The Fiddler of Helperby
During my agreeable researches into York’s musical past I encountered William Hardman’s Quadrille Band who played at the grand Assembly Rooms ball on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838. For the event Hardman composed and published a set of quadrilles and I became intrigued to know what the quadrille might have been. In June 1989 I idly brought up the subject in conversation with university librarian Geraldine Darlington whom I knew to have an interest in all sorts of early dance. She, by coincidence, had just become custodian of a dusty miscellany of Victorian music books and was aware that they contained a good number of quadrilles; would I care to have a look? Of course, I said, hoping not to sink too deeply into the quadrille, aware of how easily historical research (i.e. mine into the waits) can go astray if one becomes fascinated by a related topic.
Lawrence Leadley
(1827-97)
On 21st July 1989 the seven books were duly handed over, and I wasn’t sidetracked by the quadrille, about which I still know very little. However, I did set off on the trail of Lawrence Leadley, the original owner of the books whose early life in the North Yorkshire village of Helperby is reflected therein. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered the route by which these treasures had found their way to my temporary keeping. The Leadley family had kept them safely until Rebecca Ruby Leadley, granddaughter of Lawrence, appreciating that she was the last of the Bradford Leadleys, gave them to her younger cousin Nancy Kay, last of the Helperby branch of the family. Nancy sought their safe keeping for posterity and, via the widow of a York historian and the University’s music department, they arrived in the Morrell Library - unwanted. The originals currently reside at the Essex home of Leadley’s granddaughter and great granddaughter. Photocopies, accompanied by all of the research material behind this book, may be consulted in the York room at York city library.
