The memory of our great philanthropist has been perpetuated at York by the building of the Wilberforce School for the Blind, and at Hull by the erection of the Wilberforce Monument near Whitefriargate Bridge, and the opening of his birthplace in High Street as a Public Museum of Local Antiquities. The Wilberforce Monument, which towers up 102 feet above the roadway, bears on one of its sides the simple yet effective inscription:—
NEGRO
SLAVERY
ABOLISHED
I. AUGUST
MDCCCXXXIV.
From William Wilberforce we turn to Sir Tatton Sykes—‘t’owd Squyer’ of Sledmere. Sir Tatton was born in 1772, the second son of Sir Christopher Sykes, and succeeded to the title and the family estates on the death of his brother, Sir Mark Masterman Sykes, in 1823.
Before this he had become widely known as a breeder of sheep and racehorses, and as a fearless sportsman. At the age of twenty-three he rode his first race at Malton, at the age of sixty he rode his last; and on both occasions he came in the winner.
Under Sir Christopher Sykes the cultivation of the bleak, desolate Wold country was successfully begun, and under Sir Tatton Sykes great improvements were wrought by the introduction of bone manure. Sir Tatton was for forty years a master of fox-hounds, and the discovery of the usefulness of bone manure was due to his observing that on the places near his kennels at Eddlethorpe where the hounds were fed, the grass grew more luxuriantly than it did elsewhere.
Throughout his long life of ninety-one years Sir Tatton Sykes continued to dress in the fashions of his early days—‘a long frock coat, drab breeches, top-boots, and a frilled shirt.’ And such was his reputation that sixty years ago the three things best worth seeing in the county were said by Yorkshiremen to be ‘York Minster, Fountains Abbey, and t’owd Squyer.’