John Hartley is perhaps best known as the writer and editor of the long running Clock Almanack [sic], a collection of poems and prose on the events of each year from 1867 to his death in 1917 when the editorship was taken over by Walter Hampson.
Hartley's parents, Rachel and John ran a tea shop and he was born in a room over the shop in Halifax on 19th October 1839. He was quite well educated for the time, attending one of the many dame**schools [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dame_school]] before obtaining a place at the Park Place Academy.
He started his working life as a pattern maker at James Ackroyd and Son's Mill in Boothtown. This was an important position as the patterns (collections of punched cards) were responsible for controlling the Jacquard looms used at the mill. It was probably as part of his job that he studied design at the Halifax School of Art.
He started writing his own poetry in 1859 following the opening of a local park at which another local poet recited a specially written poem. He joined the Beacon Club, one of the Victorian equivalents of a modern Folk Club where the member's would entertain each other with readings, recitations, music and song.
His rise to fame as a writer began when he recited one of his own poems (Bite Bigger) and a fellow club member had the poem published for sale. The resulting pamphlet was a great success.
Shortly afterwards he co-founded a new club (The Haley Hill Literary and Scientific Society) and published many of his poems in the club's newsletter called The Circulator. Subsequently he became the writer and editor of Wilson's Original Illuminated Clock Almanack. Later entitled The Original Clock Almanack By John Hartley.
In 1872 he sold up his Halifax home and travelled with his family to Quebec and then to Montreal hoping to make a living with recitals of his own and other writings. The audiences were not as large as he needed and he had to take a job to support himself and his family. Later he lived in various American cities. He returned to England for 7 years 1875-1882 but did not return to Halifax (he lived in Leeds and London). During this time he continued to write and edit the Clock Almanack and he gave recitations of his work until 1880 when an illness put an end to his public performances. He was also publishing a number of books and articles under the pseudonym of Samuel Grimes at this time.
In 1882 Hartley returned to Philadelphia and put his earlier experience to good use becoming a freelance textile designer specialising in carpets drapes. This lasted for 12 years until the collapse of his US bankers at which time Hartley once again returned to England, again living in Leeds and London.
Hartley resumed his public recitations but gave them up after collapsing during a performance in a London restaurant in 1902.
Much of Hartley's later life was spent at Liscard on the Wirral where he married his third wife and where he died in 1917 having just published his 50th annual edition of the Clock Almanack.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Probably Incomplete?)
1868 Hartley's Yorkshire Ditties [JH] Dialect poetry
1877 Grimes's Trip to America [SG] [1877] - in which Hartley's own experiences were retold
1878 Many a Slip [JH] Novel
1889 Hartley's Yorkshire Ditties and The Cream of Wit and Humour [JH]
1890 Hartley's Yorkshire Ditties Vol 2 [JH]
1898 Yorkshire Lyrics [JH] Dialect and other poetry
1876 Yorkshire Puddin' [JH]
1894 Grimes's Trip to th' Queen [SG] [1894] - written when Hartley returned to England
1896 Seets i' Yorkshire and Lancashire Or Grimes's Comical Trip from Leeds to Liverpool by Canal [SG]
1900 Yorkshire Tales (3 volumes) [JH]
1911 Grimes and Mally laikin i' Lakeland [SG]
1920 Mally an' me [SG] A Selection of Humorous and Pathetic Incidents from the life of Sammywell Grimes and His Wife Mally
???? Pensive Tales and Startling Stories [JH]
???? A rolling Stone Novel [JH]
???? A sheaf from the moorland [JH]
???? Seets i' Lundun [SG]
???? Seets i' Paris [SG]
???? Seets i' Blackpool [SG]
[JH] Written as John Hartley
[SG] Written as Samuel Grimes
