TEMPLE NEWSAM AND LEEDS MUSEUM

We were looking the Leeds Museum with our GPS and it took us to Temple Newsam. The Wilson's had been here before so we just walked around the outside. It was cold so we left and went to the Leeds Museum.

 This is our names in Greek.

My moms side of the family came from Horsforth which is near Leeds. Going to the Leeds Museum gave me a good idea of what it was like when they lived here. In 1775 the population 17,000, by 1841 it was 89,000. People came the countryside, Ireland and Europe looking for work or seeking to escape poverty and persecution. They crowded together in poor living conditions. The Boot and Shoe yard in the East End of Leeds was home to 340  people in 34 houses sharing just three privies (toilets). One out of five babies died before their first birthday. My family names were Monk, Lobley, Law and Dockray. They all worked in the mills and went to church in Woodside St. James Chapel. 

Children from the age of six provided cheap labour for mills working from 6am to 7pm with only a half and our break. Tired children would work with unguarded machinery which caused accidents. The conditions in the mills were appalling but it was not until 1878 that employment for children under ten was banned. 

Leeds area provided a central market to buy and sell cloth. It also became somewhere to meet and socialize. St. Peter's church was the religious centre of the parish of Leeds and one of the largest churches in West Riding. 

By the nineteenth century Leeds needed housing because of the growing working population. Landowners built massive areas of cheap terraced housing, built back-to-back without back yards and adequate sanitation. This type of home was ban in 1909. There is still about 20,000 of these homes left today. 

Overcrowding in Leeds cause many problems in the nineteenth century. Child birth was risk for both mother and child. 1867 two out of ten children died before their first birthday. The main killer were convulsions,   diarrhea, bronchitis, whooping cough and pneumonia. 

 In the basement of the Leeds Museum are stuff animals. Mark was excited to see the Giant Irish Elk. It is neither Elk or particularly Irish. They are a type of deer that roamed the whole of Europe a few thousand years ago, are commonly found in Ireland. 

 The owl is like the mascot of Leeds. You see owls all over the Leeds area.