People in Pontefract
The great and the good
Many people are surpised when told of Pontefract's contribution to English history. While most visitors to the town will already know about the three long sieges of the English Civil War, about the famous Pontefract Cakes and the renowned race course, others are taken aback to learn that
Pontefract is also the birthplace of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and inventor of the iPod, home for many years of the Duke and Duchess or Windsor after the abdication and, amongst others, where the jet engine was invented, prototyped and developed.
Its place in the history of Great Britain has been assured by those born within the town's boundaries and those who have, like me, chosen to adopt Pontefract as their home.
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Ernesto Haribo1491 - 1568 A close collaborator and friend of the artist Michelangelo, Haribo first visited Pontefract returning, as a child, from the Crusades in 1501. Returning 53 years later with his great friend, Haribo founded a successful agricultural utensils business in the small village now known as East Hardwick before taking a lease on a small industrial unit in the shadow of the town's castle. Haribo struggled in vain until his death in 1568 to extract an edible flavour from the roots of many indigenous English plants. It was not until five years after Haribo's death that the botanist Bassett introduced Glycyrrhiza glabra - what we now call liquorice - to the previously undiscovered Australia. The discovery of the so-called island continent in 1770 led to the reintroduction of liquorice to Yorkshire by the early 1780s and the first Pontefract cake was baked in 1787. |
| Michelangelo who lived on the Chequerfield Estate during the last ten years of his life, 1554 to 1564 |
Nearby Denby Dale is known for baking giant pies, a tradition first started in 1788 to celebrate the recovery of King George III from his mental illness. Great rivalry has existed between Denby Dale (Once known as Denby Dyke) and Pontefract, so the baking of the original Pontefract Cake a year before Denby Dale's first pie is a telling milestone. Denby Dale today claims to have baked 10 pies - as part of 9 pie festivals (due to the spoiling and subsequent burial of one of the pies in 1887). Pontefract, by comparison, has baked eleven (11) cakes. The most recent cake, made in 1999 to mark the end of the millenium, weighed in at 13 tonnes compared to Denby Dale the following year: 12 tonnes, made in 2000 to celebrate the new millennium |
Other famous Fractitioners, as denizens of the town affectionately call themselves:
Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was born in the waiting room (Leeds-bound) of Baghill Station in 1889. After inventing the telescope he moved to the United States.
Edward "Ned" Kelly (June 1854 – 11 November 1880) Ned was born to Irish parents in what is now The Ancient Borough Arms public house. His father worked in the dominant liquorice trade in the town and the family stowed away in empty soil hoppers thinking they would be returned to Dublin where they had been manufactured. However, the hoppers were transported to Old Melbourne where the young Kelly grew an extravagant beard.
Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) Thought by many to have been German, Brahms was reported to have said, "Nay, Yorkshire through and through." It is hard to argue against such definitive provenance. Brahms spent several years earning small amounts performing outside Wilko, moving along the pedestrianised area, the short distance to Argos in about 1859. He moved on to Germany soon after and, ashamed at his early failure, denied his heritage and early life until his death in 1897.
Dolly (5 July 1996 – 14 February 2003) Dolly the Sheep was the first cloned sheep and was born in Woolworths in 1996. The shop was closed early and, for security reasons, the lamb was immediately taken to Edinburgh.