Leeds

The Thackray Museum in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England is a museum of the history of medicine adjacent to St James's Hospital. Since it opened in 1997... it has won "Museum of the Year" and other awards. The building is a Grade II listed building, the former Leeds Union Workhouse, built in 1858 to accommodate 784 paupers. By the end of the 19th century, the buildings had become largely used for medical care of the poor, rather than workhouse and training. During the First World War it was called the East Leeds War Hospital, caring for armed services personnel. Highlights include Leeds 1842: Life in Victorian Leeds: visitors walk through a reproduction of slum streets complete with authentic sights, sounds and smells and are invited to follow the lives, ailments and treatments of eight Victorian characters, making the choices that determine their survival amongst the rats, fleas and bedbugs. Pain, Pus and Blood describes surgery before anaesthesia, and how pain relief progressed and Having a Baby focuses on developments in safety for childbirth.
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Otley Museum is in the town of Otley, near Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. It holds a collection of objects, artefacts and documentary material... relating to the development of Otley and the surrounding District since the prehistoric period. These include prehistoric stone tools and artefacts; an archaeological collection from the excavations of the Palace of the Archbishop of York at Otley; The Otley Printers' Engineers Collection; The Urban Development Archive, and an archive representing the Social History of Otley from the 18th Century onwards. The Otley Museum is independent, and managed and run entirely by volunteers. Through early 2010, two rooms in the Otley Civic Centre housed the museum's eclectic collection of objects depicting the history of Otley and its surrounding District from prehistoric times through Anglo Saxon and Viking era, into the medieval period, and documenting its development from a rural community to a Victorian industrial town, and into the 20th century. When the museum had to vacate those rooms, these artefacts were placed in secure storage.
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The Armley Mills Leeds Industrial Museum is a museum of industrial heritage located in Armley, west Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It includes... collections of textile machinery, railway equipment and heavy engineering amongst others. The Grade II* listed building housing the Armley Mills museum was once the world's largest woollen mill. The current structures were built in 1805 by Benjamin Gott and closed as a commercial mill in 1969. They were taken over by Leeds City Council and reopened as a museum of industrial heritage in 1982. The museum has an extensive collection of standard gauge and narrow gauge railway rolling stock. The collection was started in 1956 when the Leeds City Museum acquired Barber from the recently closed Harrogate Gas Works Railway. A short display line is installed at Armley allowing some of the collection to run.
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Leeds City Museum, originally established in 1819, re-opened on 13 September 2008 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is housed in the former... Mechanics' Institute built by Cuthbert Brodrick, in Millennium Square, which has been redeveloped to a design by Austin-Smith:Lord architects and Buro Happold engineers. Gallery and exhibit design is provided by Redman Design. Admission to the museum is free of charge. Special exhibitions are hosted alongside a collection of displays from the Leeds Archive. In 1819 a museum was established on Park Row by the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, and in 1821 it opened to the public. In 1921, control of the museum was handed to the Corporation of Leeds which later became Leeds City Council. In 1941 the museum building and artifacts were badly damaged by bombing. In 1965 the museum was closed, and a few exhibits removed to a couple of rooms in the city library in 1966. The oversized Leeds Tiger, the giant moose skeleton and the carved wooden cart took up much of the space. In 1999 the museum went into storage, though researchers and the public could view items by appointment.
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Corinne Bailey Rae is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist from Leeds, West Yorkshire. Bailey Rae was named the number-one predicted... breakthrough act of 2006 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2006. She released her debut album, Corinne Bailey Rae, in February 2006, and became the fourth female British act in history to have her first album debut at number one. In 2007, Bailey Rae was nominated for three Grammy Awards and three Brit Awards, and won two MOBO Awards. In 2008 she won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year . Bailey Rae released her second album, The Sea, on 26 January 2010, after a hiatus of almost three years. It was produced by Steve Brown and also Steve Chrisanthou . She was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize for Album of the Year. In 2012 she won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance ". Bailey Rae was married to fellow musician Jason Rae from 2001 until his death in 2008, and as part of the grieving process channeled her emotions into her music.
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Marco Pierre White is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur and television personality. He is noted for his contributions to contemporary... international cuisine, and his exceptional culinary skills. White has been dubbed the first celebrity chef, the enfant terrible of the UK restaurant scene and the Godfather of modern cooking. White was, at the time, the youngest chef ever to have been awarded three Michelin stars. He has trained chefs such as Gordon Ramsay. Marco Pierre White was the third of four boys born to Italian mother Maria-Rosa Gallina, who had come to Britain to learn English, and chef Frank White, who had struck up a conversation with Maria at the Griffin Hotel in Leeds while he was playing cards. After marrying in 1954, they lived in a council house in East Leeds, and had sons Graham , Clive and Marco. Six years later, Maria gave birth to a fourth son, Craig Simon. Two days afterwards, she collapsed and was taken back to St James's University Hospital, Leeds, where she died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 38. After leaving Allerton High School in Leeds without any qualifications, White decided to train as a chef.
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Julian Barratt is an English comedian, musician, music producer and actor. Barratt is best known for playing the character of Howard Moon in the... cult comedy The Mighty Boosh, which he also co-wrote with comedy partner Noel Fielding. In 2012 Barratt directed his first music video for the song "All of Me" by New York's Tanlines. Barratt stars as the character Howard Moon opposite Noel Fielding's Vince Noir in the comedy series The Mighty Boosh. Howard labels himself a "jazz maverick" and claims to be a multitalented intellectual, calling himself a 'man of action', but he is actually unsuccessful in his literary and romantic ventures. He is unpopular with many of the characters, including Mrs. Gideon , Bob Fossil , and Bollo . Apart from his work on The Mighty Boosh, Barratt has had parts in other dramas, often alongside Noel Fielding. He co-starred as Dan Ashcroft, a frustrated magazine writer, in the Channel 4 media satire, Nathan Barley.
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John Simm is an English stage and screen actor. In recent years he is best known for his roles as Sam Tyler in the detective drama Life on Mars and... as the Master in the revival of the science fiction series Doctor Who, but he has also starred in many highly acclaimed award-winning television dramas such as The Lakes, Cracker, State of Play, Crime and Punishment, Clocking Off, Sex Traffic and Exile. he has twice been BAFTA nominated for best actor and starred in films such as Human Traffic, Wonderland and 24 Hour Party People. As a stage actor, he is a Laurence Olivier Award nominee, and in 2010 played Hamlet at the Crucible theatre. Simm was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire. The eldest of three, he grew up in Nelson, Lancashire. And went to Walton High School in the same town. The family lived in a series of places around the northwest, including Manchester, Colne, Burnley and Blackpool. His father, Ronald Simm, was a musician and from the age of 12, Simm joined his father on stage in the working men’s clubs singing and playing the guitar. In 1986 Simm enrolled at the Blackpool and The Fylde College in Lytham St.
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Elizabeth 'Liz' Dawn MBE , is an English actress, best known for her role as Vera Duckworth in the long-running British soap opera, Coronation... Street. First starting on the serial in 1974, she had more of a recurring role as a factory worker until her husband, Jack, first appeared in 1979 and later for a more concrete role in 1983. Dawn started her show business career as a nightclub singer. By the late 1960s Dawn had ventured into acting, often taking small parts in television programmes as well as advertisements. During the 1970s, she appeared in a variety of programmes including All Creatures Great and Small and Colin Welland's play Leeds United. She was also one of the alien voices in the Cadbury's Smash advertisements in the 1970s. In January 1990, Dawn was featured on This is Your Life. Dawn published her autobiography Vera Duckworth – My Story in 1993. In 2000, Dawn was chosen as the Lady Mayoress of Leeds and was awarded an MBE in October of that year for her services to charity, having helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for hospitals in the Manchester and Leeds area.
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Ellery Cuthwyn Hanley MBE is a British former rugby league footballer of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and former head coach of Great Britain, St. Helens... and Doncaster. As a player he played most of his games at Stand-off/Five-eighth, or Loose forward/Lock. Over a period of nineteen years, he played for Bradford Northern, Wigan, Balmain, Western Suburbs and Leeds. He was capped 34 times by Great Britain and honoured by the Queen in January 1990 for his services to the game. In 2007, he was voted as the greatest British rugby league player of all time. In 1978, Ellery Hanley signed for Bradford Northern from the junior club Corpus Christi. On 26 November 1978, he made his professional debut for Bradford against the Rochdale Hornets in a League Division One match. He helped his club to a 30-18 victory, by scoring a try on his debut. He had to wait his time before gaining a regular first team place but in the early eighties he exploded onto the scene as one of the top try scoring non-wing players in the history of the game. In the 1981-82, Bradford made it to the Yorkshire Cup final.
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Barry Charles Cryer OBE is a British writer and comedian. Cryer has written for many noted performers, including Dave Allen, Stanley Baxter, Jack... Benny, Rory Bremner, George Burns, Jasper Carrott, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, Dick Emery, Kenny Everett, Bruce Forsyth, David Frost, Bob Hope, Frankie Howerd, Richard Pryor, Mike Yarwood, The Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise. Cryer also wrote episodes for the Doctor in the House television comedy series in Britain. Cryer was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. Educated at Leeds Grammar School, he went on to study English Literature at the University of Leeds. He has lived in Hatch End, a suburb of Pinner, since 1967. After appearing in University revue, Cryer was offered a week's work at the famous Leeds City Varieties theatre, home of The Good Old Days, the longest-running television entertainment show in the world. Cryer left university after learning his first year results and travelled to London. After impressing impresario Vivian Van Damm, Cryer began the bottom billing act at the Windmill Theatre in London, a theatre which showed comedy acts in between nude tableau shows.
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Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award, for his roles in In the Bedroom and... Michael Clayton. In 2009, he won Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Film for John Adams. Wilkinson was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, the son of Thomas Wilkinson, Sr., a farmer. At the age of four, he moved with his family to Canada, where they lived for several years before returning to England and running a pub in Cornwall. Wilkinson graduated from the University of Kent, where he was a member of T24 Drama Society and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Wilkinson currently lives in North London with his wife, actress Diana Hardcastle, and their two children, Alice and Mollie. In 2011, Wilkinson and Hardcastle portrayed real life husband and wife Joe and Rose Kennedy in the mini series The Kennedys. Wilkinson made his television debut in the mid-1970s and worked on several British television series, most notably the mini-series First Among Equals . He first gained critical acclaim with his appearance as Mr.
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Ernest Wiseman OBE , known by his stage name Ernie Wise, was an English comedian, best known as one half of the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, who... became an institution on British television, especially for their Christmas specials. Ernest Wiseman was the eldest of five children, and changed his name to go into show business. He attended first Thorpe Infant and Junior School, and then East Ardsley Boys' School, but entered the entertainment industry in 1933, appearing as an actor and singer in music hall. His father, Harry, a railway lamp man, was also a semi-professional singer, and they appeared together under the name "Bert Carson and his Little Wonder". He started making solo appearances—singing, dancing, and telling jokes—in 1936, and, in autumn of 1938 he came to the attention of Bryan Michie, a leading juvenile talent spotter, who recommended him to the impresario Jack Hylton. In 1940, the year he first met Eric Morecambe, then known as Eric Bartholomew, he appeared with British comedian Arthur Askey in his Band Waggon radio show, billed as Britain's Mickey Rooney.
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Melanie Janine Brown , also known as Mel B or Scary Spice, is a British pop and R&B singer-songwriter, actress, author and television presenter... who gained popularity as a member of The Spice Girls. She is currently a judge on the Australian version of The X Factor and is also the current co-host of the Australian version of Dancing with the Stars. Brown was born in Harehills, Leeds, England, to an English mother, Andrea, and a black Nevisian father, Martin, and grew up in Burley, Leeds, West Yorkshire. She has a younger sister named Danielle who is an actress. She studied performing arts at Intake High School, in Leeds, before entering the entertainment industry. For a time, she worked as a dancer in the holiday resort, Blackpool, Lancashire. After seeing an advertisement for an audition in a newspaper, Brown started her music career in a band known as Touch. The group left the original management team and eventually teamed up with music manager Simon Fuller. In this pairing, she and the other girls became known as the Spice Girls.
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Peter Martin Christopherson was a musician, video director and designer, and former member of the influential British design agency Hipgnosis. He... was one of the original members of the Industrial Records band, Throbbing Gristle. After Throbbing Gristle he participated in the foundation of Psychic TV along with Geoffrey Rushton, aka John Balance. After his short time in Psychic TV, Christopherson formed Coil along with Balance, which lasted just under 23 years, until Balance died of a fall in their Weston-Super-Mare home. Christopherson participated in the reuniting of Throbbing Gristle and he composed an album for his solo endeavour The Threshold HouseBoys Choir. Prior to his musical career, Peter Christopherson was a commercial artist, designer, and photographer. Notably, he was one of the three partners of the album cover design group Hipgnosis, which was responsible for many notable album covers of the 1970s. Christopherson remained involved with commercial art through his later musical career as a director of music videos and television commercials.
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Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE KCSG was an English disc jockey, television presenter and media personality, best known for his BBC television... show Jim'll Fix It, and for being the first and last presenter of the long-running BBC music chart show Top of the Pops. He was also known for his fundraising and support of various charities, particularly Stoke Mandeville Hospital. He was widely described as a philanthropist and was honoured for his efforts. Savile was born in Leeds, the youngest of seven children born to Agnes Monica and Vincent Joseph Marie Savile, a bookmaker's clerk and insurance agent. Savile almost died of pneumonia at the age of five months. He was a Bevin Boy, conscripted during World War II to work as a coal miner at South Kirkby Colliery, West Yorkshire, England. He suffered serious spinal injuries in a mine explosion and spent a long period in recuperation. Having started playing records in dance halls in the early 1940s, Savile claimed to be the first ever disc jockey.
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