Craven Community Projects Group (CCPG) is pleased to announce that a final piece of vital work on the website is now being completed thanks to a generous Grassroots Grant from the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust. This research work is entitled The Craven Pioneer Project.

It is a project that developed out of work and research on www.cpgw.org.uk - a task that became a significantly bigger endeavour than the group ever envisaged. 

CCPG has two rare reels of microfilm from the British Library at Colindale of the West Yorkshire Pioneer (1917 & 1918) and our volunteers are working to identify, transcribe and transfer any historical and personal articles from these films that relate to any of the ‘missing’ men and women from Craven who died in the Great War - (please see our major update article November 2007).

The first Skipton newspaper was the Craven Weekly Pioneer and General Advertiser for West Yorkshire and East Lancashire which was started around 1865 and continued until 1871 when it became the Craven Pioneer. In 1884 it became known as the West Yorkshire Pioneer and East Lancashire News and in 1934 it was finally named the West Yorkshire Pioneer. Meanwhile a rival, The Craven Herald, appeared in 1875 becoming the Craven Herald and Wensleydale Standard in 1878 and then later, in 1922, it became known as the Craven Herald again. In the early 1930s the Craven Times made a very brief appearance (Colindale Library lists only a single edition). In 1937 the West Yorkshire Pioneer merged with the Craven Herald to become the newspaper which still serves the community today. 

To date we have located and transcribed 1,018 articles from the West Yorkshire Pioneer (1914 – 16) and 4,842 articles from the Craven Herald, however, we believe there are still many articles from 1917-18 and these need to be found in order to offer people a comprehensive and complete database on www.cpgw.org.uk 

At the moment no library in Craven or Yorkshire holds these microfilms and therefore it would be extremely difficult for existing family and/or local historians to trace this information – people would have to visit the British Library and pay to download the information. 

At the end of the project, the group will donate the missing microfilms - in perpetuity - to Skipton Library for the whole community to enjoy. 

Volunteers are also completing their work on a collection of personal memorabilia – items that have been donated by existing relatives over the past two years and these will also be uploaded on to the site and include: photographs, diary extracts, medals, letters, army records and historical documents.

Grassroots Grants are being delivered in North Yorkshire by the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust in partnership with York & North Yorkshire Community Foundation.  The purpose of this grants programme is to support small informal voluntary and community groups and organisations, many of whom are dependent on volunteers

Grassroots Grants are supported by the Office of the Third Sector, the Community Development Foundation, Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust and York & North Yorkshire Community Foundation.

For further information please visit www.ydmt.org

Craven Community Projects Group:

Nominated as one of the finalists in the Heritage Groups category for the Yorkshire & Humber region. 

Photo: (second in - left to right): Chris Foster, John Richardson and Charlotte Foster attending the Awards Ceremony at The Merchant Adventurers' Hall in York, June 2008.

To mark a decade of recognising the importance of volunteering, this year The Nationwide Building Society has extended their awards scheme to encompass the theme of heritage. Heritage has many faces, from village museums to biodiversity programmes, from local cultural traditions to archaeological digs. All of these facets of heritage rely heavily upon volunteer support, protecting and celebrating the rich history and diversity of our islands.

The Nationwide Building Society is delighted to welcome the Heritage Lottery Fund as their expert partners in the new awards scheme for 2008 – The Nationwide Community & Heritage Awards.

Keith Taylor
Swaledale and Wharfedale Remembered;

Aspects of Dales Life through Peace and War

The book not only traces the lives of all 340 servicemen - killed in both the First and Second World Wars from Arkengarhdale, Swaledale, Langstrothdale, Littondale and Wharfedale - but also attempts to place them back into the Dales that they would have been familiar with. Many of the 520 photographs Keith has obtained provide an evocative look at the way of life in the villages and towns, prior to the Great War, and also the years leading up to the Second World War.

For more information please contact Keith Taylor on 01629 732622 or Mobile 07790 575077

William Mitchell MBE
Skipton and the Craven Dales

 Skipton, in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, has a plexus of small valleys but is almost ringed by heather moors. The town was established when a Norman lord built a motte and bailey castle on a rock above a beck to keep an eye on traffic in the Aire Gap, a natural route through the Pennines. Skipton (literally 'sheep town') was given a regional character through the influence of Robert de Romille. The Cliffords, lords of Skipton from 1311 until the death of Lady Anne in 1675, subsequently enhanced the town's importance, but its further growth was afterwards inhibited by the Castle Estate refusing to make land available on long leases.

In the early 1840s, as steam engines began to replace waterpower in local textile mills, a mob of disenchanted handloom weavers, known as 'plug-drawers', visited the town to stop industrial production. But in 1870, the new Dewhurst mill alone had work for 800 people. Less than a century later, outpriced by imports, Skipton's textile trade began a rapid decline until it was virtually non-existent.

To the south of Skipton, the landscape is now blighted by industry (mineral exploitation, especially of lead, besmirched the moors of Grassington and Greenhow), but northwards are the unspoilt Craven Dales - notably Wharfedale and Ribblesdale - where you might travel for miles and not see a mill chimney. This book relates Skipton to the Craven district, an area of outstanding natural beauty which has the largest outcrop of limestone in the country. The area's farming story is told, beginning in prehistory, when breeds of sheep and cattle were first kept as stock, to the current climate of uncertainty in the agricultural world. With the Romantic Age came the first tourists, who flocked to admire the breathtaking cliffs, gorges and caves of Craven. Craven's cultural heritage, which survives in poetry, painting, prose and music, is also explored. Richly illustrated, this book will be welcomed by local historians and the region's many visitors alike.

Available from www.phillimore.co.uk

 Andrew Rawson
British Army Handbook 1914 – 1918

In 1914, the British Army fielded an Expeditionary Force of seven divisions totalling 150,000 men in support of France and Belgium. From these modest beginnings over seven million men eventually volunteered or were conscripted. Nearly a million of them came from the Empire and Dominions. British Army Handbook is a highly illustrated and comprehensive guide to all aspects of the British Army in the Great War.

It covers the men who fought for Britain, from the ‘Old Contemptibles’ – the professionals who stemmed the German advance at the beginning of the War – to the Territorials, Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ volunteers and the conscripts who eventually defeated the Kaiser’s armies four years later.

Andrew Rawson examines all aspects of a soldier’s everyday life including training, trench life, life behind the lines, uniforms, and weapons. He charts the growth of the Army from a small professional body into a huge civilian Army and the steep learning curve it had to follow. Unique detailed divisional histories are also included, an invaluable tool for researchers and family historians.

Included in this new book are details on how the Army constantly strived to introduce technological, tactical and logistical improvements in the Arms and Services. Personalities – commanders and prominent veterans – are discussed as well as the legacy of remembrance, cemeteries, fiction and poetry, making this an indispensable guide to Britain’s Army of the First World War.

Andrew Rawson is a self-employed civil engineer. He has written six books for the ‘Battleground Europe’ series and three for the ‘Images of War’ series; both with Pen & Sword’s. This is his first book for Sutton. Andrew lives in Skipton, North Yorkshire.

ISBN 0 7509 3745 9 Publication Date: 1st June 2006 Hardback £25.00
               
To request an interview with Andrew or to order a review copy, please contact Victoria Carvey on 01453 732 423 or email vcarvey@haynes-sutton.co.uk

A Grammar School at War

Steven Howarth

A new book featuring Craven and the Great War has been written by Ermysted’s teacher Steven Howarth, it is entitled ‘A Grammar School at War – the Story of Ermysted’s Grammar School during the Great War’. The Grammar School was one of the major secondary schools of the Skipton and Craven district of Yorkshire at the time of the War, taking in boarders as well as local boys. The main focus is on 54 Old Boys and Masters of the Skipton School who died serving in the armed forces, predominantly the Army. Nearly half these individuals held commissions, whilst many of the other ranks were NCOs. Whilst a sizeable proportion served with the local Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment, there was a wide range of other regiments represented.  The individual profiles help relate the story of the full span of the War and covers key battles such as Loos, Somme, Arras, Passchendaele, Cambrai, the German Spring Offensive and the 100 Days Campaign of 1918.

Each individual receives a detailed account of his background, school days, civilian career, military service and circumstances of death. Detailed research for the book has utilised School records, local newspapers, battalion war diaries and service files at the National Archive. There is a full ‘Roll of Service’ – listing 232 individuals – and details of 16 individuals who were decorated. Also included are letters written to the School by serving Old Boys and an account of the War’s impact on School life itself.

The book is soft-back, A-4 size and 208 pages long. There are 120 photographs, the bulk being of the ‘Fallen’ Old Boys; where available photographs of individuals both as boys at School and as servicemen have been included. The retail price is £15 per copy.

To purchase a copy – Send a cheque for £18.00 (includes cost 2nd Class postage and packaging inside UK)  made payable to ‘EGS Old Boys Society’, to Steven Howarth, Ermysted’s Grammar School, Gargrave Road, Skipton, North Yorkshire, BD23 1PL or call in at The School Office, Ermysted’s Grammar School, Gargrave Road, Skipton, North Yorkshire, BD23 1PL. (Tel. 01756 792186)

On Parade

The Octagon Theatre

John Sutherland

Helen Parsons, Community & Information Officer, Skipton Library

 Author, Keith Taylor and Andrew Brooks

Volunteers John Richardson and Trevor Croucher - Website Workshops

'Last Post' played by Members of Skipton Royal British Legion Band

Stan Grosvenor (Chairman: Western Front Association, Cleveland) presents Chris Foster, Chairman of Craven Community Projects Group with a commemorative medal

Visitors and display stands

Pipe Major Jim Sharpe - 'Piper's Lament'