The Thoresby Society

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.

ORDERING INFORMATION

Paperback
ISSN: 082 4232
ISBN: 978 0 900741 66 1
Price: £30.00

Please use this Order form, which may be printed and posted to the Society at the address given there. Any queries about purchase can be addressed to thoresby.library@gmail.com.