Our speaker on 6 December 2025 was Stuart Hartley who gave us a very comprehensive talk on orkshire: God’s Own County – What Makes Yorkshire Great.
Stuart started his talk by telling us that Asda, Morrisons and Marks and Spencer all have their roots in Yorkshire. Iceland was started by entrepreneur Sir Malcolm Walker who was born in Grange Moor, Mirfield who successfully founded and developed the business; he was knighted in 2017 for services to retailing and charity.
Among the many others we learned about was Dewsbury born Professor Tom Kilburn who is
credited with writing the world’s first computer program and developing the concept of computer memory in 1948. He died in 2001 and did not own a computer himself.
Leslie Fox was also born and raised in Dewsbury; in 1957 he set up Oxford University’s first computing laboratory and became Oxford’s first Professor of Numerical Analysis.
Stuart told us about Percy Shaw who invented ‘cat’s eyes’. He was born in Halifax in 1890. He came up with the invention whilst repairing roads and it is estimated that there are now 500 million cat’s eyes on roads in the UK. He was a man uninterested in possessions except for his white Rolls Royce.
Sir George Cayley was born in Scarborough in 1773 and was responsible for the first aircraft and first aircraft flight in 1804 which developed 50 years later into manned flight. He was also involved in designs for bi planes and rail safety. A Sheffield born man, John Stringfellow was the first person to achieve powered flight in 1847.
John Harrison was born in Foulby near Wakefield and very importantly developed the marine chronometer to develop longitude and make navigation of the seas safer; he had a lifelong obsession to develop this and started being interested in clock making in his teens.
James Henry Atkinson was an ironmonger born 1849 in Leeds and is best known for his 1899 patent for the simple mousetrap.
Joseph Priestley born in Leeds in 1733 was credited with the discovery of oxygen and Sir Donald Coleman Bailey was a civil engineer who invented the Bailey Bridge. Montgomery said that without this we would not have won the war. He was born in Rotherham in 1902 and at the time of his invention he was a civil servant in the War Office. Hundreds of the bridges, which could be erected in half a day, were manufactured and Bailey was
awarded a knighthood for this.
We were told about Charles Waterton, 1782-1865, who was born at Walton Hall and created the world’s first nature reserve in the 1820s. He was an early opponent of pollution and had a long running court case with Simpson’s soap works. David Attenborough described him as one of the first people anywhere to recognise how important the natural world was but that it also needed protection.
Stuart told us about the many achievements of John Smeaton, born Austhorpe, Leeds, a civil engineer responsible for designing bridges, canals and lighthouses and regarded as the father of civil engineers.
Someone who did not get the credit he deserved was Sir Robert Edwards, born in Batley in 1925 and responsible for enabling the first test tube baby to be born in 1978, Louise
Brown. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology in 2010 and knighted in 2011.
Dr William Astbury born in Leeds is credited with the birth of molecular biology at Leeds; his laboratory was christened the x-ray Vatican.
Dr Clifford Albutt was born in Dewsbury in 1836 and was a physician at Leeds General Infirmary who introduced the ophthalmoscope, weighing machines and microscopes to wards and invented the clinical thermometer.
We were told that both the Mallard and the Flying Scotsman were both built at Doncaster, designed by Sir Nigel Greasley.
William Bartholomew designed ‘Tom Puddings’, a new system for pulling tugboats which allowed large cargoes of coal to be moved. Stuart told us about Bamforths of Huddersfield who were painters and decorators in the 1840s. The company produced sentimental postcards during WW1 which were very successful but their popularity declined after the war and the company went on to produce comic postcards, of which they sold over 20 million a year.
Stuart then moved on to musicians; Bert Lee was co writer of ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ and was the organist at Ravensthorpe Church and also wrote songs for Gertrude Lawrence and Gracie Fields. Endearingly, on the back of his gravestone is written ‘Mad as a Hatter, Daft as a Brush’.
Noel Gay, songwriter and composer, born in Wakefield as Reginald Moxon Armitage, wrote the Lambeth Walk.
Staying with the arts, Stuart reminded us about world famous artists and sculptors Barbara
Hepworth born 1903 in Wakefield and Henry Moore, born 1898 in Castleford.
Roger Hargreaves was born in Cleckheaton in 1935 and wrote children’s books, being best known for the Mr Men and Little Miss series; 85 million copies have been sold worldwide.
Betty Boothroyd was born in 1929 in Crackenedge, Dewsbury, starting her political life as a
Dewsbury councillor, was MP for West Bromwich West from 1973 to 1992 and from then served as Speaker of the House of Commons, the first woman to do this.
David Brown was born in Lockwood, Huddersfield in 1879 and founded David Brown and
Company. He died in 1903, his grandson took over and by 1936, in conjunction with Harry
Ferguson, was producing 3000 tractors annually. These went to the Ministry of Defence and the company was also producing Merlin engines for spitfires during WW2. After the war, he bought out Aston Martin-Lagonda and continued producing Aston Martin cars.
So, to end on a sweet note. Stuart had told us about Brian Boffey from Horsforth who accidentally invented Jelly Tots; he was trying to create a powdered jelly at the time.
Ben Bullock’s factory in Dewsbury started in 1876. After taking a holiday in Blackpool he came up with the idea of lettered rock and this was produced in Dewsbury, nearly 70 miles away from Blackpool; Blackpool Rock was not made in Blackpool until 1902.
Lorraine Simpson
