The literary quality of these almanacs varies greatly, but
among their pages will be found many poems, and many prose tales and
sketches, which vividly portray the West Riding artisan. Abundant
justice is done to his sense of humour, which, if broad and at times even
crude, is always good-natured and healthy, as well as to his intense love
of the sentimental, which to the stranger lurks hidden beneath a mask of
indifference. Incidentally, these almanacs also present a faithful
picture of the social history of the West Riding during the greater part
of a century. As we study their pages, we realise what impression events
such as the introduction of the railroad, the Chartist Movement, the
Repeal of the Corn Laws, mid-Victorian factory legislation, Trade-
Unionism, the Co-operative movement and Temperance reform made upon the
minds of nineteenth-century Yorkshiremen; in other words, these almanacs
furnish us with just such a mirror of nineteenth-century industrial
Yorkshire as the bound volumes of Punch furnish of the nation as a
whole. Among the most famous of these annual productions is The Bairnsla
Foak's Annual, an Pogmoor Olmenack, started by Charles Rogers (Tom,
Treddlehoyle) in 1838, and The Halifax Original Illuminated Clock Almanac
begun by John Hartley in 1867.
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