Metcalfe, John

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Metcalfe, John

Watercolour portrait of John Metcalfe, aged 71, Chief Clerk, County Court.

from John Sowden's notebooks:
"Mr John Metcalfe for many years chief clerk and cashier of the Bradford County Court. He was born in 1817 and died in 1906. He was a native of Hawes, and was a member of the famous `clan' of Metcalfes of Wensleydale, who were at one time noted as the most numerous family of known consanguinity in England. Leaving Wensleydale as a youth Mr Metcalfe went into business at Manchester, and was subsequently a schoolmaster at Keighley. About 1840 he came to Bradford, and won in a competition examination an appointment in the Bradford County Court, with which he was connected for more than fifty- five years. His appointment ante-dated, in fact, the establishment of the Court on its present basis, which arose out of the act of 1846, and in his latter years his quaint figure, which still clung largely in dress to the fashions of the past, and suggested that he had stepped out of the pages of Dickens, was exceedingly well known in legal circles and to all having business at the Court and offices. He retired from the work 1897. Although of Quaker family, he was a member of the congregation of St Jude's Church, Manningham, for many years. Mr Metcalfe was an enthusiastic book-lover and he made a fine collection of books. In early life he marred a Miss Deen, of Embsay, who died in 1877. No fewer than five judges officiated in the circuit while Mr Metcalfe was clerk.'

Year

1888

Creator

John Sowden

Image filename

sowden-3