George Walker's The Costume of Yorkshire
Details
Type of record: Archive
Title: George Walker's The Costume of Yorkshire
Classmark: YAS/MS1000
Date(s): c1810-1885
Size and medium: 2 volumes
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/461853
Collection group(s): Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society
Description
The original watercolours for the images published as engravings in 'The Costume of Yorkshire' 1814 in one volume, a volume of engravings from the first edition and an edition of 'The Costume of Yorkshire' edited by Edward Hailstone in 1885 with trial proofs.
Biography or history
George Walker was born in 1781 near Leeds. His series of forty coloured engravings depicting life in Yorkshire was published as The Costume of Yorkshire in 1814. Famous images included are: woman spinning, collier, the teasel field, cloth-makers, cloth-dressers and making oatcakes.
Provenance
The Costume of Yorkshire, composed of forty-one engraved coloured plates taken from watercolours made by George Walker of Killingbeck and accompanying anonymous commentaries, was commissioned by the publishers Robinson, Son and Holdworth of Leeds and published by them in Leeds and by both Longman and by Ackermann in London in 1814. The book was republished in an edition of 600 by Richard Jackson of Leeds in 1885, for Edward Hailstone of Walton Hall, Wakefield, then the owner of the watercolours.
The originals were acquired by Sir Thomas Brooke at some time after 1891, as A Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Printed Books Collected by Sir Thomas Brooke FSA and Preserved at Armitage Bridge House, near Huddersfield (2 volumes, London, 1891) includes only a volume of copies of the published plates, without text, of the 1814 edition and a copy of the edition of 1885 (vol. II, p. 687). His bequest of books and manuscripts to the YAS included these two books, the original watercolours and six copies of the trial proofs of the 1885 edition, perhaps also formerly owned by Hailstone.
There is an appreciation of Walker’s prints in The Yorkshire Archaeological Society: A celebration of 150 years of collecting (2013), pages 62-64.
Access and usage
Access
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