Full length philological manuscript written by a cultured Halifax wool merchant and musical friend of Ann Lister, who was also first cousin of Ann Evans, Lister’s wife.
William Priestley (1779-1860), the founder of the Halifax Choral Society, became a friend of Anne Lister over their shared love of music, and Priestley’s wife Anne became a loyal defender and confidante of Lister or ‘Gentleman Jack’ as she has become known from the BBC dramatisation. Both Priestley and his wife are mentioned frequently in Anne Lister’s 5 million word secret diary which forms the basis for Sally Wainwright’s drama. Priestley’s role was taken by Peter Davison in which he was to be seen rushing to Scotland to rescue Ann Walker and bring her back to Halifax, while his wife, Anne Priestley, played by Amelia Bullmore, is played showing concern over Ann Walker’s newfound love for Anne Lister in the dramatisation. As the Guardian put it in a review of the show, ‘Suranne Jones rocks Halifax as the first modern lesbian.’
Both a cousin and a neighbour of Evans living in Lightcliffe near Halifax, William Priestley (1779-1860) was a musician and antiquary who founded the Halifax Choral Society before donating his collection of books to the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society (collections dispersed c1970).
In this his 320 page manuscript Priestley investigates the origins of the English language, compiling this study in his 70s. The prosperous and cultured wool magnate has based his work on the structure of Henry Fox Talbot’s English Etymologies. In most cases Priestley follows and expands on Fox Talbot’s work, adding in examples of linguistic forerunners taken from languages not noticed in Talbot’s work, so ‘Loggerhead’ has an additional six linguistic derivations not present in Talbot’s explanation.
Very occasionally he also localises his study as ‘In reference to the meaning of the word land, it is worthy of observation that in the Parish of Halifax it occurs no less than in six instances as an appendage to the names of Townships...’ (p38) Later in the text Priestley even reveals an episode from his late teens which seems to have involved some version of a grand tour, and arising from his discussion of the origin of ‘cold harbour’ of which he notes, ‘There is an Inn a few miles to the northward of Basle in Switzerland where the writer passed a night in the beginning of October 1798.. called Kalte Herberg - it is on an eminence’ (p258)
DESCRIPTION: Substantial quarto (21.5x26.5cm) recently rebacked and recorned in half calf over the book’s original marbled boards. Blue coated endpapers bearing the bookplate of ‘W. Priestley Lightcliffe’; a second gift bookplate from his endowment of the Literary and Philosophical Society and their bookplate as well. (Halifax Lit and Phil library was dispersed in the early 1970s).
Blue unlined paper with horizontal chainlines. Manuscript title page with a Huddersfield School Library stamp to verso (from whom we acquired the manuscript). Four blanks followed by a single prefatory leaf with lines from Genesis 11.1/7 on the multiplicity of languages, and Priestley’s ‘Explanation of Contractions’. Text paginated pp1-320 Finis’; set within double ruled red margins, cross-referenced to Talbot’s original text.
