On one occasion, it is recorded that a cart driver was handed a letter to give to his master. He put it in his pocket and forgot all about it.
Later that day he fed the horse, and bits of the letter turned up in it’s food. He tried to put the pieces together again, but couldn’t decipher the contents. Evidently the postal service in those days was not as efficient or as confidential as it is today.
When application was granted for Shelley to have it’s own post office, it was envisaged that it would handle some 50 to 60 letters per week! That included outgoing mail for the districts of Thurstonland and Shepley, who had not at that time a post office of their own.
I also found out that leisure time pursuits locally in those days, included shooting machines, foot races, cock fighting and occasionally dog fights. Such ‘sports’ would have been quite a challenge for Bob Haigh to report on …. Though I feel that he would have made them sound very interesting!
The more erudite studied the mathematical problems in early editions of the Huddersfield Examiner. It is recorded that several people from Shelley replied to them weekly.
The History of Shelley