Between the months of September and March, the Society runs a fortnightly lecture programme with talks on a wide variety of aspects of local history. These take place at the Methodist Church in Hebden Bridge (opposite the Co-op) on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 7.30 pm. Talks are free to members. Visitors are welcome (£4).

Recordings of presentations are usually made available to members for two weeks after the lecture on Vimeo. Information on how to access these is sent to members when each one is available.

For reports of lectures from September 2025 go to [Lecture Reports](/lecture-report). Reports of lectures from previous years are available in the relevant Spring [Newsletters](/newsletters). Events for the next season will appear around the beginning of September.

Reports of lectures from previous years are available in the relevant Spring [Newsletters](/newsletters).

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Privacy Policy

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**Membership benefits**  
- Free entry to lectures including access to recordings of those lectures for a short time afterwards (where the lecturer gives consent)
- Free access to the archive when open
- Borrowing rights for the archive (published items only)
- Reduced fees for research enquiries
- Free membership of Family History and other special interest groups
- One newsletter a year with news, lecture information for the season and short articles
- Regular email news on society and local history matters

Membership costs £15. The membership year runs from 1st September to 31 August each year. If you join after the end of the lecture season in April your membership will include the following subscription year. Renewal invitations to existing members are sent out at the end of August each year.

The information you supply is used by us in accordance with the Data Protection legislation to administer your membership of the Society. Our privacy policy is available [here](/pages/privacy-policy) or you can contact the [Membership Secretary](/contacts/membership-secretary). Your personal information will never be passed on to third parties without your consent. 

## Download the membership form:

[Download a membership form](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/raw/upload/v1661940918/Email_membership_form_2022_fe8eafeb33.doc)

##  Or pay online:


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Join the Society

**International customers**  
Please note that the shipping prices quoted below are to United Kingdom addresses only. Before ordering, please [contact us](mailto:orders@hebdenbridgehistory.org.uk) for details of shipping costs to addresses outside the United Kingdom.

**UK shipping costs**  
Prices quoted below are for individual books. Shipping costs for multiple books are calculated on checkout.

**Publications Mailing List**  
If you would like to be added to our mailing list so that we can inform you of future publications, [please click here.](/contacts/join-the-mailing-list)

**Your privacy**  
The contact information you supply when buying a publication is used by us in accordance with the Data Protection legislation to administer your purchase. Our privacy policy is available [here](/pages/privacy-policy) or you can contact the [Membership Secretary](/contacts/membership-secretary). Your personal information will never be passed on to third parties without your consent.


Browse the books published by the Society

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Publications

The archive will normally be open every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon from 2-5pm. However, this is subject to volunteer availability. Any closed days are indicated below. Numbers at each session are limited and pre-booking is required by emailing the [Archivist](/contacts/archivist-1). If possible, please indicate which documents you would like to look at. Our catalogue can be searched here:  [Catalogue search](/catalogues/hblhs-archive-catalogue).  
Non-members who wish to visit the archive are very welcome to do so but must pay a visitor’s fee of £3.00.  
It may be possible to arrange alternative visiting times if you are unable to visit at the standard opening times.

## 2025

|           |  Wednesday 2 – 5pm |  Thursday 2-5pm |
|-----------|--------------------------|-----------------------------|
| January   | 8th; 15th; 22nd; 29th                   | 9th closed; 16th closed; 23rd closed     |
| February  | 5th; 12th; 19th; 26th                   | 6th closed; 13th closed; 20th closed; 27th        |
| March     | 5th;  12th; 19th; 26th                     | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th      |
| April     | 2nd closed; 9th; 16th; 23rd                      | 3rd closed; 10th; 17th; 24th; 30th     |
| May       | 7th; 14th; 21st; 28th closed              | 1st; 8th; 15th closed; 22nd; 29th closed      |
| June      | 4th; 11th; 18th; 25th                    | 5th closed; 12th closed; 19th closed; 26th           |
| July      | 2nd;  9th; 16th; 23rd; 30th            | 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th; 31st                     |
| August    | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th closed               | 7th; 14th; 21st closed; 28th                 |
| September | 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th               | 4th; 11th; 18th closed; 25th                 |
| October   | 1st; 8th; 15th; 22nd; 29th           | 2nd; 9th closed; 16th; 23rd; 30th                    |
| November  | 5th; 12th; 19th; 26th            | 6th; 13th; 20th; 27th                   |
| December  | 3rd; 10th; 17th; 24th closed                | 4th; 11th; 18th; 25th closed; 31st closed               |


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Visit our archive

The Society will do its best to answer queries about the history of the Upper Calder Valley using the expertise of members and our archive but cannot guarantee to provide a complete or satisfactory result. The Society does not accept any liability for the accuracy or completeness of information provided.

There is a nominal charge for queries of £2 for members of the Society and £5 for non members. These sums go towards helping to maintain the Archive. Your request may be submitted using the form below which will take you to our shop for payment. Unfortunately we are unable to answer any queries for which payment has not been received.

It may be possible to supply copies of documents by email or post subject to the completion of a copyright declaration form. Basic digital copies are free. Photocopies are charged at 10p per page and £1 for postage. These charges are additional to the query charge


## Information request

Please follow the links below. When you click to submit the form you will be then asked to make a payment of £5 for non-members or £2 for members.

The information you supply is used by us in accordance with the Data Protection legislation to administer your enquiry. Our privacy policy is available [here](/pages/privacy-policy) or you can contact the [Membership Secretary](/contacts/membership-secretary). Your personal information will never be passed on to third parties without your consent. We would like to keep your information on file to keep you updated on this query and to let you know about other information that may be of interest. Please select Yes in the cart summary if you consent.

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Research service

The Family History Group is a sub-group of the Hebden Bridge Local History Society and meets regularly at the Birchcliffe Centre to further our knowledge of the people who live and have lived in the Upper Calder Valley. We also are happy to help local people who are researching their own families in different parts of the country.

The aim of the group is to promote and assist the study of genealogy and family history, the prime interest being the study of people and where they lived. We do this by:
- offering members an opportunity to meet like-minded people locally and to share their interests, resources and experience
- helping people with online research sources and we welcome visitors to our drop in sessions for this purpose. We have access to genealogy and other resources. More experienced members are always needed to help at these sessions.
- building up a database of local families and welcome any contributions to this. There are a number of surnames local to the Upper Calder valley such as Greenwood and Sutcliffe.
- welcoming visitors from other parts of the country and from abroad, who are researching families that originated in this area. 


**Meetings**

Meetings are usually held on Tuesday mornings between 10am and 1pm at the Birchcliffe centre. There is a visitor's charge of £3. Numbers at each session are limited and booking is essential to ensure that there is a volunteer available to help with your enquiry.  If you are not able to visit on a Tuesday please let us know and we may be able to arrange for you to visit on another day.

You can book by using the [contact form](/contacts/family-history-session-bookings). Please also use this contact form for further information about the Family History Group.

**Research enquiries**

We try to answer research enquiries from people who are unable to visit us. Enquiries can be submitted via our [Research Service](research-service) for a small fee.

**Monumental inscriptions**

We have now completed transcribing the gravestones in the Heptonstall Old Churchyard which has taken several years. It was an enormous task, especially when working on the older graves. The results can be accessed on the [Monumental inscriptions](monumental-inscriptions) page. Another team has transcribed the graves in the ‘new’ churchyard and these are also accessible on the same page. All these transcriptions can also be found on the [Calderdale Family History Society](https://www.cfhsweb.com/index/select/). We hope to continue the task in other local graveyards.


Family history articles from HBLHS Newsletters

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Family history

For some years now a small group of friends has been exploring the evidence for prehistoric activity in the South Pennines, roughly from the M62 up to the Stanbury-Colne road and from the main Pennine watershed in the west across to the urban fringe in the east. There is no particular prehistoric or archaeological significance in these boundaries, this is simply the present extent of our fieldwork.

The images below illustrate some of the features we have examined. Below the images are articles and updates that provide summaries of our work over the years.

![Arrowhead](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648910930/Arrowhead_a416f2f455.jpg#medium)

Arrowhead: a typical barbed and tanged arrow-tip from the early bronze age. It would have been fixed to the shaft using wool twine and birch bark glue. This one seems to be made from grey Wolds flint – flint does not occur naturally in the South Pennines and was traded across country. These arrowheads are often found damaged from use. This undamaged one, from Midgley Moor, may be a hunting loss or a ritual deposition.

![Millers Grave](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911057/Millers_Grave_d11ae23650.jpg#medium)

Miller's Grave: a singular feature. The name is modern but the thing itself is prehistoric. 
The central element, either two slabs of rock close together or one that has split, has been surrounded and concealed from view by a substantial bank of earth and stones. Robin Hood’s Penny Stone – another modern name for a much older feature – can be seen on the skyline.

![Letterstones](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911126/Letterstones_53d1b9f460.jpg#medium)

Letterstones: Prominent stone overlooking Green Withens valley and oriented toward where the sun rises in November and again in February marking the pre-Christian festivals of Samain and Imbolc (which were later adopted and adapted as All Souls and Candlemas), essentially straddling winter and denoting the end of the harvest season and the coming of spring.

![Linear feature, Widdop](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911192/Linear_feature_Widdop_5927d5b8eb.jpg#medium)

Linear feature, Widdop: a curious wall of erect slabs curving down the valley side edging a one-time re-entrant. The reservoir water here, as elsewhere, has stripped off the peat and soil to leave the prehistoric land surface exposed. Where erosion has continued the slabs have fallen over. This linear feature may have been a ritual boundary or the basis for a stock-proof barrier to keep animals away from the stream people were using.

![The Gorple Dagger](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911298/The_Gorple_Dagger_286beb338c.jpg#medium)

The Gorple Dagger: a high status, prestige item which would have been worn for show. The flint dagger is a copy of early bronze forms and would have had a handle of decorated bone, horn or wood. This is one of the best examples in the country and is similar to north European forms. It was found adjacent to a washed-out burial on the shore of Upper Gorple Reservoir. The acid soils of the South Pennine uplands have destroyed many traces of prehistoric people; bone, wood, leather, horn, textile and ceramic are very unlikely to survive.

![Recording rock art](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911387/Recording_rock_art_2_55880f2956.jpg#medium)

Recording rock art: a camera-on-a-stick is being used to take a vertical photo (as an alternative to making a scale drawing in the field)

![Standing stone, Heptonstall](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911478/Standing_stone_Heptonstall_aecbb9e0c9.jpg#medium)

Standing stone, Heptonstall: sited just above the break of slope, and now incorporated into a wall, this stone may well have a stellar reference. There are several stones that appear to point to a position on the horizon too far south of east for the sun or moon. In fact they all indicate a place where the constellation Capricornus rose in 1500BC.

![Cupmarks, Higher Moor](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911643/Cupmarks_Higher_Moor_d56f5cfba2.jpg#medium)

Cupmarks, Higher Moor: just south of Stoodley Pike. The cup-marks - the circular depressions – are a common form of prehistoric rock art. These cups seem to have been placed in a particular configuration.

![Midwinter sunrise](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911748/Midwinter_sunrise_ac53012722.jpg#medium)

Midwinter sunrise: From Robin Hood’s Penny Stone the midwinter sun appears to rise out of the Miller’s Grave. This kind of alignment to significant solar and lunar events is quite common in prehistoric features and is unlikely to have occurred by chance here.

![Robin Hood's Penny Stone](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648911839/Robin_Hood_s_Penny_Stone_9104094c9d.jpg#medium)

Robin Hood's Penny Stone: a large block of a gritstone called Huddersfield White Rock. HWR outcrops further down the moor and this stone may have been moved some 300m to its present position

![Barrow, Ridge](https://res.cloudinary.com/hhdifljso/image/upload/v1648910930/Barrow_Ridge_5f9741d9f4.jpg#medium)

Barrow, Ridge: a turf-covered mound of stones with a ditch around it. Another form of prehistoric burial.


Evidence of prehistoric activity in the South Pennines

Articles and updates

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Prehistory Group

From generation to generation, people pass on their own ways of doing things to families, friends, colleagues and anyone they spend time with. These fragments of their culture can include all sorts of information - how to dress, games and rhymes, customs to keep around the house or community, what seasonal festivals to observe and how, sayings and expressions and much more.

This body of acquired knowledge can be thought of as cultural tradition, and varies from place to place, helping to foster a sense of identity from family to village to school or larger unit, such as a country. It is more widely known under the name of folklore.

John Billingsley collates the folklore side of local history for the society. The Folklore Section covers the everyday customs and expressions of local people as well as the stories they tell and the customs they observe. We would invite anyone to share folkloric memories or documentary material on the folklore of our area, either for publication here or for inclusion in our expanding database. Please contact John through the [Society Secretary](/contacts/secretary).
 
John has been involved with local folklore for thirty years, as a speaker and writer, and as a tutor for Bradford University’s Lifelong Learning Department. He also leads guided walks with strong folkloric content for Calderdale Heritage Walks and is the author and editor of several books, as well as the ‘new antiquarian’ magazine, Northern Earth (www.northernearth.co.uk). Readers wishing to follow up local folklore may find the titles below of interest:
- A Stony Gaze: Investigating Celtic and other stone heads. Capall Bann 1998
- Charming Calderdale. Signs and customs used to protect the home folk-magically. Northern Earth 2020
- Folk Tales from Calderdale. Place legends and their context. Northern Earth, 2007
- Hood, Head & Hag: Further folk tales from Calderdale. Special focus on Robin Hood, the severed head motif and witchcraft. Northern Earth, 2011
- West Yorkshire Folk Tales. History Press, 2010
- The Mixenden Treasure: A true tale of magic in 16th-century W Yorkshire. Northern Earth, 2009

Below are articles, including photographs, that offer a flavour of the stories that are still told in Calderdale communities in the surrounding areas.




Articles

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Folklore

THIS PAGE IS HERE JUST FOR THE INFO TO PLACE ON THE HOMEPAGE. DO NOT ADD TO OR AMEND

Our Newsletter is usually published in September, at the start of the lecture season

Newsletter Archive

Through our lecture programme, archive collections, special interest groups and publications, we offer a variety of ways to enhance your knowledge of the history of the Upper Calder Valley.

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Welcome to Hebden Bridge Local History Society

When a last minute problem meant that the planned talk about 'Lawless Ladies' had to be postponed,  Jowett cars rode to the rescue with aficionado Barbara Atack's story of the much loved Yorkshire car.   'Lawless Ladies' is now scheduled for next season.

A notice in the Telegraph & Argus in May 1922 invited Jowett owners to join a day trip to Boroughbridge, followed by tea – and so the Jowett Car Club was founded. As Barbara Atack, an officer of the oldest ‘one-make’ car club in the world, told Hebden Bridge Local History Society, love for the Yorkshire car is as strong as ever. 

Barbara’s involvement with Jowett cars came in her ‘courting’ days, as she gradually shared in her husband’s love for the car. As they acquired different models – one found in a barn – working on the engines grew from a hobby to a way of life. 

Jowett Cars Limited was the brainchild of brothers Benjamin and William Jowett, who had the engineering skills and imagination to see how they could build a successful car manufacturing business in their Bradford works. The ingenious ‘flat twin’ engine gave them the edge over their competitors in the early 1900s, and by using lighter aluminium for the bodies and making parts themselves, they produced a light car which was good on the hills. The Jowett Light Car, a two seater steered with a tiller was very popular (One of these, the oldest Jowett on the road, lives in Oxenhope.)

The first world war paused any further development of the cars, but the firm went from strength to strength with production of components for the war effort. By the end of the war they had a larger workforce and a bigger factory, at Idle, Bradford. Throughout the 1920s more models were produced including commercial vehicles, and a fleet for the London police.

Jowett Cars were imaginative promoters of the brand, with racing successes, such as crossing Africa in 60 days and publicity stunts like driving through a new sewage pipe at Esholt. They had a knack for marketing slogans such as ‘little engine with the big pull’  boasting ‘the pull of an elephant; the appetite of a canary and the docility of a lamb’.

Despite the depression, the 30s were a time of innovation and expansion, with new sleeker models along side the commercial workhorses. Again war time saw them gain orders for military supplies. The focus post-war was on exports, and the robust and reliable Bradfords were very successful. But despite this and some sparkling success of the sports model, Javelin, in the Monte Carlo and Le Mans rallies, the days of the Yorkshire car were numbered. Their body maker was taken over by Ford, who were probably not too keen on being part of a rival’s production, and so Jowett’s last car left the factory in 1954. Loyal to their customers, they kept open a spares and repairs garage to keep Jowetts on the road.

The Jowett Car Club has continued that tradition with a members’ spares shop and also regularly welcomes ex-employees to fondly inspect the collection of Jowett cars in the Bradford Industrial Museum. As for Barbara, her last Jowett has moved to new owners, enthusiastic young Jowett Car Club members who will drive it with pride.


talk by Barbara Atack (last minute replacement for advertised talk)

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Jowett - the Yorkshire Car

‘It’s midsummer 1933. Hill top farmers above Hebden Bridge are taking in the hay. Evening is falling. The final act of a cruel and brutal marriage is about to play out.’ Matilda Wilding, speaking to Hebden Bridge Local History Society explained why she was drawn to the story of a murder at Snow Booth, a remote farmhouse on Midgley Moor. It was a story that revealed attitudes to gender and justice and which also appealed to the historical researcher trying to get to the heart of what happened.

Matilda gave us some idea of the challenges and excitement of exploring official documents, newspapers and the treasures of the National Archives at Kew, which had that frisson of connection with people and events from the past. She could unravel the basic biographies of some of the protagonists in the story of how Elizabeth Agnes Rhodes was found guilty of murdering her husband, Samuel Redmain Rhodes. 
Elizabeth was born into a large Roman Catholic family in County Dublin. Described as semi-educated she had attended school till fourteen then followed the common path into domestic service. Samuel Rhodes was the son of George Rhodes living in Lancashire. He had served in the British army in world war one, but his records are incomplete. In 1919 he met and married Elizabeth and over the years they lived and worked at various farms in the Hebden Bridge area, including Egypt Farm at Colden, Old Chamber in Erringden and finally at Snow Booth, Wadsworth.

Evidence provided at her trial in 1933 tell the story of a miserable marriage. Samuel’s family complained about her poor housekeeping, unwillingness to join in family occasions and unreasonable suspicions of her husband. Others thought her a good worker and ‘clean in herself’. Witnesses testified to the brutal and violent behaviour of Samuel to his wife. She had made complaints to the police and there was even a solicitor’s letter demanding that Samuel change his behaviour. But attitudes to divorce probably made it impossible for Elizabeth to escape her situation.

Elizabeth had killed her husband with a hammer, saying later that she didn’t expect it to do such injury. Later that night she tried for a third time to take her own life by throwing herself into the river in Hebden Bridge. It was here that she encountered a police officer, and fatefully, confessed that Sam had been violent to her, so she waited until he was in bed and hit him with a hammer, because ‘he was always on to me’. This would have been ‘wilful murder’ despite the years of brutal treatment. At her trial the judge was very much prejudiced against Elizabeth, dismissing any explanations put on her behalf. The jury found Elizabeth guilty, but the Judge ignored their strong recommendation for mercy and condemned her to death by hanging.

However, the story caught the attention of the local press who ran a petition for mercy, which was granted in August 1933. A final thrill for the researcher: among all the dry court documents at Kew was the telegram which brought the news of her reprieve.


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Murder at Snow Booth: gender and justice between the wars

Kim Pearson has been researching the history of the child workers at Wainstalls Mills for more than twenty years. They were known as the Wainstalls Waifs, a name that conjures up the worst of Victorian squalor and exploitation. Kim told Hebden Bridge Local History Society how the story first caught her imagination when she came across the so-called Orphans’ Grave in Luddenden Dean which records seven girls who died there. Inevitably there were horror stories about the cause of the deaths – was it an industrial accident or shameful exploitation? In fact it was neither, and far from hiding a scandalous tragedy, mill owner Jonathan Calvert paid for and put up the memorial stone.

So the story that Kim discovered as she searched the written records and talked to people in the village, was one with happier endings. Towards the end of the 19th century, Wainstalls, like many small hillside villages, was dependent on the textile mills and Calverts were the major employers, owning or renting several mills. With textiles booming there were plenty of jobs but not too many people in the remote hillside area. So the Calverts, like many other mill-owners, looked towards the poor of the growing towns, in this case children in Liverpool Workhouse. 

From 1876 more than 250 girls came from the Industrial School in Liverpool to an entirely different environment a thousand feet above Halifax. This was a formal arrangement, with girls suited to the work checked to see that they were in sound health. The register records how the doctor rejected girls with weak chests, and records that one child cried to be able to go. It was recorded that the girls nearly always did well in the fresh air of Wainstalls.

The girls would arrive by train, alighting at Luddenden Foot and walking up into the ‘wild and neglected’ district of Wainstalls. They were housed in cottages described as orphanages, though many of the girls had parents, often a father who was a seaman and unable to care for his family. The girls may sometimes have suffered some discrimination, looked down on by some because of their Irish roots, but their lives were not much different from those of the local children, who would also be working in the mills at this time. One villager recalled the girls whose lives were ‘gradually woven into the life of the village.’ Some local children were envious of the Sunday best clothes, leather boots and straw hats that the girls wore to Chapel.

Kim has unearthed some of their friendships. Two girls brought to Wainstalls aged six became lifelong friends and bought their own grave where they were buried after dying within two months of each other in their seventies. When the girls were ‘loosed’ from their contract about 70% of them stayed in the village, and Kim has been able to make contact with descendants, including on one memorable occasion a woman of 94 who recognised her mother as ‘a waif’ on a photograph of a group of girls. 

The fascination remains: twenty years of research have made the Wainstalls waifs seem like family, and Kim feels as if she is a conduit for them to tell their own story.


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Wainstalls Waifs

Wills can be a cause of controversy: who’s in favour and who has been scorned? How is property distributed? The fascination of wills lies in what they say about  people and their relationships.  As Anne Mealia, a professional genealogist and historical researcher, told Hebden Bridge Local History Society, wills can bring family and social history to life. They contain details which fill in the gaps in family trees, often providing names across three generations and details of where people lived and how they made their living.

Even back in Anglo-Saxon times people wanted to ensure that they passed on property to the next generation, though these early wills were often spoken rather than written. By the Medieval period the dominance of the Church led to the process being formalised, encouraging people to make charitable bequests and pay for the prayers that might ensure a happy afterlife. 

Not everybody made a will of course. Most people did not have much property to hand on or complicated affairs to resolve. Even in the 19th century only 20% of men made wills  or had their goods assessed for probate. The proportion of women was even smaller, as a married woman’s property customarily belonged to her husband, so it was mainly unmarried or widowed women who were able to dispose of their own property through a will.

The nature of bequests raises questions, but context is important in proposing answers: why did Shakespeare choose to leave his second best bed to his wife? (Maybe she preferred it)  Was Dickens being particularly unkind when he didn’t leave money to his estranged wife? (He had been paying her an allowance of £600 as well as paying for his children’s upbringing).  In a will from 1761, Edward Pickersgill excluded his wife from benefiting, even removing the responsibility for the tuition of their children. Further research shows that his wife had been guilty of scandalous and immoral  and behaviour and was living apart from him. Another testator made the risky decision to leave property to a daughter in law, excluding  his own son, but this decision was a prudent one, since the son was bankrupt and all of the property could have gone to his creditors.

A man was supposed to ensure that his widow and his children would be cared for after his death, and widow would usually be entitled to live in the family home. After her death or remarriage it would pass to one or more of the children. There is a strong theme of keeping property within the family, and all kinds of complicated bequests were made to ensure equity in a father’s provision for his children. 
Sometimes bequests for a nominal amount of a shilling are made to someone who might otherwise dispute the fairness of a will. The existence of the tiny bequest showed that the omission of a larger legacy was not accidental.

If you are interested in finding family wills, discover more from the HBLHS website or join one of the regular drop-in Family History meetings at the Birchcliffe Centre.


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Did he leave me anything? The history and traditions of will-making

No-one knows more than Ann Kilbey about the story of the origins and development of the archive of local photographs known as Pennine Horizons Digital Archive. She was there at its inception and has been central to its growth over many years. Unsurprisingly, her talk to Hebden Bridge Local History Society was illustrated by fascinating historical photographs. Many of these came from the collection of Alice Longstaff who is most famous for her shop at West End in Hebden Bridge. 

The Westerman in question was Crossley Westerman a tailor’s cutter from Hebden Bridge, who started that photography business at 25 West End in 1892. It was  very successful and after his death his daughter Ada Westerman, an accomplished portrait photographer, took over. In 1921, needing an apprentice, she placed an advertisement in the shop window. 14 year old Alice Longstaff saw it, applied and began her long career.

Alice was born in 1907 at Little Learings in Colden. Wonderfully, we heard from Alice herself about her education at Colden School in an interview recorded in 1984. She was obviously an intelligent girl, gaining a county minor scholarship that allowed her to have a better education, but which she was willing to give up (at a financial cost) to start her career at Westerman’s photographers. By 1935 she was able to buy the business.

She focused on portraiture, recording the high days of people’s lives.  Alice described the heavy glass plates that she had to carry to weddings –  only six at a time, which meant some very careful rationing of possible shots. Unthinkable today, when we have forgotten the restriction of even the 36 shot rolls of film that Alice found so liberating when she acquired her beloved Rolleiflex. Another important staple of a time before colour photography was the skill of tinting the portraits, which involved meticulous colour matching. 

People loved to have their portraits taken, not only for weddings and fancy evening events but also to capture smiling children in chapel processions and loved family members in unfamiliar uniform on the eve of war. Alice Longstaff’s shop became an institution in the town, and to get your photo displayed in the window was a source of pride. She died in 1992 after 70 years in the business and left the shop and its contents to Frank Woolrych.

This was the beginning of a project that has grown into something so much bigger. Frank believed that you could not own such a collection and that something had to be done to safeguard and make that heritage available to the community. There was a dynamic coincidence of people of vision and determination who saw beyond the collection. Frank Woolrych and Ann Kilbey were at its heart.

The key to expansion was digitisation and publicity. Ann and Frank worked with Pennine Heritage and many volunteers to create the archive at Birchcliffe which now holds over 71,000 images of people, places and buildings. Publicising the collection through exhibitions, publications and events led others to offer their own photographs to be digitised and preserved. Plans are underway to make the website better yet.

*Image courtesy of Pennine Horizons Digital Archive*






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From Westerman to Website

Lecture reports

Jowett - the Yorkshire Car

Murder at Snow Booth: gender and justice between the wars

Wainstalls Waifs

Did he leave me anything? The history and traditions of will-making

From Westerman to Website

Sam Hill of Soyland

The Making of Sowerby Bridge

Archaeology, a talk of two halves: From the Staffordshire Hoard to Hebden Bridge

Echoes from the Meadows: a History of High Hirst Farm

A Crow's eye view of 'walkin round Pecket' The making of the Pecket Well village walks leaflet

Scotland Yard, the Titanic, Rochdale Town Hall and St James's Church Hebden Bridge

Made in Manchester: the story that shaped the world