Melvyn Jones – författare

Sheffield is the fourth largest city in England and was where the Industrial Revolution began in earnest. It is renowned for its high-quality steel and fine cutlery, for its two large universities and for having the biggest shopping centre in Europe, yet there is so much more to know about this proud South Yorkshire city. In Secret Sheffield, the authors pull back the carpet of history to reveal what lurks beneath. They delve into Sheffield’s murky and mysterious past, its dark secrets and forgotten tales, introducing us to some interesting characters along the way.

Secret Rotherham offers a unique insight into this bustling, modern South Yorkshire town through a series of little-known and forgotten stories, facts and anecdotes from its past. The town has an enviable industrial history: Nelson’s HMS Victory was armed with Walker cannons made at Masbrough, the iron plates for Isambard Brunel’s steamship the Great Eastern were manufactured at Parkgate Iron & Steel Works, and the firm of Guest & Chrimes invented the modern screw-down tap. Over the centuries the Rotherham area has also had its fair share of famous residents and visitors. It was the home of the Earl of Strafford, who was beheaded in 1641; John Wesley, the ‘Father of Methodism’, was a fairly frequent (if not always welcome) visitor to the area; Ebenezer Elliott, the ‘Corn Law Rhymer’, was born and bought up in the town; and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams spent many a summer in one of the outlying villages.In Secret Rotherham Melvyn Jones and Anthony Dodsworth pull back the curtains of history to peer into the borough’s distant and not so distant past to reveal the forgotten, the strange and the unlikely.

The Rotherham area has undergone profound change in the last century or so. There has been much demolition and rebuilding in the town centre, the town has grown outwards in all directions and the surrounding settlements – rural and industrial – have been transformed in many cases. Many working patterns and workplaces have disappeared, means of transport have changed beyond all recognition and even how people used their leisure time in the early twentieth century shows some striking differences from today. This fascinating collection of old photographs, mostly from private collections and many of them not published before, will take long-established residents on an affectionate tour of their past, and for relative newcomers it may be something of a revelation.

It was the home of a knight, a baron, a viscount, two marquises and nine earls. The family had estates not only in South Yorkshire, but also in North Yorkshire, the Midlands and Ireland, at their greatest extent covering nearly 120,000 acres. One head of household was beheaded. Another saw one of the last wolves in the British Isles. One owner built the Palladian mansion at Wentworth, which has the longest frontage of any country mansion in Britain, and was one of the earliest growers of pineapples in this country. One head of family was prime minister. Twice. Another provided financial assistance to more than 6,000 of his Irish tenants and their families to emigrate to Canada during the Great Famine. Another had a christening attended by 7,000 official guests. Yet another bought an ocean liner to go and search for buried treasure in the Pacific.This copiously illustrated book explores the history of the house, the estate and the family over more than 400 years, drawing on a wide variety of sources, particularly the family records (the Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments) held in Sheffield Archives.