University of Huddersfield Repository Marshall, William The creation of Yorkshireness: Cultural identities in Yorkshire c.1850-1918 Original Citation Marshall, William (2011) The creation of Yorkshireness: Cultural identities in Yorkshire c.1850- 1918. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/12302/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. 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For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ he creation of Yorkshireness Cultural identities in Yorkshire c.1850-1918 WILLIAM MARSHALL A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersield in partial fulilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy he University of Huddersield September 2011 Abstract THE rapid expansion, wider distribution and increased readership of print media in the latter half of the nineteenth century helped to foster the process that has been described as the nationalisation of English culture. In a parallel process, however, the same media could also be deployed to construct and to propagate regional cultures and identities. This thesis, concentrating on the period c.1850-1918, uses Yorkshire as a case study. The employment of county boundaries and structures as a delimitation for historical research can be questioned. But it is defensible in the case of the cultural study of a county that, in spite of its size, heterogeneity and industrial transformation, had acquired a set of identities and stereotypes which evolved during the early-modern period and were retained, reined and celebrated in the industrial age. Although it had no political basis, Yorkshireness remained a powerful sub-identity within England, the United Kingdom and the wider British world. By examining the newspaper press, weekly periodicals, dialect almanacs and regional iction, the thesis explores the evolution and the dissemination of Yorkshire’s cultural identity in an age of popular print. There is also an analysis of attempts to ind a deterministic basis for Yorkshire character and a description of county societies in the UK and overseas. The evolution of folkloristic Yorkshire identities and symbols is traced, and illustrated dialect postcards of the early-twentieth century are analysed, on the grounds that they were a widely-transmitted source of Yorkshire stereotypes. Individuals who played a role in the construction of Yorkshireness include the writer James Burnley, the folklorist and humorist Richard Blakeborough, the novelists Halliwell Sutcliffe and William Riley, the dialect writers Charles Rogers and John Hartley, the cartoonist Arthur North and the University of Leeds academic Professor Frederic Moorman, who conceived the project for eisteddfod equivalents in Yorkshire. The conclusion is that Victorian and Edwardian print media and illustrated ephemera were used extensively to construct and convey a sense of Yorkshireness, acting as a countervailing force to the tendency towards nationalisation of culture, and that in the absence of a fully negotiated concept of universal Englishness, county identity was an important factor at home and overseas. Contents Introduction. Page 5 Chapter 1. The psychology of Yorkshireness: Scientiic and cultural approaches to issues of character and identity. Page 10 Chapter 2. A Yorkshireman’s Coat of Arms: Folklore, ephemera and the transmission, transformation and auto-stereotyping of the ‘Tyke’. Page 23 Chapter 3. Themes of identity in nineteenth-century Yorkshire newspapers. Page 45 Chapter 4. The Yorkshireman, county literary culture and self-satire. Page 76 Chapter 5. The Yorkshire dialect almanac. Page 112 Chapter 6. Themes in Victorian and Edwardian Yorkshire regional iction. Page 144 Chapter 7. Yorkshire county societies at home and overseas. Page 171 Chapter 8. An eisteddfod for Yorkshire? Professor Moorman and the uses of dialect. Page 190 Conclusions . Page 204 Bibliography. Page 206 Illustrations Where these were obtained, with the appropriate permission, from libraries and archives, this is acknowledged in the caption. Where there is no such acknowledgment, this signiies that the illustration was taken from an out-of-copyright book, periodical or item of ephemera in the present writer’s possession. Acknowledgments I WOULD like to record my thanks to all members of the academic staff in the departments of history at the Universities of Huddersield and Shefield from whose knowledge and help I have beneitted over the past eight years, while studying for a succession of degrees. In the context of this thesis I must express special gratitude to Professor Paul Ward of the University of Huddersield, for his encouragement, expertise, insightful analysis and his ability to suggest additional secondary reading and historiographical frameworks whenever necessary. Professor Ward read my work and made valuable comments as it progressed, although, needless to say, any infelicities, errors, omissions or misconceptions are my entire responsibility. I must also record my grateful thanks to Professor Keith Laybourn, for his knowledge, his attention to detail and the unfailing enthusiasm and interest he displays towards all students, from undergraduates to PhD candidates. Margaret Carter kindly proofread a draft of the thesis and although, to reiterate, surviving errors are my entire responsibility, her diligence was invaluable. In the course of my research I had cause to be grateful for the professionalism and diligence of archivists and staff at local studies libraries in Bradford, Leeds, Huddersield, York and Halifax; at the Wakeield, Calderdale, Kirklees and Bradford branches of the West Yorkshire Archives Service; at the archives and special collections of the universities of Huddersield and Shefield; at York Minster Library; and, in particular, the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds. I need to record my immense gratitude to the Arts and Humanities Research Council, whose Doctoral Award was, quite naturally, an enormous boon. I hope the results justify the AHRC’s faith and generosity. Thanks too must go to John Ramsdin and the public relations department at the University of Huddersield, for providing part-time employment that kept me in touch with my roots in local journalism and gave me an insight into all the dimensions of university life. Finally, I must record thanks to my wife Susan and to my mother, Mrs Rachel Marshall, both of whom have been unfailingly supportive of my decision to undertake university study. 5 Introduction Countervailing forces to the nineteenth-century ‘nationalisation of culture’ IN 1881, a Bradford periodical carried a series of articles by a special correspondent who had visited Egypt. He encountered an American, who said, ‘Guess you’re a Britisher’, to which the special correspondent replied, ‘No, I’m a Yorkshireman’.1 The overall tone of the article was humorous and the correspondent’s retort was probably intended to be in the same vein. But readers of a magazine entitled The Yorkshireman would have smiled with recognition. Perhaps they were sometimes inclined to identify themselves in the same way. At the very least, the passage is a fragment that can be added to the evidence for multiplicity of identities within the United Kingdom, within Great Britain, within England and for that matter within ‘Greater Britain’. The study of national identities and character has burgeoned, derived from such diverse texts as Linda Colley’s Britons (1992) and Peter Mandler’s The English National Character (2006),2 and in the context of England there have been explorations of sub-identities, including several that analyse the North-South divide and Northern regionalism.3 The North-East has been well served by research that stemmed from the AHRC-funded Research Centre for North-East England History.4 This thesis represents a further sub-division, being an examination of the county of Yorkshire’s cultural identity – I have adopted the term ‘Yorkshireness’ – and how it was constructed, adapted and diffused in a period roughly bounded by the half century from 1850. It is argued that this was a formative period, because a combination of factors, including the removal of the ‘taxes on knowledge’, improved technology, communications and distribution plus increased literacy rates, resulted in new levels of popular print culture. It might be that this helped to foster the late-century process described as the nationalisation of English culture.5 However, it is possible to identify a parallel process, whereby developments in communications and new media could be deployed to enhance the awareness and adoption of regional cultures and differences. ‘Yorkshire did not know it 1 ‘Our Special Correspondent in Egypt’, The Yorkshireman, 12 March 1881. 2 Mandler has, however, warned historians