Letter 2841

Thoresby describes a rain storm in Ripponden. Mr Tanley informed Thoresby that a great inundation took place and many people drowned: ‘Fifteen parsons were drowned of whom Jonas Longbothom & his servant are not yet found’. Buildings and homes were damaged and people are missing. Ripponden Chapel was ‘took down’ by the torrent. There was also a storm in Leeds, though not as devastating as that at Ripponden. Lady Betty Hastings has pledged ‘a Thousand pounds towards the erecting of a new Church in this populous town’. £5000 pounds have been raised to rebuild the parish. Thoresby tells Sloane that the translation of a particular Greek phrase was ‘Wel-Worship’ rather than ‘Wil-Worship’. Thoresby was an antiquary and topographer. He expanded his father’s Musaeum Thoresbyanum impressively, and his collection brought him into discussion with many important political and scholarly figures (P. E. Kell, “Thoresby, Ralph (1658-1725)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27334, accessed 3 June 2011]).