History of Leeds - Tudor Period

Tudor Period

The Tudor period was a time of transition for Leeds, from a relatively mean settlement to a solid cloth-trading town. In 1470, it was obscure enough to be described as being "near to Rothwell", which in the fifteenth century had the rights of a market town. By 1536, when John Leland visited it, he was able to report of it that it was a pretty market town which stood most by clothing and was as large as Bradford, though not so "quik", by which he evidently meant not so enterprising. Nevertheless, much of the old life and conditions still existed. The Crown was now over-lord, and had been so ever since the accession of Henry IV, and the folk still ground their corn at the King's mills and baked their bread at the King's oven. There was as yet no charter of incorporation, and though the people were rapidly approaching to conditions of liberty their lot was still not very appreciably different to that of their forefathers. Up to the end of the sixteenth century Leeds may be looked upon as existing in semi-feudalism.

There is no mention of education in Leeds until 1552, when one William Sheafield, who seems to have been a chantry priest of St. Catherine in Leeds, left property in the town for the establishment of a learned school-master who should teach freely for ever such scholars, youths, and children as should resort to him, with the wise proviso that the Leeds folk themselves should find a suitable building and make up the master's salary to ten pounds a year. Here is the origin of Leeds Grammar School which, first housed in the Calls, and subsequently—through the beneficence of John Harrison—in Lady Lane, had by the end of that century become an institution of vast importance.

As the sixteenth century drew to a close, and while the seventeenth was still young, the towns-folk of Leeds secured in the first instance at their own cost, in the second by a strictly limited Royal favour two important privileges—the right of electing their own vicar and of governing themselves in municipal affairs. In 1583 the town bought the advowson of the parish church from its then possessor, Oliver Darnley, for £130, and henceforth the successive vicars were chosen by a body of trustees—the most notably successful experiment in popular election which has ever been known in the National Church. In 1626, Leeds received its first charter of incorporation from Charles I. The charter, premising that Leeds in the County of York is an ancient and populous town, whose inhabitants are well acquainted with the Art and Mystery of making Woollen Cloths, sets up a governing body of one Alderman, nine Burgesses, and twenty Assistants. But the privilege for some years was a limited one: the Crown reserved to itself the rights of appointment to any of the thirty vacancies which might occur by death: popular election did not come for some time.