1.33 WHE 1872 WOO

Sale plan of Whetley Hill & pleasure grounds etc (C Woodcock, land agent)

Paper Scale: 10 yards: 1 inch Size: 84 * 60cm Condition: Poor, minor repairs made

This plan shows a dignified gentleman’s residence shortly to be replaced by terraced housing. It is a sale plan for a house called Whetley Hill produced by a land agent and dated 1872. It was located to the east of the road of the same name, just above the Lower Globe Inn. This house would have provided ample opportunities for gracious living. The owner had a lawn, and kitchen gardens for fresh vegetables. Some tender plants required heat and I assume that the melons and cucumbers grown in frames would have featured at fine dinner parties. Grapes might well have been provided for dessert on such occasions and it was only proper to have both an early and late heated vinery, so that the dinner guests could enjoy as long a season for these fruits as possible. Transport needs were taken care of by a stable and coach house, and for relaxation there was always croquet or a game of cricket. All could not be sweetness and light of course. I assume that the ‘soil shed’ was not a repository for potting compost but a storage area for human waste awaiting the arrival of cheerful night-soil men with their cart. The ‘rubbish place’ was a convenient site for dumping coal ashes and broken pottery or glass in the years before a regular collection was provided by the local authority.

When was the house constructed, and who lived there? Immediately there is a problem. There were two houses at the same point on opposite sides of the thoroughfare now called Whetley Hill. They are present on both the 1849 and 1871 Bradford borough maps. In 1849 our house is drawn, but not named. The house opposite is ‘Wheatley Hill’ with an ‘a’. In the 1871 map our house has adopted the name of its neighbour, and is itself Wheatley Hill, while the house opposite has become Wheatley House. This was a very thoughtless disregard of the needs of future local historians, and I assume that the butlers in the respective houses sorted out the misaddressed mail! I shall use the name Whetley Hill for the house in this plan.

Much of what I think I know about Manningham history is drawn from William Cudworth’s book Manningham, Heaton & Allerton (1896). Cudworth’s books are wonderful surveys, but he seldom gives detailed sources for his information and consequently some of his conclusions are difficult to check. Such a large fine residence was hardly likely to escape his notice, although its location was not exactly a rural enclave. There were several neighbouring stone quarries and in the mid-nineteenth century Wheatley House opposite must have had a fine view of a brick works. Cudworth explains that Whetley Hill was built in the late eighteenth century by bachelor Thomas Wilkinson. There is general agreement that there had been members of the Wilkinson family in Manningham since the seventeenth century. Cudworth calls Thomas Wilkinson ‘gentry’. He recorded that he was a man of property and ‘owned nearly all the land about’: Whetley Hill that is, together with no less than 23 Yorkshire farms. He wrote that Wilkinson died a bachelor before the end of the eighteenth century and left his possessions to his housekeeper who was called Miss Sally Kitching who Cudworth describes as ‘a maiden lady of means and of some repute’.

There is an odd thing in Cudworth’s description of the beneficiary: he puts her name in double inverted commas: “Sally Kitching”. Does this suggest that in some way this was not her baptismal name? In fact I now think it is more likely that she was, officially, Miss Sarah Kitching, although what does he mean by ‘repute’ I wonder? Cudworth does not give any indication of Sally’s age but he seems quite positive that she died in 1822. However I could get no confirmation of her death in the Bradford Observer or Leeds Mercury under this name and year nor, some years earlier, any record of Thomas’s demise. However if you accept that Cudworth occasionally makes errors then things are much simpler. I would argue that ‘Thomas’ was in fact a property owner called Joseph Wilkinson. Sally is indeed a common diminutive of Sarah and there is a record that a ‘Sarah Kitching of Manningham’ was buried at Little Horton Lane Chapel (Independent) in 1827. Little Horton Lane Chapel was no tin tabernacle. It had been built in 1782 and in due course the first three mayors of Bradford, including Titus Salt, were to worship there. It seems an entirely appropriate place for a lady of property to attend. So there was definitely a property owning Sarah Kitching living in Manningham, up to the late 1820s: this is quite likely to be the same woman.

I hoped to get some indication of the degree of Sally’s wealth by using Land Tax Redemption records. This form of government revenue had existed since the end of the seventeenth century. Payment of this tax qualified you to vote in parliamentary elections, if you were a man that is. I won’t pretend that I know how it was all calculated but essentially each year’s assessment lists land-owners and tenants. The records seem partly to confirm Cudworth’s story but not to match the events exactly. It would need a better local historian than me to reach a definitive conclusion. In 1781 two land owners called Wilkinson are recorded. One is William Wilkinson and one is simply ‘Mr Wilkinson’. The Kitchings are also present: there is a John Kitching, a Sam Kitching and a Mrs Kitching who has a house and six cottages. The next year, 1782, Sarah Kitching has become an owner and occupier in her own right, and a Mary Kitching is a near neighbour as a tenant. There is also a ‘widow Kitching’ who is both a land owner in her own right and the tenant of one Joseph Wilkinson. Samuel Kitching is a tenant and we now have ‘late J Kitching’ who I assume was John. In the mid-1780s Sarah Kitching and the widow Kitching still own property but at this time Sarah does not own all the land around Whetley Hill, or anything like it. The big land-owners are Sam Lister, Mr Hodgson and, again, one Joseph Wilkinson. The crucial transition occurs in 1798. In that year’s assessment Miss Kitching retained her old property at the same tax value, but acquired five more with a tenancy, from the Lord of the Manor. The most valuable property is taxed at 13/9. The name Joseph Wilkinson disappears. It can hardly be doubted that in 1798 Sarah Kitching inherited property from Joseph Wilkinson, not Thomas. It is no surprise to find that in April 1798 Joseph Wilkinson of Manningham, Gent, was buried at the parish church.

Sally Kitching died in 1827 leaving bequests to surviving nephews and nieces. If Sally’s fortune was indeed made by this generous bequest she seemingly enjoyed it for 30 years. Whetley Hill House alone would have been a wonderful gift. Why was Joseph Wilkinson so generous? Was he really so totally bereft of relatives with hearts to gladden? There are certainly other people called Wilkinson in contemporary Manningham. Without documentary proof we shall never know for certain but could the bachelor and the spinster have had some unspoken family connection; or had Sally been something quite spectacularly good in the house-keeping line?

Eventually a man called Thomas Hill Horsfall purchased the house from Sally Kitching’s executors. Cudworth does not give a date for this but it is likely to be between 1827-28. I estimate he lived there until about 1838. He kept packs of hounds and was consequently called ‘Hunting’ Tom Horsfall. It is fortunate that Tom was visiting his brother John Horsfall of Bolton Royds at the time of the 1851 census so information can be gathered about them both. It was their ancestor John Garnett Horsfall who introduced steam power looms to Bradford and the consequent riot at his mill in North Wing (1826) led to several deaths when special constables fired on the protesters. Eventually Thomas Hill Horsfall moved to Thirsk after selling his house to John Priestman.

The new owner of Whetley Hill was a very different type of man. He was a Quaker, devoted to peace, and ‘an enemy to none but strong drink’. Priestman was in partnership with a co-religionist, James Ellis. Initially they were millers and maltsters at The Old Soke Mill, Bradford. But malt (germinated barley) was brewed into beer and John Priestman had embraced strict temperance. He and his partner switched to being stuff (worsted) weavers and became highly successful. Priestman’s partner James Ellis had retired early in 1849, at the age of 56. He moved to Letterfrack, Connemara, an Irish coastal village. His decision was taken in the light of the dreadful potato famine of 1847-48, which must have been the most catastrophic event to affect any portion of the British Isles in the nineteenth century. In the face of government inertia, and despite their small numbers, the Quakers had undertaken a major relief programme. On their arrival in Ireland James and his wife Mary bought land and used their resources to provide employment and training to scores of men and give schooling to their children. They also set up a lime-kiln and a temperance hotel. Their work lasted nine years until James’s health deteriorated but his name is still recalled with affection in the Irish Republic.

After Priestman died at Whetley Hill in 1866 his wife and sons continued in residence for a few years longer. Cudworth gives the name of the last known resident as John Spink. By this time, he wrote, ‘the land below was covered by housing’. So this great house is no more: ‘all our pomp of yesterday, is one with Nineveh and Tyre’ and walking up Whetley Hill today it is hard to believe that it ever existed.