Yorkshire

I

Introduction

Yorkshire, former administrative county, north-eastern England, historically the largest county of England, bordered on the north by County Durham, on the north-east by the North Sea, on the south by Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, on the west by Lancashire, and on the north-west by the former county of Westmorland. York was the county town. Yorkshire was divided, for administrative purposes, into the East, West, and North Ridings, which had as their administrative centres Beverley, Wakefield, and Northallerton, respectively. The word “riding” is derived from the Anglo-Saxon thriding, meaning a third part. Under the local government reforms of 1974, Yorkshire was partitioned to form the counties of North Yorkshire and Humberside, and two metropolitan counties, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. Under a new round of local government reforms, Humberside ceased to exist on April 1, 1996. It was replaced by four all-purpose local government authorities, or unitary authorities, including East Riding of Yorkshire and Kingston upon Hull. East Riding of Yorkshire unitary authority comprises the majority of the former East Riding; Kingston upon Hull occupies the remainder. For ceremonial and related occasions the two unitary authorities will again form part of Yorkshire, whose historical boundaries have been restored for this purpose. At the same time the city of York and its rural environs were administratively separated from North Yorkshire to form a new unitary authority (see York (borough)).

From the late Middle Ages the county was the centre of the English wool trade. Coal mining was until recently also a mainstay of the economy of the Yorkshire area. Sheffield, centre of the iron and steel industry, has a long-standing reputation for the manufacture of cutlery. The area of the former county enjoys excellent road and rail communications with the rest of the United Kingdom. The privately owned Leeds/Bradford Airport handled a total of 719,601 passengers in 1993.

II

Land and Resources

Yorkshire occupied a region of great scenic beauty. The western part of the former county is dominated by the Pennine Hills, which have been called the backbone of England, and which stretch from Derbyshire in the south to the Cheviot Hills, on the border with Scotland, in the north. In the south the Pennines are chiefly composed of millstone grit. In the north they are made of limestone, which is dissected by deep river valleys (dales), forming the region known as the Yorkshire Dales (see Yorkshire Dales National Park). The eastern side of the Pennines is rich in coal measures, which have been (and in a very few cases, still are) worked.

The east of the county included the Cleveland Hills, the North York Moors National Park, and the Tabular Hills, a limestone and sandstone mass whose rivers drain southward into the Vale of Pickering. Between these two regions lies the Vale of York. The principal river is the Ouse, which flows through York and, eventually, into the Humber estuary. Its tributaries include the Wharfe, the Swale, the Rye, and the Aire. The River Derwent rises in the North York Moors and flows southward through the vales of York and Pickering, to join the Ouse east of Selby. The River Don rises in the southern Pennines and flows across the South Yorkshire coalfield to Sheffield, then north-eastward to Doncaster, before joining the Ouse at Goole, now in North Lincolnshire unitary authority.

The climate of the region encompassed in the former county of Yorkshire is variable. Winters are often long and harsh, with heavy snowfalls in the Pennines. Rainfall is also variable. Precipitation is heaviest in the west, where the average is 1,520-2,540 mm (60-100 in) a year; the average is 100-1,520 (40-60 in) along the north-eastern coast, and only 635 m (25 in) annually in the south, the driest area.

III

Culture

There have been many prominent Yorkshire men and women throughout history. Alcuin, the great medieval scholar, was born at York in about ad 735. Guy Fawkes, one of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot (1605) to blow up James I and Parliament, was also born at York, in 1570. Captain James Cook, the great explorer, was the son of a Yorkshire labourer, and learned his seamanship at Whitby before joining the navy. Literary associations are many: the Brontë sisters, Laurence Sterne, W. H. Auden, J. B. Priestley, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Winifred Holtby, and Alan Bennett, among others. The sculptor Henry Moore was born at Castleford in 1898, the son of a coal miner, and the artist David Hockney in Bradford in 1937.

The Yorkshire Post, which started life as a weekly paper in Leeds in 1754, and the Leeds Intelligencer (1866) are among England’s leading regional newspapers.

Natives of the county, sometimes known as “Yorkshire tykes”, used to speak a distinctive dialect. The dialect has largely died out, but distinct local accents remain. They also had a reputation for forthright speaking and, at times, obstinacy. An old slang expression, “to come Yorkshire on someone”, meaning to cheat that person, dates from the early 18th century and was used by Charles Dickens in his novel Nicholas Nickleby.

Yorkshire has given its name to a famous batter pudding; to a breed of pig; to the Yorkshire coach, a breed of English coach horses, usually bay or brown; and to the Yorkshire Terrier (the “Yorkie”), a breed of small dog developed locally in the mid-1800s.

Yorkshire pudding is the most celebrated local dish. Made from a batter of egg, flour, and milk, and traditionally cooked in the oven in a broad, shallow pan into which the fat and juices from a joint of beef, hung over the fire, have been dripped, it should be light and crisp at the edges. In the past it was customary to start the meal with Yorkshire pudding, so as to fill people up before the expensive meat course; nowadays it is normally served as an accompaniment to roast beef. Cheese-making has long been traditional in the Yorkshire Dales. It is said to have been an art handed down by monks. In the early 19th century Wensleydale was the general name given to all local cheeses. Since 1890 the white, flaky cheese that is known today as Wensleydale, has been made at Hawes, in Wensleydale, and no longer in individual farmhouses. The creamery may be visited, and there is also a Dales Countryside Museum nearby. Treacle is much used in Yorkshire recipes. Parkin, a type of gingerbread, is made from oatmeal, flour, egg, ginger, treacle, and brown sugar. It is sometimes baked in animal shapes for children, “parkin pigs” being traditional at Christmas-time. The monks, who grew herbs for medicinal purposes in the Middle Ages, are believed to have introduced the cultivation of liquorice into Yorkshire. The sweetmeats known as Pontefract-cakes are made from liquorice extract, treacle, sugar, flour, glucose and water.

Yorkshire has long associations with the sport of cricket. The Yorkshire County Cricket Club was founded in 1863 and continues to bear the name of the former county. It has won more county championships than any other county. Outstanding Yorkshire cricketers include Geoffrey Boycott, George Hirst, Sir Leonard Hutton, Raymond Illingworth, Wilfred Rhodes, Herbert Sutcliffe, and Fred Truman.

IV

History

There is evidence of Mesolithic and Neolithic (see Stone Age) settlement in the upland areas. Iron Age peoples took advantage of these uplands to build defensive sites, such as the hill forts at Almondbury, near Huddersfield, and at Stanwick, on the present North Yorkshire-County Durham border. The Romans were the first to settle in the lowland region, which became their military base for operations against invaders from the north. Eboracum (now York), linked with London by Ermine Street, was built in about ad 71-74, and became first a garrison town and then the military headquarters of the Roman province. A British tribe, the Elmet, are known to have survived in the region as late as the 7th century, by which time the Romans had long since departed and the Anglo-Saxons had begun to penetrate the region from the east, via the Humber estuary and its tributaries. They cleared woodlands, and established settlements in the valleys. Under Anglo-Saxon rule, York became a thriving ecclesiastical centre and capital of the kingdom of Northumbria. Captured by the Danes in ad 867, it then became known as Jorvik.

Following the Norman Conquest, there were local rebellions against William I, as a result of which in 1069-1070 he laid waste the existing settlements. Discontent, rebellion, and anarchy were to be the pattern for the next few centuries. Baronial power grew strong, and many castles were built at this time, including Richmond, Helmsley, Pickering, Scarborough, and Bolton, as well as the defence strongholds of Conisbrough and Tickell. From the 12th century York prospered both as a port and as a “staple”, a town given a charter to deal in wholesale trade, and Yorkshire became one of the most powerful English counties. Royal charters were granted to the merchant guilds, together with free customs. The great York Minster was begun in the 13th century. The York Cycle of 48 mystery plays, still performed, is a survival of the craft guilds and their traditions (see Miracle, Mystery, and Morality Plays).

Yorkshire was the site of several major battles during the 15th century and notably during the Wars of the Roses: in 1408 at Bramham Moor, in 1460 at Wakefield, and in 1461 at Towton. Middleham Castle was a favourite residence of Richard III, the last ruler of the House of York. From 1482 until 1641 York was the headquarters of the administrative body known as the Council of the North. Anarchy and social unrest went on, however, and in October 1536 a popular uprising against Henry VIII‘s dissolution of the monasteries and religious innovations, now known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, was led by Robert Aske of Doncaster. It ended unsuccessfully in February the following year, and Aske was executed at York in July 1537.

Monasticism had flourished in Yorkshire; the Cistercian foundations at Jervaulx, Fountains Abbey, Rievaulx Abbey, and Byland grew rich from sheep-farming. From this prosperity grew the cottage industries of spinning and weaving, welcome supplements to farm income. In the 18th century woollen mills were established in the valleys of the rivers Aire and Calder. Ironstone was mined around Sheffield, which was already known in the Middle Ages for its cutlery. York became a major coaching centre, and the improvement of communications, principally the navigation and canalization of the River Don in the 18th century, led directly to expansion of the iron and steel industry eastward from Sheffield, and to the growth of the coalmining industry. Yorkshire coal was at its maximum exploitation in the 19th century, as techniques improved and the workings spread to ever richer and deeper seams. Water, and then steam, power stimulated the textile manufacturing industry of the West Riding, and many wealthy millowners built themselves fine country houses in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The railways brought added prosperity. In time the various processes of textile manufacturing were localized. Bradford, specializing in the dyeing of cloth, became an important wool market. Recent years have seen some decline in the trade owing to the introduction of artificial fibres, but the area of the former West Riding still dominates the English wool textile industry.

For details of administration, population, economy, education, tourism and places of interest, see North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, and Humberside.