J B Priestly

On this day in 1894 in Bradford, John Boynton Priestley, the English author generally referred to as J.B. Priestley was born.
Priestly features in the introduction to my paternal families story, not as a distant relative, but as a reference to the conditions my ancestors had to live and work in.

"In 1837, the Regency period that was governed by elegance and etiquette with “the first gentleman of England” the Prince Regent at this head was replaced by the Victorian era, an era of science, an era that would applaud the arrival of the innovative and hard working self made man. Some 53 years later, author and playwright J B Priestly was born in Yorkshire in 1894, the same year my great grandfather, Thomas Toon arrived in the small mining community of Royston, just sixteen miles from Priestly’s home in Bradford. Unlike Thomas, Priestly wasn’t destined for a life in the coal mines, his future lay in literature writing such works as The Prince of Pleasure and his Regency, one of three social histories and An Inspector Calls, a condemnation of Victorian society. Priestly, like Orwell, was at one with the common man, he had great admiration for coal miners like my great grandfather, saying

“If your supply of coal depended on my walking several miles to a pithead, descending in a cage for half a mile, then slogging away for seven hours in that hell, all for something like two pounds a week, your grates would be empty” 

You can read about my ancestors life in the coal mines here:

​meanderingthroughtime.weebly.com/toon-of-leicestershire-introduction.html

Image Credit Alice Povey https://alicepovey.myportfolio.com/the-family-tree