from Thirsk Chamber of Trade

REMINISCENCES'

- of -

JOHN WILLIAM HALL

(Incomplete and not fully corrected)

by Edmund Bogg (extracts)

Thirsk is a small but thriving market town about 20 miles north of York
and 23 miles south of Middlesbrough. It is near the junction of the A19(A168)
with the A1.

Market days are Monday and Saturday.

It is on the Cod Beck, a small tributary of the River Swale. People have lived in Thirsk since prehistoric times, but it wasn't until after the
Norman Conquest that 'Tresche' (place by water) developed, with the help of Robert de Mobray and his castle on Castle Garth
The castle existed from 1086 to 1173, being of wood, and was destroyed in an
unsuccessful uprising against King Henry II.

Thirsk is most now probably most famous as the fictional town of Darrowby in the James Herriot books written by the sadly deceased James Alfred Wight 1916-1995.
 

The surgery of Farnon and Herriot (DV Sinclair and JA Wight) is on Kirkgate has been transformed into a tourist attraction and information office.

His humorous novels, describing the life of a young vet working in a Yorkshire villagein the late 1930s - collected under the title All Creatures Great and Small 1972 - achieved world-wide popularity.

Herriot began his career as a veterinary surgeon in 1939, in Thirsk. A natural storyteller, he was able to draw upon the wealth of material (human and animal) provided by his work in this very traditional rural community. His first book, written when he was in his 50s, was If Only They Could Talk , quickly followed by It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet and Let Sleeping Vets Lie . A film version of All Creatures Great and Small was made 1974, starring Anthony Hopkins.

By the 1980s, Herriot's books had been translated into every major language and a long-running television series was being sold world-wide.Other novels based on the same formula (and all named after lines in an Anglican hymn) included All Things Bright and Beautiful 1974, All Things Wise and Wonderful 1977 and The Lord God Made Them All 1981. Their success was based on their warm humour and their colourful, larger-than-life characters. It was also based on their implicit nostalgia for a vanished way of life in which there was a strong and enduring sense of community, and in which life, largely untouched by the anxieties of the modern world, could be lived close to nature.

Another son of Thirsk is the incomparable Rookes Evelyn Bell Crompton, who lived from 1845 to 1940]. Crompton was an engineer who pioneered the dynamo, electric lighting, and road transport. He also contributed to the development of industry standards, both electrical and mechanical, and was involved in the founding of the National Physical Laboratory and what is now the British Standards Institution.

During his school holidays he built a steam-driven road locomotive. In India as an army officer 1864-75 he continued to develop his road vehicles. Their success was undermined by the poor quality of roads, the cheapness of other forms of transport, and the developing railway system.

On his return from service he began importing dynamos from France and set up his own company to develop and manufacture generating systems for lighting town halls, railway stations, and small residential areas. Direct-current electricity of about 400 volts was generated and used with large storage batteries (accumulators). This competed, in the end unsuccessfully, with the alternating-current system of Sebastian Ferranti .

During the Boer War, Crompton served in South Africa as commandant of the Electrical Engineers' Royal Engineers Volunteer Corps. He then returned to road transport, and contributed both to the principles of automobile engineering and the maintenance and design of roads. During World War I he was an adviser on the  design and production of military tanks.

Among early Yorkshire hangmen was John Curry, also known as William Curry, alias Wilkinson. He was a labourer from Thirsk
who was himself a criminal. He was serving life imprisonment at York Castle for stealing 5 sheep when a vacancy arose for an executioner in 1802. Curry had in fact been sentenced to death, as it was his second offence of sheep-stealing and he had consequently become known as "Mutton Curry." However, he was promised a reduction of his sentence in return for accepting the job of hangman. He had to fortify himself with gin before his grim task and was subjected to severe jeering and abuse from the crowd at executions.

In January 1813 Curry hanged 14 Luddite rioters for their part in the famous raid on Cartwright's Mill at Rawfolds  described in Charlotte Bronte's novel, Shirley. Curry hanged seven of the Luddites at 11.0 in the morning and the other seven at 1.30 p.m. On one notorious occasion in 1821 when required to hang one man at the Castle and another at York Gaol on the same day, Curry was manhandled by the mob when walking between the two venues and drank so much to calm his nerves that he was scarcely able to climb onto the scaffold. Though hopelessly drunk, he was so incensed he shook the rope at his taunters and shouted: "Some of you come up and I'll try it!"

Once at a multiple execution he fell through the trapdoor himself along with his victims, emerging badly bruised and to roars of laughter from the spectators. Curry retired in 1835 after more than 30 years of devoted service in his chosen profession. However, it did not make him rich, for he died in the parish poor-house at Thirsk six years later and was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard.

But Thirsk is also the base of Nicolas Rhea (Peter Walker), the author of the Heartbeat booksand is the birthplace of Thomas Lord, the founder of Lords Cricket Ground.

Other famous sons of Thirsk are Bill Foggit, the weather manand Professor Almond, Professor of Microbiology at Cambridge.