ABBEY HOUSE MUSEUM
Opening Hours
Mon: closed
Tues – Fri: 10am – 5pm
Sat: 12 – 5pm
Sun: 10am – 5pm
Last admission: 4.30pm
Address
Abbey Walk
Kirkstall
Leeds
LS5 3EH
Ticket Provider
ABBEY HOUSE MUSEUM
Opening Hours
Mon: closed
Tues – Fri: 10am – 5pm
Sat: 12 – 5pm
Sun: 10am – 5pm
Last admission: 4.30pm
Address
Abbey Walk
Kirkstall
Leeds
LS5 3EH
Ticket Provider
LEEDS ART GALLERY
Opening Hours
Mon: Closed
Tues -Sat: 10am – 5pm
Sun: 11am – 3pm
Address
The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AA
LEEDS CITY MUSEUM
Opening Hours
Mon: closed (11am – 5pm on bank holidays)
Tues – Fri: 10am – 5pm
Sat & Sun: 11am – 5pm
Address
Leeds City Museum
Millennium Square
Leeds
LS2 8BH
Ticket Provider
LEEDS DISCOVERY CENTRE
Opening Hours
Visits by appointment/special event only.
Free public store tours are now available by booking in advance. Please call or email us.
Address
Leeds Discovery Centre
Off Carlisle Road
Leeds
LS10 1LB
LEEDS INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM
Opening Hours
Mon: Closed (10am – 5pm on bank holiday Mondays)
Tues – Fri: 10am – 5pm
Sat – Sun: 12 – 5pm
Last admission one hour before closing.
Address
Canal Road
Leeds
LS12 2QF
KIRKSTALL ABBEY
Opening Hours
Mon: closed (10am – 4pm on bank holidays)
Tues – Sun: 10am – 4.30pm
Last admission: 4pm
Address
Abbey Road
Kirkstall
Leeds
LS5 3EH
Ticket Provider
LOTHERTON
Opening Hours
Open Daily
Estate opens: 7.30am
Hall: Open (Downstairs only) 10am-5pm
Wildlife World: 10am – 5pm
Estate closes: 7pm
Last entry 45 mins before estate closing time
TEMPLE NEWSAM
Opening Hours
House: Tues – Sun: 10.30am – 5pm
Home Farm: Tues – Sun: 10am – 5pm | Open Bank Holiday Mondays and throughout summer holidays
Last entry 45 minutes before
THWAITE WATERMILL
Address
Thwaite Lane
Stourton
Leeds
LS10 1RP
LOGOS, FOOTER LINKS, COPYRIGHT
We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
Privacy and data
Elections Through our Collections
Collections, Community, Engagement, Social HistoryTo mark Parliament Week (13 -19 November) Abbey House Museum is teaming up with Leeds Libraries to host a session exploring how parliamentary elections in Leeds have changed over the last three centuries, looking at some of the interesting political items in our collections.
Today, the right to vote is something that some may take for granted. However, in the 19th century the franchise was very limited, and hard fought for. Reform Acts in 1832, 1867 and 1884 gradually expanded the number of adults who were eligible to vote. Women had to wait until 1918 to vote, and even then had to be aged 30 or over!
Anti-Marshall handbill (1826), on display at Leeds City Museum.
Leeds did not have a sitting MP until after The Great Reform Act of 1832. By then, the town was growing in economic importance. This had been demonstrated in the 1826 election when the prominent Leeds industrialist John Marshall stood for Yorkshire under the patronage of the Whig party. A handbill on display at Leeds City Museum shows how Marshall’s aristocratic opponents attempted to paint this Unitarian and son of a linen draper as an enemy of the Established Church who owned ‘not 20 acres of land in this County!’. His investment of wealth in Foreign Funds was even portrayed as unpatriotic. Marshall’s victory showed how important industrial towns like Leeds were becoming.
In 1832, Leeds gained two MPs for the first time. Following the 1867 Reform Act, this went up to three MPs, and then in 1884 to five MPs. During the 19th century great industrial cities often elected Liberal MPs, and Leeds was no different. In 1880 the town even elected William Gladstone as their MP. As he was also elected for Midlothian, however, he sent his son Herbert instead to represent the Liberal interest in the town– a fact reflected in a commemorative vase produced by Doulton, which is in the collections of Leeds Museums and Galleries. The following year, William Gladstone himself received a raucous reception when he visited the town’s Mixed Cloth Hall (now the site of City Square).
Stoneware vase (1882), commemorating the unopposed election of Herbert Gladstone for Leeds in 1880.
Conservative MPs who sat for Leeds included one with a very strong connection to Abbey House Museum: George Skirrow Beecroft, a partner in Kirkstall Forge, who lived at Abbey House in the 1840s and 50s before becoming a Leeds MP in 1857.
Wooden rattle used by donor’s grandfather, who was special constable during Chartist riots in Leeds, c.1840-48.
Politics excited strong feelings in Victorian Leeds. In common with other big towns and cities, there were agitations by Chartists in Leeds in 1848. Many of their demands would seem reasonable to us today: for example, they demanded universal suffrage (albeit only for men!) and the payment of MPs – but some would have to wait up to 70 years.
One key Chartist demand was the secret ballot. It wasn’t until 1872 that people had the right to keep who they voted to themselves. The prevailing mood was that secretly casting your vote was cowardly. However, in reality, having to declare an allegiance left people open to bribery and intimidation. One fascinating object in the museum collections is a poll book dating from 1841. Poll books listed voters by name, including not only who they’d voted for but also their address and occupation, a very different practice to today!
Poll book for Leeds Election, July 1841.
Some of the most interesting items in the collections of Museums and Galleries and Leeds Libraries are a series of political cartoons from elections held in 1868, 1874, 1880 and 1886. Many of their meanings have been lost in time. Often they caricature the candidates who were standing, playing on personal characteristics or names. In the 1868 election George Meek Carter, a Liberal candidate and former Chartist, is portrayed as a coal merchant (his former occupation), while Admiral Duncombe, the Tory candidate, is often depicted in a nautical setting! Candidates are often shown as prize fighters, or as turns at a show or circus, selling quack medicines and pills.
Picture “The Rival Shows, or Leeds Fair Nov 1868”. One of the many election cartoons that can be viewed in our collections.
Other candidates feature as tragic figures. Sir Andrew Fairbairn, who stood down as Mayor of Leeds in 1868 to stand in Parliament not only failed to win but was accused of splitting the Liberal vote. He is depicted in one cartoon as Coriolanus, turning his back on the people of Leeds who have rejected him.
By Patrick Bourne, Assistant Community Curator at Abbey House Museum.
Find out more about Abbey House Museum, and explore our social history collection.