This plan is undated but is entitled ‘Denison & others v Corporation’. It identifies land intended to be purchased by Bradford Corporation for road improvements. It must have preceded the development of City Hall in 1873. Elsewhere I have discussed another plan of this type, and probably the same date, involving ‘the Atkinson Trustees’. The present site is plot 23 of the former map. The site concerned is slightly north of the Bowling Green Hotel and projects into a road which was seemingly also called the Bowling Green. The projection pf the site into what is here called Bridge Street is one reason for its acquisition I imagine. I assume that Denison was one of a number of land-owners seeking to improve the compensation offered under a compulsory purchase order. Perhaps agreement was reached since I cannot find additional information.

Who was Denison? The most plausible candidates I can find in the 1850 Ibbetson Bradford directory are blacksmiths called Dyson and Thomas Denison. Dyson Denison (1828-1875) actually lives in Bridge Street, and their premises as ‘blacksmiths and farriers’ are given as Bridge Street and Tyrrel Street. At present I can’t track them down in census reports: the only Dyson and Thomas Denison I can find in 1861 were stone masons in Bolton Road. Possibly the first names were commonly used by several members of one extended family.

If Denison remains slightly mysterious I can at least with certainty identify the second land-owner recorded who is named Bonnel. I am certain that he is Joseph Fearnley Bonnell (1818-1876) who married Alice Duffill in 1848. In the 1861 census he is recorded as a sadler of 13 Edmund Street. In 1871, a few years before his death, he was still a sadler but now lived in 16 Ashgrove with his large family and a servant. His father seems to have followed the same occupation and John Fearnley Bonnell must have been quite well to do. He was a partner in the Bradford Joint Stock Banking Co. in the 1840s-50s. His executors (his widow and a brother) applied for probate on £7,000. Finally two of his daughters were able to live on private means in Southport until the mid-twentieth century.

So next time you are walking round the City Hall area think of the blacksmiths, farriers and sadlers who once operated profitably here, and reflect on what an important place horses once occupied in everyday life. I once asked a distinguished historian what would most surprise a Victorian who was transported by time machine into modern Bradford. His reply was:’to discover that horse manure could be sold for money!’

Since the first publication of this map local historian and photographer Kieran Wilkinson has kindly undertaken further research. It seems that ‘Denison’ was in fact Mary Denison (Bradford Observer 25 October 1866). Mary Denison was presumably the most important person in a group given that she is given the ‘lead’ name. The Bradford Observer 31 December 1863 has an advert for the auction sale of various properties by Mrs Mary Denison of Shearbridge. The properties include a block of shops at the junction of Tyrrel Street and Bridge Street but also Mary Denison’s own house at Shearbridge. Kieran can find an 1854 reference to a Thomas Denison of Shearbridge. He died in March 1863 at the age of 65: he presumes that Mary was his widow.

He located this Thomas Denison (52 years old) on the 1851 census on Horton Road with wife Mary (then 41 years old). Thomas’s occupation is described as ‘proprietor of houses’ which ties in well with the land ownership. There is a death record from 1869 for a Mary Denison in Bradford. This Mary Denison was born circa 1810 which fits in well with the birthdate in the 1851 census. The Thomas Denison that I originally identified is, Kieran thinks, the son of the Thomas Denison, husband of Mary Denison. The 1841 census shows the first Thomas Denison as a farrier so it looks like the second man of this name took over the business. This second Thomas Denison may well have been one of the ‘others’ on that basis. Not for the first time it is a pleasure to thank Kieran for his scholarship.