About the author

D F E Sykes was a gifted scholar, solicitor, local politician, andnewspaper proprietor. He listed his own patrimony as ‘Fredo’ Ned’s o’ Ben o’ Billy’s o’ theKnowle’ a reference to Holme village above Slaithwaite in theColne Valley. As the grandson of a clothier, his association with thewoollen trade would be a valuable source of material for his novels, butalso the cause of his downfall when, in 1883, he became involved in abitter dispute between the weavers and the mill owners.

When he was declared bankrupt in 1885 and no longer able to practise asa solicitor he left the area and travelled abroad to Ireland and Canada.On his return to England he struggled with alcoholism and was prosecutedby the NSPCC for child neglect. Eventually he was drawn back toHuddersfield and became an active member of the Temperance Movement. Hetook to researching local history and writing, at first in a localnewspaper, then books such as ‘The History of Huddersfield and itsVicinity’. He also wrote four novels. It was not until the 1911Census, after some 20 years as a writer, that he finally states hisprofession as ‘author’.

In later life he lived with his wife, the daughter of a Lincolnshirevicar, at Ainsley House, Marsden. He died of a heart attack following anoperation at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary on 5^th June 1920 and wasburied in the graveyard of St Bartholomew’s in Marsden.

Introduction

Tom Pinder, Foundling is a romance and moral tale, set in the early partof the 19th Century, to the backdrop of the Greenfield and Holme Valleyswhen both were a part of West Yorkshire. It deals with the life of afoundling, Victorian values, the burgeoning of the cooperative movementand the Holmfirth flood. The book was first published c.1902 andsubsequently published under the title Dorothy’s Choice (A Rushing ofthe Waters).

Sykes is one of few novelists who chose to portray the lives of commonpeople in this period and for this reason alone it is a valuableresource as a social history. His use of the local dialect, ability tosketch interesting characters and their relationships adds greatly toits readability.

CHAPTER I.

THE Hanging Gate is a public-house of venerable aspect. Itstands at the corner of one of four cross ways, where the road from thesummit of Harrop Edge cuts the turnpike from Leeds to Manchester. Itpays rates in the township of Diggle, and to Diggle it properly belongs;but the small cluster of tumble-down cottages that constitutes a verysmall hamlet rejoices in the name of Wakey, a name whose origin hashitherto baffled the researches of local antiquarians. The inn itself isa low, two-storied, rambling building. Its rooms are so low that amoderately tall man must dodge the oak

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