| Our centenary volume appropriately focuses
on the years when Ralph Thoresby lived in the town of Leeds; the
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Joan Kirby provides an invaluable study of the aldermen of the town
during that time whilst Gordon Forster has re-drafted a series of
four lectures on seventeenth-century Leeds which look at the incorporation
of the borough, the first charter of the town, and Leeds during
the Civil War and the Restoration periods. He has also provided
a detailed history of the Thoresby Society itself. We are particularly
delighted to be able to include Maurice Beresford's draft of Samuel
Buck's Prospect of Leedes in Yorkshire From Chaveler Hill
although he died before being able to produce a final manuscript.
In addition, we have also included, the centenary sermon delivered
to the society in the parish church by the Revd Canon K. H. Stapleton
and a list of the officers of the society and its premises from
1889 to 1989.
Joan Kirby, a vice-president of the Thoresby Society, was its editor
from 1981 to 2000. She has contributed to Northern History
and the Thoresby Society publications and her editing of The
Manor and Borough of Leeds, 1425-1662, an edition of documents
became a major society publication.
Gordon Forster, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, editor
of Northern History and vice-president of the Thoresby
Society, has contributed to many academic publications including
the Victoria County History, the Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society and, the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. From 1980 to
1985 he was president of the Thoresby Society and is currently its
deputy president.
The late Maurice Beresford, patron of the society from 1982 to
2005, became the first Professor of Economic History at the University
of Leeds. His various publications, like his archaeological work
at the deserted medieval village at Wharram Percy brought him national
recognition whilst his monograph East End, West End: The Face
of Leeds during Urbanisation 1684-1842 for the Thoresby Society
is the definitive work on the subject. He died in 2005.
|
|
Obtainable only from :
The Thoresby Society,
Claremont,
23 Clarendon Road,
Leeds,
LS2 9NZ.
Telephone : 0113 247 0704
|