William Bernard Ullathorne (1806-1889)

William Ullathorne was born in Market Place, Pocklington on the 7th May 1806 to an old and established Roman Catholic family. He was the eldest of 10 children to businessman and grocer William Ullathorne and Hannah (Longstaff).

At 8 years he was sent to Burnby to stay with the local blacksmith. This stay had such a lasting influence on him that he detailed on his time there in his autobiography.

With a population of less than 100, the majority of which being farmers, farm labourers and a blacksmith and wheelwright. However, it also had a small Protestant school which had

"had mud walls, thatched roof, and a clay floor, but turned out good accountants and land surveyors."

Whilst there, Ullathorne and his brother stayed with the blacksmith and the wheelwright. He described the blacksmith's in his memoir;

"we slept in a dark attic under the thatch of the cottage, illuminated only by one pane of glass. We sat in winter evenings by the fire in the brick floored room that served for kitchen parlour and hall, hearing vigorous talk on agricultural matters, intertwined with the gossip and small scandal of the village, of which the blacksmith's shop was the focus. [...] Sometimes we got the privilege of taking a turn at the great bellows, and sometimes we got a half holiday to help plant the family potatoes."

But before the time of the railway and cars, Burnby was isolating, with Ullathorne noting:

"Burnby was a lonely little place; we seldom saw a stranger, and if one rode through it on horseback at rare intervals, he seemed to have come out of some unknown world, and to pass into an other."

Ullathorne would go onto become vicar general of Australia, and on his return campaigned to end the transportation of convicts to Australia.