All the information I have about this item is essentially contained on the map itself. It shows Upper and Lower Wyke. The spelling ‘Wike’ was common in the last century. Wyke was evidently considered to be part of the parish of Birstall but later in the nineteenth century it became a separate parish itself. It was incorporated into Bradford in 1899.

A large estate was being sold off by auction, on 13 March 1850. The surveyor is GT Lister of Lister & Ingle, surveyors of Bradford. The vendor’s name is not easy to read in the cursive script:  T.M. Carvick perhaps? There was a Thomas Meyer Carvick of Wyke (and Moat Mount, Highwood, Middlesex) whose name was recorded in the press when his son married. Oddly, perhaps, in the Leeds Mercury (October 1845) the same man is recorded as director of the Dublin and Armaghan railway. If this is correct his dates are 1819-1851 and he was a landed proprietor and JP who died young on the Isle of Wight. In the 1841 census he was with the army in Halifax, but how he had inherited estate in Wyke I do not know.

I think it is reasonable to assume that the surveying is a little later than the first Ordnance Survey map of the area, which was surveyed in 1849-50. Its advantage over the OS map is that ours gives a list of tenants and the actual names of the fields worked. The list also includes the Robin Hood Inn (which the OS map calls the Robin Hood & Little John PH). The unnamed church is St Mary’s CoE. Like areas in north Bradford, which I know better, there seems to be a mixture of old enclosures and new allotments given by the nineteenth century Parliamentary Enclosure Acts. Among the other landowners are some familiar names: Miss Currer, RB Wainman, Rev. Major Dawson, trustees of the late Miss Waterhouse, the Low Moor Company and the ‘Incumbent of Coley’.

Richard Bradley Wainman was a Shipley landowner and resident at Cowling, Skipton but he died in 1842. He had a son William Bradley Wainman (1812-1871) and presumably the initials were confused. ‘Miss Currer’ is probably Miss Frances Mary Richardson Currer of Eshton Hall, near Gargrave (1785-1861). She was the heir of Richard Richardson and patron of North Bierley Chapel. I assume that Rev. Major Dawson is a descendant of Rev Joseph Dawson of the Low Moor Iron Company who also own land. The incumbent of Colay must be the minister of St John the Baptist CoE Church in Coley, Halifax.

Since I first posted this map local historian of Low Moor, Mary Twentyman, has drawn my attention to pertinent material in William Cudworth’s Round About Bradford. The Lords of the Manor of Wyke were for many years the Saville and the Empson or Empsall families. To the Empsalls succeeded Mr. Mayer, of Northowram Hall.

In 1813 an Enclosure Act for the unenclosed lands of Wyke was passed. The principal owners of the land at that time were Charles Mayer, of Northowram (heir to John Mayer, of York), lord of the manor, Miss Frances Richardson Currer, of Bierley Hall, and William Wainman, of Carrhead. An enclosure of the common lands amounting to about 200 acres was made in 1816.

From Charles Mayer, through marriage with his daughter, Lordship of the Manor passed to Mr. Thomas Carvick. Charles Meyer’s daughter was called Marianne Barbarina, and from her their son Thomas Meyer Carvick, acquired his middle name. Oddly he was born in Boulogne.

In 1834 the Low Moor Company acquired leases of ninety years to work the minerals under the estates of Thomas Carvick, then lord of the manor, and in 1849 his portion of the estate was sold by auction, when the Low Moor Company purchased largely. In 1834 the Company also acquired similar leases of ninety years to work the minerals under Miss Currer’s property, and concurrently they obtained short renewable leases from Mr. Wm. Wainman, he being unable, owing to the strict disposition of his property, to grant leases for longer terms. In 1856, however, an Act was obtained to free the Wainman estate from these encumbrances. The land is now passing into various hands, Mr. W. B. Wainman and Sir Mathew Wilson being free sellers..