley Main Seam – perhaps the took his first bus trip to York – and its most iconic of all the Yorkshire pits – Minster. Amid all the sights and sounds was made as an “offering to the Minster of this wonderful place, this little model, from the Miners of Yorkshire” by George encased in a glass fronted box and Hector in 1959. The Irish poet Pearse crouched above the crypt at the foot Hutchinson stumbled across it “tucked of a gigantic column like a pit-prop away unobtrusively into a wall amid the supporting the roof, is perhaps the most Gothic splendours” of the Minster about poignant monument and certainly the 1972, when he was made the Gregory most overlooked in the entire building. Poet - the world’s first Writer in Residence Hutchinson was fascinated by it, and scheme - at Leeds University and visited the idea came to him to write a long York many times. Born in Glasgow in 1927 poem paying homage to all the manual to Irish Republican parents [his mother workers of the world and their short was friends with Countess Markievicz – lives – and it took him 20 years to finish the first woman elected to the House of it! By the time the book called “Barnsley Commons, and later an Irish TD – Main Seam” was published in 1995, who once went out with the dashing Hutchinson had been back in Dublin for Repuplican leader Michael Collins], he was years. Such was his reputation as a poet brought up in Dublin and, in 1950, moved that this book is displayed in the Dublin to Vigo in Northern Spain. Writers Museum and, when he died in Here he became intoxicated with 2012, the Irish President was among the culture and climate and, when he the mourners at his funeral.

Leave the Minster and turn left into Minster Yard, near the statue of Constantine. Keep following the road around till you come to the open area called College Green. In the distance, you see a shopping street called Goodramgate. Nearly in front of you is a store called Boyes. This is the site of the Lecture Hall and our next stop; the building we are looking for originally stood behind the store and was entered by a covered alley from Goodramgate itself. p37 WALK stop 20 Racism treads the boards… Boyes store - see map p26

The nostalgic gift wrapping of people displayed as “Cannibals” to the past in a place like York often scare little white children but, by disguises horrors that make you the 1940s, the Human Zoo had had wince – the golliwog, for example, its racist day and fell into disrepute. can still be found in gift shops Sami people, from the Arctic throughout town. This soft, racist parts of the Scandinavian countries, toy has its roots in the Human Zoos were among the most popular which were a popular entertainment exhibits and, in 1848, a poster that established racism as an English appeared in the streets of York preoccupation during the days of the drumming up audiences for “the two British Empire. Intended to create a ESQUIMAUX OR YACKS” that “ WILL sense of superiority among White BE EXHIBITED” for two nights in people of the ‘civilized’ Christian March at the Lecture Hall that stood West over those less fortunate here until its demolition in 1876. [and usually Black] people from “This interesting married couple, more primitive lands, they made MEMIADUK and UCKALUK [whose promoters a healthy income and respective ages are 17 and 15]”, it humiliated those forced to sing for read, “are the only inhabitants ever their supper. Human Zoos were all brought to England from the Western over the place – the 1851 Crystal Coast” of Baffin Island in Canada by Palace Exhibition displayed people Captain John Parker from Hull on from Ethiopia in a “Nubian Court”, board his whaling ship, 'Truelove'. Charles Dickens went to see the “Both male and female”, the poster “savages at Hyde Park Corner” – told its readers, “are in a neat dress 13 imported Zulus forced to perform of sealskin; their stature is low; a “witch hunt” for a living – in 1853 their colour dark, like that of the and Barnum's famous circus quadroon, but with long flowing exhibited humans as diverse as black hair; their features seem a giants, bearded ladies, dwarfs and mixture of the Malay and the African people without arms or legs who and a mild, sad expression, resemble could do tricks for a living or dance the Hottentot. The male gets into his like dogs. People with disabilities canoe, holds the paddle and” – as joined travelling Freak Shows – John the audience gasps – “poises the Merrick, the Elephant Man, spent his spear” at an imaginary polar bear. life working the penny-gaffs of the Afterwards, as this York appearance Midlands before landing a leading was the last this Inuit couple would role as a medical specimen in give “previous to their return to their London. As late as 1925 the Belle native land”, Captain Parker gave a Vue Zoo in Manchester used African speech calling for funds to help them p38 and missionaries to go with them. specimens of stuffed seals, birds and Before the 'Truelove' set sail, plaster other animals inhabiting the North casts intended to record racial Pole regions” for a paying audience. difference were made of their heads Around the same time, a Hull [these are in Hull Maritime Museum] trawlerman called William Barron and they left with a bagful of cash landed in Baffin Island and met and a shiny new toolbox. Along the Memiadluk, who he dismissed as way, Uckaluk died of measles but “too idle to hunt and fish any more Memiadluk made it home to welcome so long as the presents lasted which missionaries for many years to he received from England”. And then come. More Inuit were back on show he was never heard of again – at the De Grey Rooms in York in 1854, another victim of the White man's when the 'Eastern Counties Herald' ‘generosity’. reported them standing lost and forlorn among “several good

Turn right, and continue down the street all the way along Goodramgate until, on the opposite side of the street, you come across Lady’s Row - built in 1316, these shops are still serving today. At the end of the Row, on your left, near the Swan Pub, is an ornamental gateway that is only open for odd hours during the day. Go through it and you are in the churchyard of Holy Trinity: the church is right in front of you. Its not in use anymore but is open to visitors and well worth a look. Go inside and walk down the aisle to the altar- as our next stop literally comes with wedding bells!

p39 WALK stop 21 Lesbian wedding bells! HolyTrinity Church - see map p26

Ann Lister was born in 1791, brought Back home, she boasted of being up in Market Weighton and went to the first woman to go down a mine the Kings Manor school in York – [presumably the women digging coal if you can get into the first floor in them didn't count] and was never Huntingdon Room, you will see many away from York – or its women – of the pupils’ names etched in the for long. She stood out from the window glass – which is where she crowd at the Assembly Rooms – first fell in love with “a girl of colour” her appearance was cultivated, her called Eliza Raine. The relationship clothes always black and her manner was consummated but short lived as so deliberately masculine that Eliza had a nervous breakdown and she was known to everyone as spent the rest of her life in a York Gentleman Jack – attended choral asylum. Ann, on the other hand, concerts in the Minster, hung around inherited the family fortune and the inns and taverns of town and Shibden Hall at Halifax which she had a string of lovers around every employed John Harper, “a rising man corner. And we know all this because, in architecture” from York, to turn from the time she first came to York into something “gothick” for her. as a schoolgirl until the end of her She obviously anticipated the craze life, Ann Lister kept a diary – 26 for stone cladding by having her volumes containing over 4 million heart set on “a model of Micklegate words, much of it written in a secret Bar for the lodge” but settled for code of her own invention which one of “the gateway of Kirkham died with her, still exist. That code Priory” instead; maybe Harper also was cracked by her nephew, John managed to talk her out of plans Lister, in the 1880s and the diaries for a water feature enclosed by a are now on the UNESCO Memory of rockery resembling “the screes of the World Programme as a unique Wastwater” for a shrubbery seems record of gay history. Ann Lister had to have been installed instead of nothing to hide and was proud of acres of slate. During the 1830s, this her sexuality – “I love and only love wealthy heiress became an expert the fairer sex”, she wrote in 1820, mountaineer, climbed most of the “my heart revolts from any love but Alps and, smitten by travel, visited theirs”. An accomplished seductress, nearly every country in Europe, she boasted of knowing “how to sight-seeing factories and prisons please this fair maid of mine” and as well as castles and cathedrals and, referred to full-on sex as “going to despite having no maternal instincts, Italy” in racier entries of the journal. became particularly fond of hanging Ann Lister has been called “the first around orphanages. modern lesbian” p40 and, in 1832, her affair with Ann in several Yorkshire papers two years Walker, the richest woman in later [did it take the homophobes Yorkshire, caused a major scandal that long to cotton on?], the two in the Pennine hill towns. Two years women lived happily ever after until later, after swearing their love for they went on a mountaineering each other over the bible in a holiday in the Pyrenees by way of summerhouse at Shibden, on 30th Belguim, Germany, Sweden, Finland March 1834 they walked down the and Russia, where Ann Lister aisle at Holy Trinity church – every mounted a gigantic horse and other gay couple in Britain had to galloped across the frozen River wait another 180 years to do the Volga towards a Tartar harem. When same! Except, of course, that it she reached the shores of the Black wasn't legally binding. Nevertheless, Sea, she was weak with fever and they were determined to go for it died suddenly on 22 September and Lister told her aunt of her 1839. Ann Walker, her grieving intentions before setting off to widow, had her body embalmed York to sort out their wills and and sent back to Halifax for burial other property matters ahead of six months later, when she gave the ceremony, and then arranged a the diaries to Lister's nephew. Sadly, secluded lodging at Heworth Grange Ann Walker never got over Ann’s for the honeymoon. On Easter Day, death and ended her days “of they were “at Goodramgate church unsound mind” in an asylum for at 10.35” that morning and, after the insane at York in 1854. Despite three kisses, “Miss Walker and I and providing the inspiration in 1872 for Thomas” – the young witness to the the manly Maud in “The Mistress of wedding – “staid for the sacrament” Langdale Hall”, a romantic romp in and, at the altar, knelt on either side the heather by a prolific and little of the circular wooden railings to known lady novelist from the exchange rings and receive a blessing Shropshire hills called Rosa Kettle, from the confused priest. Miss Walker Ann Lister's story had to wait until moved into Shibden Hall with Miss the 1980s to be properly told. Lister and, despite a mocking marriage announcement appearing

Go back to Goodramgate, turn right and you’ll soon cross Low Petergate. Turn left here, cross Kings Square and walk straight ahead into Colliergate. Go to the end of the street and turn left into Saint Saviourgate, where you will see the imposing Centenary Chapel. If it’s open, go in and take a look.

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Clifford’s Tower

p42 WALK stop 22 The World Turned Upside Down Centenary Methodist Church - see map p42

The reason we know what we do his way out of it. In 1931, at just 16, about the people of the 17th century is he was head-hunted by Oxford because of Christopher Hill. Born just University and caused a huge family off Bishopthorpe Road at 1 Norfolk row before leaving by buying his Street on 6 February 1912 and brought mother and sister tickets for the up in a strict Methodist family, he and Theatre Royal: his father considered his mother would cycle here twice a it a haunt of harlots and devils! The day for services. His father was a pillar women simply tutted and enjoyed of the community, a humourless and the performance. By the time he prosperous solicitor who insisted on graduated, Christopher Hill had lost sending his son “to be turned into a his Christianity, scored the winning gentleman” at St Peters public school goal in the 1933 university rugby final in Bootham. What he got instead was and joined the Communist Party. a world famous Marxist historian. And During the 1930s he lived in Moscow it all began here when he heard the for a year, learnt Russian and moved enigmatic preacher T S Gregory rant to Cardiff to play a leading role in and rave to his congregation about supporting the resettlement of Basque how “we are all one in the eyes of the refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War Lord”. Hill was spellbound and, talking – Hill wanted to join the International to Gregory whenever he could, he too Brigades, but was turned down on became convinced of the need for health grounds. social equality. In 1938 he was offered a job back This conviction never left Hill and, at Oxford University and, apart from over 30 years later when he published army service during the Second World the brilliant if rather dry sounding War, he worked here for the rest “Intellectual Origins of the English of his very domestic life. Over the Revolution” in 1965 [what other Civil coming years, Hill became one of War had executed a king, he argued? a handful of historians who quite Of course it was a revolution!], he literally changed the course of history not only dedicated the book to as we see it today. Instead of looking Gregory but made it quite clear that at the past from the top down, he his conversion to socialism came upturned the tables and looked at when he listened to the sermons in it from the bottom up when he this chapel. “York”, he recalled in later unleashed an entire new world from life, “was a terribly stuffy place in my its past that has - so far - refused to time, its parochial establishment “run let go of our attention. After he left by the Minster, Northern Command” – the Communist Party following the the army – “and the Quakers”, so he Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1957, was left with no option but to educate he devoted himself to uncovering the p43 lost story of the English 17th century then, the book has inspired songs in book after book – “Society and by the likes of Leon Rosselson, Billy Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary Bragg and Coldplay. His monumental England”, “Reformation to Industrial biography of the poet John Milton Revolution”, “Gods Englishman: Oliver appeared in 1977 and “A Turbulent Cromwell and the English Revolution” and Seditious People: John Bunyan and “Anti-Christ in 17th Century and his church” won the 1988 W H England” are just some of them. In Smith Award. And so it continued. 1972 he published his most famous Christopher Hill returned to York work, “The World Turned Upside many times throughout his long life Down”, which brought back to – his last visit was in 1990 when he boisterous life the hoards of nameless lectured to a packed house at York and forgotten people who were the University. Never losing his belief in a lifeblood of organisations such as the better tomorrow, his last years were Diggers, Levellers, Muggletonians and blighted by the amnesia of Alzheimers Ranters - all of which are now well until he died in 2003 at the age of 91. known thanks to Christopher Hill. This He must have done something right fantastic book topped the best seller because, within a month of his death, lists and achieved something unheard 'The Times' exposed him as an alleged of for a serious academic study when “soviet mole” – an allegation that has it was turned into a play by the never been heard of since! National Theatre – with music by the folky hipsters Steeleye Span. Since

Return to Colliergate, cross the road and turn left into the very short Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, before crossing the busy street called Pavement. Walk down Fossgate until you come to the very ornate McDonalds furniture shop. It’s pretty obvious which one it is!

p44 WALK stop 23 William Baines and the Silent Screen McDonald’s Furniture Store - see map p42

When it opened in 1911, the Electric otherwise uneventful life. Except Cinema was the first purpose-built that William Baines was one of two picture house in York – and you can composers that York lost to the First still tell it was something special. Film World War – George Butterworth, was a brand new art form [the first best known now for “A Shropshire ever moving pictures were shot Lad”, who was killed during the Battle down the road in Leeds in 1888] and of the Somme in August 1916, is the for its first 30 years was also silent. other – who left behind a tantalising Musicians were employed to provide glimpse of what we could have had. the soundtrack and, when George In his short life Baines wrote a string Baines was appointed musical director quartet, a symphony, a handful of and general manager in 1916, he songs and over 150 piano pieces and moved his family from the West was on the cusp of recognition when Riding to 133 Albermarle Road in York, he died. On 26 March 1917, he turned where his son William joined him as 18 and was called up by the army the cinema pianist that spring. Known and sent to Blandford Camp in Dorset locally as “the laugh and scratch”, – which was notorious for bad the Electric let kids pay for matinee conditions and at the centre of a tickets with empty jam jars [who said flu epidemic. Within two weeks, he recycling was new?] and became so became so ill that his parents were popular that it employed a trio of called for. Out of the 17 weeks Baines musicians - an organist for drama, spent in military service, 15 of them violinist for sob stories and pianist for were in hospital. Three months after chase scenes; the audience made its his release from the army, the war own contribution to the percussion by was over. crunching discarded peanut shells as Back in York, Baines showed that they walked along the aisles! These he was no provincial youth but one musicians usually improvised with who was so aware of new trends in snatches of popular song and well international art that he could paint known passages from “the classics” his front door green “in the cubist thrown in along the way – which manner” and recognise “Charlie suited William fine, as he could inflict Chaplin, the film comedian” [he lengthy extracts from Beethoven provided the music for his movie “The sonatas on his captive audience! He Tramp” when it was screened at the worked here nearly every afternoon Electric] in the audience of a concert from 4.30 until 7 at night – there is of music by Stravinsky during a trip to even a photo of the staff posed London. He played at a concert of his outside the cinema with William own work, too, at the Bar Convent in among them – in what was an Blossom Street and began a close p45 friendship with the gay artist Karl S world. As for those cinema musicians Wood, who was in a York hospital he played with, they scarpered back after being injured in battle before to the classical orchestras or joined he went to Lincolnshire to paint the Big Bands once Silent Movies windmills and was arrested for “public became Talkies when a blacked-up, indecency”. By now suffering from Jewish Lithuanian called Al Jolson hit tuberculosis, Baines was laid up for the apartheid American big time in months on end unable to do anything 1927 and had them queuing from one other than watch the sunsets across end of Fossgate to the other to see the Knavesmire and enjoy the “The Jazz Singer”. The Electric Cinema brightly-dressed crowds who gathered remained a favourite flea-pit with the outside his home on a race day. In people of York right up until 1951, March 1922, he celebrated his 23rd when it closed its doors for the final birthday but was sinking fast and, time and became a furniture store – on 6 November, he died at home in go in, and see if you can still spot bits Albermarle Road. Today, his music of the oldest cinema in town! survives and, although still little known, the work of William Baines is now recorded and played around the

Now turn around, head back up Fossgate, and cross near the top of the road to the Blue Bell – everyone’s favourite pub. The beer’s good, so is the company - but it has a history to tell too.

WALK stop 24 Chartism, football and beer... The Bluebell - see map p42 What you see inside the pub is the its aim was to pool resources and buy result of a refurbishment in 1903 that land so that working-class people could has never been altered – and hopefully become self-sufficient by turning them never will, thanks to its listed status. away from the factory and into farmers. But the pub itself is much older and, in All the land purchased was in the South, 1845, it was the meeting place for the which meant people in the North York branch of the Chartist Cooperative uprooting themselves and making a Land Society. Formed by Fergus complete change in lifestyle – and it O'Connor [the same man who was was a disaster from the start. We know imprisoned in York Castle fervently the names of three Chartists from York believed that “a man could raise a who would have come to the Blue Bell family on four acres” of fertile soil], at this time – Nathaniel Dewhurst and p46 Robert West both got four acres documents it fanatically. One player’s to farm at Great Dodford, near story, however, stands out above the Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, and rest. When the black South African James Town got a little less for his Albert Johannsen joined Don Revie's market garden. Although the scheme legendary Leeds United squad in 1961, ended in financial ruin in 1848, all three he had no idea he would be able to men were still there in 1851 and never share a post-match bath with white seem to have come back to York. players. Brought up in a country which The landlord who carried out that promoted racial segregation, his team refurbishment of the Blue Bell in 1903 mate Billy Bremner said “he thought was George Robinson, who also played a Black man wasn't entitled to be host to a number of meetings in this famous” and found the differences in pub which led to the formation of the two countries hard to accept. For York's football club in 1908. Starting the nine years he played with Leeds out as an amateur side on a pitch United, the brilliant Johannsen paved belonging to Rowntree's Cocoa Works, the way for Black players in British the team was decimated and football and, in 1970, he joined York disbanded during the First World War City. No longer at his best, he scored until a series of events at the Blue Bell just three goals in 26 appearances at raised the £2,000 needed to buy land Bootham Crescent before retiring. Life for a ground at Fulfordgate [now after football was not kind to him and, Eastwood Avenue] and, on 6 May addicted to alcohol, he was just 55 1922 at the Cooperative Hall, York City when he was found dead at home in Football and Athletic Club was founded Leeds in 1995. – and lost their first match against Nottinghamshire County Reserves! They stayed here until 1932, when they moved to Bootham Crescent. Disbanded during the Second World War, York City reformed in 1946 and, When you leave the Blue Bell, although they were good enough to play and lose against Newcastle United turn left and walk up Fossgate. in the Semi Final of the FA Cup in 1955, Turn left at the top, and then they had to wait until the 1970s to be cross the road. Bear left and promoted to the Second Division and you find yourself in the open beat the mighty Arsenal at Bootham area called Parliament Street. Crescent in 1985. Despite demotion Turn right and walk along it till once again they bounced back in the you get to Marks and Spencer’s 1990s only to take on a fight against bankruptcy in football’s increasingly front entrance and stand in commercialised world – they won this front of it. The point at which one. As with all sporting institutions, the store joins the building to York City has its own long and intricate its left is our next stop. history with a devoted fan base which p47 WALK stop 25 An American and Karl Marx HolyTrinity Church - see map p42

John Francis Bray was born in Although he had become America in 1809 and brought up radicalised and joined the Chartist in Boston, where his father – movement for political reform in a circus performer and actor from Leeds, John Francis Bray really came Huddersfield who narrowly escaped into his own in York when he started death in “Romeo and Juliet”when a to take food parcels and books to the disgruntled member of the audience political prisoners in the Castle and shot a really bad Romeo stone dead hangout at Chartist pubs such as the – worked the theatres and music Blue Bell in Fossgate and the Ebor halls of the eastern seaboard until, Tavern in Strakers Passage. When in 1821, this chronic hypochondriac everything around him made Bray really became ill and returned to question capitalism, he decided to England for a cure. He took his son write a book exploring this and, with him and, somewhere in the mid when it was finished, he strolled -Atlantic, John Francis Bray turned down to the river Ouse and found a 13. After arriving in London, they nice spot to sit and read it – and he took another boat to Hull and, from was horrified. He blamed all the ills here, travelled to Leeds, where the of society on the aristocracy but, he family was now living. Two days later asked himself, “Did you see beggars his father was dead and the younger in Boston?” – where there was no Bray was stranded. His aunt found landed gentry – and the answer was him a job as an apprentice printer “Yes! Plenty!”. He had to rip it up and and, for the next few years, he was start again and, back in Leeds by the “on the tramp” as a Journeyman in time “Labours Wrongs and Labours the West Riding; this was a kind of Remedy” was published in 1839, trade union system of membership 'The Yorkshireman' printed a glowing in which tradesmen would “tramp” review of the book by its former from town to town looking for work employee. Bray went way beyond at pubs which operated as job the prevailing ideas of his time into centres – in York, the Masons Arms what we would now call socialism in on Fishergate was a stonemasons this book, which had a considerable pub during the 1850s and, a decade influence upon Karl Marx when he later, the Punch Bowl on Stonegate read it in 1845 – and, in both “The was welcoming plaster moulders. By Philosophical Manuscripts” of 1847 1833, Bray had found work with a and the hefty “Grundrisse” of 1858, radical newspaper in York called Marx discusses Bray's ideas at length. 'The Yorkshireman' and moved in Unfortunately, the two men never above its printing shop – here, on met as Bray returned to the United Parliament Street. States in 1842. p48 Settling in Detroit, he once again An alleged translation of a worked as a printer until he moved manuscript written in an unknown to Pontiac in Michigan to cultivate language that he found aboard the fruit trees. As one of “the children ship that carried him home across of Chartism” who crossed the pond the Atlantic, “A Voyage to Utopia” to the New World, Bray remained an describes how the citizens of this activist and joined both the Socialist civilised land encounter the horrors Labour Party and the Knights of of exploitation, racism and sexism in Labour and was present at the a disgusting and backward country infamous Haymarket Riot in Chicago. which is a mixture of America, Britain Although John Francis Bray never and France. Desperate to get out of came back to Yorkshire [he died in this hell hole, they catch the first poverty during a snowstorm in the flight out which, taken for granted winter of 1897], his influence did as, now, was all a touch too utopian to for some otherwise inexplicable be true back in the 1830s – which reason, York Railway Institute took only goes to show that Utopia is just out a subscription to the 'Detroit Free around the corner if only we can use Press' – the radical paper Bray wrote our imagination to see it! for until the end of his days – at the turn of the 20th century. And in 1957 the book he began in York and finished in Leeds was finally published.

Turn around, go back to the end of Parliament Street and cross Coppergate at the lights in front of All Saints church, to your right. Turn right here and walk up the slope until you come to Castlegate, on your left. Turn left into the street and walk along to St Mary’s Church, also on your left, now used as an occasional arts venue. It may be open and, if so, go in. Our next and final stop is in the land surrounding it, so you can stand anywhere you like around the church.

p49 WALK stop 26 Shakespeare’s Yorkshire Tragedy and another drunken tale… St Mary’s Church - see map p42 The story of Walter Calverley really they survived. Arrested soon after, is one that is hidden from York's he was sent to prison in Wakefield history. A wealthy Catholic from a before arriving at York Castle that village between Leeds and Bradford August. At his trial, Calverley “stood called Calverley, his father died mute” and, as he refused to plead, when he was a child and he was this meant that his family would then brought up by an uncle who keep the estate – so, after a lengthy looked after his inheritance until torture session, he was taken off to he was 21. His youth was spent in be “pressed”. Stripped naked, he lay “excesse, rioting, diceing, drinking, on a bed of sharp stones and had revelling and it is feared other planks placed over him on which things” – no difference there, then lead weights were piled high. Two – until it all came to a sudden halt days later he still hadn't confessed with an arranged marriage. At the and, on 6 August, extra lead was last minute, he spurned his bride piled on him until he was dead. His -to-be and married the love of his body was scraped up and buried in life, Phillipa Brooke, instead. That an unmarked grave in St Mary's love never got beyond the birth of churchyard – probably where three sons, and it was not a happy Coppergate Square is now. marriage. Because Calverley A sensational murder story refused to change his religion, at the time, a broadside called the government imposed sanctions “Two Most Unnatural and Bloody which quickly ate away at his Murthers” became a best seller and, inheritance and, in 1602, they took when William Shakespeare read it, even more land and money from he got the idea for a play – or so him. To protect what was left, he they say. “The Yorkshire Tragedy” then transferred his assets into his was licensed for performance by uncles name. On 23 April 1605, when the Stationers Office in May 1608 he was in a tavern drinking and and, although it was not included gambling the night away, he heard in the First or Second Folios of that his younger brother had been Shakespeare's work, it did appear in arrested and feared that he would the Third and Fourth editions and is be too. What happened next is tragic. now considered one of the “disputed He staggered home to Calverley Hall plays” that were partly written by [its still there] and, in a drunken the Bard. As for the village of rage, he took out a dagger, killed his Calverley, generations of local kids two older sons and left his wife and have danced around what was youngest son for dead – except that supposed to be the grave of the p50 notorious child killer reciting [presumably for not being dead] and nominies – the Yorkshire word for sent for trial a second time. Such chants – exhorting “rise up Calverley! was the public outrage that he was Rise up”! Of course, he wasn't there acquitted and spent the rest of his but, in York, one man who did rise up life staying clear of the Knavesmire from the dead was the wonderful and running a pub – but which one John Bartendale. was it? The bibulous poet Richard Tried and sentenced to death, Braithwaite may have gone to it dragged along Castlegate and then as he wrote the long and rollicking paraded through the streets to his poem called “Drunken Barnaby’s execution at the Knavesmire, this Four Journeys to the North of well-known Northumbrian pipe England” in 1628 in celebration of player was strung up from the the publican, which includes the gallows and left dangling for over following lines: an hour. Cut down and buried nearby, some time later a gentleman Here a piper apprehended called Mr Vavasour was taking a Was found guilty and suspended constitutional stroll with his servant Half alive and dead he rises when he saw the earth move and the Got a pardon next assizes fingers of a hand appear. When they And in York continues blowing dug John Bartendale up he – not unreasonably given the circumstances – asked them if he was in heaven. Which is as good a place as any to On being told that he was in York, end this walk on York's wild side. he fainted, the smelling salts were Now go and see if you can find John brought out and he was arrested Bartendale's pub!

p51 Afterword

When we were first setting up York’s each post-walk pub discussion, Alternative History in 2012, people Paul’s histories have set the context kept saying ‘have you spoken to for active political debate about York Paul Furness yet?’York’s Alternative today. All of which have fed into our History had been provoked into wider research project. action by the tagline to the ‘York Following articles in the Guardian 800’ commemorations of King John Northerner blog and York Mix, York’s giving the Charter to the city: ‘800 Alternative History member Gary years since York was given the Craig has pestered Paul to publish freedom to govern itself’. This, to say the walks. Each of us who’ve been the least, provoked Paul too. From on Paul’s walks have been challenged there we started trying to show that to see our city differently. We now governing ourselves was not ‘given’ want to share this both with other to us but fought for and that York people who live in York today and was a Northern epicenter for the 19th with the many visitors to the city. c tussles over rights and democracy. If York isn’t just Vikings and shopping, A city of judicial suppression and it might make you want to come murder. A city also of protest back or, which is the holy grail of the and rebellion. City’s current tourism strategy, stay Paul’s first walk took place on longer and delve deeper. 22nd September 2012. Paul led us What we’ve learnt from Paul is around the city we all thought we that York doesn’t need to trap itself knew well but transformed it with by one version of its past: the version every step and every story. When we of its past which too easily translates began to develop the York strand of into a pretty, nice and expensive work under the umbrella of the ‘How place to live. As Paul shows York should decisions about heritage be wasn’t nice. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t made?’, funded by the Arts and quiet. Politics didn’t only happen Humanities Research Council, we somewhere else. Today, as York knew we wanted to rope Paul in. house prices and rental prices go As part of this research, Paul led two through the roof, as the service walks in spring 2014 titled York: A economy drags itself too slowly Walk on the Wild Side on which this towards a living wage – we need book is based. The theory we’ve politics to happen here too and right been working with is that if you now. We’ve found the histories Paul crack open York’s past to plural, tells – and the way he tells them – surprising or disconcerting stories are a great place to begin. then the city’s future opens up too. To be made by us who are here now. York’s Alternative History Our hunch has been proved right. In November 2014 p52 Let us know what you think! [email protected] York Alternative History: yorkalternativehistory.wordpress.com How should decisions about heritage be made?: codesign.wordpress.com

Copyright Paul Furness 2014

Front cover image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license from Enrique Dans

Design: Simon Collins, www.whereareyousimon.co.uk

York: A Walk on the Wild Side was produced as part of a research project ‘How should decisions about heritage be made’, hosted by the University of Leeds and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and their Connected Communities programme

p53 York Castle. The site of the Luddite executions in 1812. Pictured is the commemoration held in 2012 by York’s Alternative History. Walk stop 4

Chaplin House, Skeldergate, the home of Hans Hess. Walk stop 6 p54

Even Guy Fawkes has to shout to get himself heard in York and, to add insult to injury, he’s not in this little book either – which makes the point that what is left out of York’s rich history may be more relevant than what gets included in the “official version” that brands this tourist town a must visit experience. Within these pages you’ll find the story of the York “they” don’t want to tell you about - because it doesn’t fit the heritage image which has been invented for the express purpose of shopping! What you are about to read is none of that. Here are tales of riot, rebellion and revolution, music, poets, football and beer along with fights for women’s rights and Gay Liberation – just the story of another Friday night in York in fact!

The Clash, High Petergate, 1985. © Newsquest (Yorkshire & North East) Ltd £5