Welcome to the Local Legend Series, a series of books dedicated to the local history of villages and towns along the Lancashire and Yorkshire border.
Subjects will cover on a wide range of significant people, buildings and legends across the centuries.
Although the author John Birch is the key contributor, contributions from other authors are welcome for consideration and old classics that have been out of print for some time may also make an appearance in this series.
The first in this series of books is Henry Krabtree, curate of Todmorden, which will be published on 1 December 2019.
I read with great admiration for the enormous amount of research undertaken in putting this story together, as shown partly by the detail in which Birch has described the key aspects of Henry Krabtree’s life, with all its ups and downs, and also by the extensive bibliography.
As a result of reading this book the reader will be able to appreciate the difficulties of living, especially as a leader at the local level in the church and community, in such tumultuous times for religions in general, when politics and religion (and sometimes the security of one’s life) were so closely related. I have been fascinated to appreciate the role of the curate in curing the spiritual weaknesses of his flock and how Henry intertwined this activity with trying to cure their physical weaknesses (and make a little profit on the side at the same time). Of course, he had his own weaknesses alongside these dual roles.
An excellent job here that makes a significant addition to our knowledge of Henry as a personality, and the (Wild West) times in which this colourful ancestor lived.
Peter Crabtree, Crabtree: Dweller by the Wild Apple Tree
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Who was Henry Krabtree? He is most renowned for three key things: firstly, for the various caustic remarks entered in his parish register; secondly for the publishing of his 1685 almanac, Merlinus Rusticus; and thirdly for his small part in the case of the Surey Demoniack.
Krabtree ministered to his flock as a curate, a physician, a wise man, an astrological seer, and a necromancer.
He married at the age of 35 to a wealthy widow of 47 and this change of good fortune allowed him to continue his research and interests, amassing a great number of books and evolving his practice from mere curate to that of a respected wizard-priest within his local township and beyond.
The book is generously adorned with 49 illustrations from a wide variety of sources, including two commissioned water colour paintings of Krabtree himself and of Stansfield Hall, Todmorden. Also a very special feature of this publication is an accurate transcription of Krabtree’s 1685 almanack Merlinus Rusticus, of which there are only six known copies in existence. The book includes a comprehensive bibliography (134 citations), indices for people, places and general subjects, and full translations (from Latin) of various previously undiscovered legal documents involving Krabtree.
Hardback, 300 pages
ISBN: 978-1-9997967-2-3
Published by Paper Portal Publishing on 1 December 2019
Price: £19.50 plus postage (only available by mail order via this website)
© John Birch 2019