The next meeting of INWAC will be at 7pm on Thursday 13th February at 7pm. The venue has still to be announced.
Sycamore Lodge, at Woodhouse Cliff, was the home of James Bedford, a manufacturing chemist who died after being hit by a cyclist at Hyde Park Corner
The inquest into his death was held on Wednesday the 22nd April 1903 at Sycamore Lodge. At it, Mr Bedford’s son, James Edward Bedford, of Shire Oak Road, Headingley, stated that he saw his father within two minutes of the accident. His father expressed surprise at finding himself in a crowd, and asked where he was, and what it was all about.
Mr Joseph Atkinson, butcher, Hyde Park, stated that he was crossing the road at Hyde Park on Sunday noon at the time that Mr Bedford was crossing in the opposite direction. A cyclist was trying to thread his way through the crowd, and Mr Bedford appeared to get caught by the rider’s shoulder, and was knocked down. The witness did not think that the cyclist was going at excessive speed. The cyclist stopped at once and dismounted. Neither the witness nor his wife heard the rider ring his bell.
Inspector Meldrum stated that he had ascertained that the cyclist was Charles Fisher, who is now working at Chesterfield, and who was visiting his father at Hunslet for the weekend.
John Meldrum, joiner, a son of Inspector Meldrum, said he saw the accident. There were three cyclists. One passed Mr Bedford, and the other was trying to get out of the way, when Mr Bedford hesitated, and the cyclist ran into him. The witness could have walked as fast as the machine was going. All three cyclists rang their bells before getting up to Mr Bedford.
Dr Lee Wells said that he was called to Mr Bedford on Sunday evening, and found him suffering from shock. On Monday morning he was again called to him, and found him suffering from paralysis, the result of the bursting of a blood vessel in the brain, not the direct cause of the accident, but the accident had hastened the occurrence.
Dr Wells added that the immediate cause of death was cerebral haemorrhage.
The Coroner said that as far as the family were concerned, no blame was attached to the cyclist. He believed it was also the opinion of the police.
The jury returned a verdict of ” Died from cerebral hemorrhage following shock to the system from being knocked down by a cyclist in the road; it being accidental.”
(from Yorkshire Evening Post – Wednesday 22 April 1903)
St Augustine’s was consecrated on Wednesday, the 8th November 1871. It is situated at the corner of Woodhouse Moor, and is one of a series of churches established by the Leeds Church Extension Society.
The church is in the early fourteenth century decorated Gothic style. The chancel is provided with two vestries on the north side for the vicar and choir. An organ chapel is on the south side of the chancel. Accommodation is provided for nearly seven hundred worshippers in open pews. The spire rises to a height of 172 feet. The aisles are lighted by traceried three-light windows. The west window is of five lights, filled in with rich tracery. A richly-traceried five-light east window and two-light side windows light up the chancel. The roofs are open-timbered. The furniture is very fine, and was mostly obtained in the form of gifts. The altar is of pencil cedar, and is richly ornamented. The pulpit was the gift of the ladies of the congregation. It is square on plan, and is of richly-figured alabaster, with three circular mosaic panels let into the sides. The base of the pulpit is of black and green marble, upon which four square red granite shafts rest, with a gold incised cross upon the faces of each.
The church was designed by James Fraser of Park Place and cost about £6,800.
(from Leeds Times – Saturday 11 November 1871)
By Audrey Marlow
LITTLE MOOR is a pleasant one-third of an acre in north-west Leeds, a small piece of park-land with a variety of beautiful, mature trees, and regarded with great affection by those living in the two contrasting neighbourhoods between which it lies.
Woodhouse is a largely working-class suburb, built up during the Industrial Revolution with rows of back-to-back houses.
And Hyde Park (north) is an area colonised by the prosperous business community and its professional auxiliaries who made their fortunes on the backs of the working class during the same era, and which is still largely middle class in character.
It might seem unlikely that the people of two such dissimilar localities would ever find themselves uniting together in a campaign for a common cause, but, in April of this year, it happened, because of a threat to the borderland of Little Moor.