Story of Skipton's William Mattock, church and empire

William was born in 1840 and was old enough to have seen, and perhaps heard, the clanking and hissing of the first steam engine travelling up the Aire valley into Skipton station in 1847.

Little more than a boy, he was set to work with his uncle John at Embsay, learning the trade of a ‘corn factor’. It is likely that John was a ‘corn badger’, travelling farms and village communities with modest amounts of corn for sale. Eventually William was to strike out on his own by taking premises in Skipton’s Swadford Street, but his big chance came when he took over the town’s High Corn Mill, enabling him to prosper as the town miller and raise a family of three boys and five girls.

A devoted Weslyan Methodist, William must have had strong feelings about the mill which was where John Wesley himself preached to the town on June 26, 1764.

The Weslyan requirements for a strict adherence to good business ethics, probably helped the family prosper, and William was to become the senior preacher on the ‘circuit list’, and a stalwart, of Water Street Chapel. The milling and corn business expanded and William took additional premises at the bottom of Middle Row, in Sheep Street, as a depot for the sale of flour and meal to the public. 

Although a family concern, the spirit moved his son William jnr. to travel to Canada, where he eventually established a farm, settling in the remote western region of Saskatchewan. As time passed he became joined in the vicinity by other settlers, and a small village community became established. By common consent and with due regard to William’s pioneering, the village was called Skipton (Saskatchewan). The choice of name was possibly both inescapable and unanimous, as the new local settlers included others from Skipton and District. Amongst the arrival were James Phillip, son of Mrs Phillip and the late J.W.Phillip of 23 Otley street, to be joined later by his brother Jackson, each later in time farming a separate farm. The Green family at Heslaker also had relations who were to farm in the locality.

Eventually the community was sufficiently strong enough to erected a village church, which was at first non- denominational, but which was later to be taken into the folds of the Anglican Church, and named as ‘Christ Church’. Times were very hard in this remote, wheat growing prairie, where temperatures often dropped to -45F degrees, in spite of which William opened up a village Store. The community were buoyed by the real prospect of a proposed pioneering railway line, which was expected to join the village to civilisation in faraway places, but hopes were dashed. The promised railway came, but missed Skipton (Saskatchewan) by about 8 miles, establishing their neighbouring township of Leaske with modern connections. Saskatchewan was so remote, that at that time, Skipton had only 2 delivered posts a week, and today the locality is host to the Lake Muskeg Indian reserve.

William Mattock Snr. sadly died whilst riding out in his pony trap with two ladies, on a warm sunny day in 1908. Much mourned by the town, shopkeepers pulled their blinds down in respect to the courtege, and Water Street chapel was filled with mourners. It was said that William had the respect of the town and most villagers in nearer Craven. His genes continued in Skipton and Craven through the Mattock, Clayton, Mason and Willan families. His grandson, John Wilson Willan, suffered the extreme misfortune of being gassed by the Germans in 1916, whilst his son in law John Clayton was a doyen of ‘The Craven Herald’, first being a noted journalist for 24 years and then serving a further 16 years as editor. It was of course John Clayton who compiled and edited the locally famous ‘Cravens Part in the Great War’ which was funded by Walter Morrison our MP.

Meanwhile, William’s other son Harry had been running the High Corn Mill and depot for a while, and he decided to join William in Saskatchewan. After his arrival, the brothers decided that if Leaske, now on the railroad, was to be the coming place, they would open a store there, and on doing so it also prospered. Harry was eventually to move on, to live in Vancouver, and was to revisit the UK in 1910, 1922-25, and after WW2, eventually returning to a late retirement in Morcambe, where he regaled family with tales of his life in this remote part of the Empire.

As for Skipton (Saskatchewan), in due course ‘Christ Church’ became part of a benefice of four churches, with a vicar based in Lease. The township of Leaske failed to become a sizeable town, but remains a viable community, whereas little except the church is said to be left in Skipton (Saskatchewan) today. Surprisingly, the Vicar, the Rev.R Handly, arrived in Skipton in Craven in March 1933, in order to take up the curacy of Christ Church (Skipton in Craven) in the coming April. In doing so, the Rev. Handly became the first, and almost certainly the last, Vicar to run two ‘Christ Churches’, in two different Skiptons, on two different continents. Perhaps in the end, this is all simply a tale of Yorkshire endeavour, fortitude and continental spread, that was so common at the height of the British Empire.