Index of YPS Members 1822-1855

• During the first 33 years of the YPS a total of 702 men were elected to membership, and 6 women (although only three in their own right – three were allowed to retain the memberships of their deceased husbands, which would become customary practice). Roughly 67% lived in York or its immediate vicinity, 30% further out in the three Yorkshire Ridings, and just 3% elsewhere in the country.

  As many as 100 of the members were ordained ministers of religion, 92 of them Church of England, but with the Unitarians’ Charles Wellbeloved and John Kenrick strongly influential in the affairs of the Society. There were three Catholic priests, two of them connected with the Bar Convent. The Anglicans included Archbishop Edward Vernon Harcourt and two of his sons, notably William Venables Vernon, a dynamic first president of the society, together with Harcourt’s successor, Archbishop Musgrave, seven archdeacons, three deans and a bishop. The best known today is perhaps the writer and wit, Sydney Smith. York’s Quakers were well represented, with Backhouses and Tukes, Joseph Rowntree establishing his shop in Pavement, John Ford at Bootham School, and the first woman to be elected, Eliza Stringer, head of the Friends’ Girls’ School.

  We had 36 Lord Mayors (or future Lord Mayors) of York, most famously George Hudson, who was also one of our 39 MPs. The legal and medical professions counted 78 and 60 members respectively, with two dozen army and naval officers, and nine York architects. Many titled Yorkshire families appear in the index, Fitzwilliam, Howard, Lascelles and Stourton among them. We list one duke, six earls, a viscount and 13 barons, together with 17 baronets and numerous members of the landed gentry. Within York more than 30 members enjoyed private means, while commerce and industry feature regularly in other occupations, with the famous confectionery families of Rowntree, Terry and Craven all represented by 1855. In June 1855 the membership stood at 323.

  Click below to see the full Index:YPS MEMBERS 1822-1855 (25.4.2023)