Did I ever mention that the interlibrary loan system in this country is a great thing? I stopped by our local branch library to drop off a book when the clerk said that a book I had ordered had arrived. I didn't remember putting a book on hold... I've been reading a lot of presidential biographies and was up-to-date on the requests I had made in that arena.
Sure enough, he handed me a small green hardback copy of George Walker's The Costume of Yorkshire, which had arrived from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I had forgotten that I made the request a few weeks prior. Oddly enough, our family's first geneologist, my dad's cousin Bob Elliot, lives in that area!
George Walker was a painter and naturalist, and the son of a wealthy merchant. He would have been well known in Leeds, and John Dixon probably would have heard of him. Walker produced a series of paintings of common folk and scenes in Yorkshire and a publisher talked him into publishing 40 of the paintings, along with explanatory text (originally in English and French... remember the original owners of Leeds were French so the folks who could afford to buy the book probably preferred the French text). The reprinting that I received only had the English text.
The book was originally published in 1814 and a copy of the original faceplate was included in the reprinting I reviewed. I'll do a series of posts about the most relevant engravings (from Walker's original paintings) and text.
Sure enough, he handed me a small green hardback copy of George Walker's The Costume of Yorkshire, which had arrived from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I had forgotten that I made the request a few weeks prior. Oddly enough, our family's first geneologist, my dad's cousin Bob Elliot, lives in that area!
George Walker was a painter and naturalist, and the son of a wealthy merchant. He would have been well known in Leeds, and John Dixon probably would have heard of him. Walker produced a series of paintings of common folk and scenes in Yorkshire and a publisher talked him into publishing 40 of the paintings, along with explanatory text (originally in English and French... remember the original owners of Leeds were French so the folks who could afford to buy the book probably preferred the French text). The reprinting that I received only had the English text.
The book was originally published in 1814 and a copy of the original faceplate was included in the reprinting I reviewed. I'll do a series of posts about the most relevant engravings (from Walker's original paintings) and text.
One of the items in the book is a portrait of the local regimental commander, a Colonel Dixon. However, he is unlikely to be related to our family. There were a lot of Dixon's in the area and throughout England.
Be sure to click on all of these pictures to enlarge the text.
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