"My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles to a lemon."
A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith of Foston le Clay, North Riding, by his daughter, Lady Holland (1855)
Any REED collection is a collaborative effort, and given the geographical spread of the North Riding, this collection is more collaborative than usual. It gives me considerable pleasure, therefore, to thank the colleagues, researchers, and local historians who have assisted me in its preparation.
The staff of the REED project at its Toronto office deserves pride of place for having to put up with me on a virtually daily basis. This includes Alexandra F. Johnston, founder and senior consultant (from 2011); Sally-Beth Maclean, director of research and general editor (from 2011); Patrick Gregory, palaeographer and Latinist; Tanya Hagen, bibliographer and copy editor; Sim Ong, bibliographical assistant; Kathy Chung, research associate and digital indexer; Carolyn Black, project manager to July 2020; Jamie Norrish, programmer; Illya Nokhrin, research assistant and digital indexer; Stephanie Hovland, UK research associate; Gašper Jacovac, research assistant; Matthew Payne, UK research associate; and Byron Moldofsky, cartographer.
Much of the burden of support for a REED editor comes from the staff of the libraries and archives in the UK, and my gratitude to the staff of the following repositories is deep: the Yorkshire North Riding Record Office, Northallerton, especially to archivists Margaret Boustead and Thomas Richardson, who bore the brunt of shepherding me through the intricacies of the catalogue; the West Yorkshire Archive Service at both its Wakefield and Leeds offices; the library of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society and the University of Leeds' Brotherton Library, where the YAHS collection presently resides; the Library, University of York and the Borthwick Institute for Archives; the Library, York Minster; the Whitby Museum and its curator, Christiane Kroebel; the Richmond Guild of Mercers, Grocers, and Haberdashers and its clerk, Jamie Edgar.
Beyond the bounds of Yorkshire, the bulk of my research has been at the National Archives at Kew, the British Library, the Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian Library, the Hatfield House Library, and the Chester and Cheshire Archives Service. Local Yorkshire historians have provided invaluable assistance: for the North Riding collection, I have been able to rely on the work of Dr. Jack Binns (Scarborough), Jane Hatcher (Richmond), Colin Hinson (Yorkshire CDbooks), and Ralph Waggett (Richmond guild records).
North American libraries I have relied upon include the Huntington Library, and the following libraries at the University of Toronto: the Robarts Library, the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies Library, and the library of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies.
Research during the pandemic has been made possible by several internet libraries, including HathiTrust, InternetArchive, and Google Books.
Several of my colleagues have assisted with archival work when I was unable to get to the UK; they include John McKinnell (Durham), Diana Wyatt (East Riding), Mark Chambers (Durham), and Alan Nelson (Essex); many of these also provided hospitality when I was able to travel.
This research would not have been possible without funding from a number of sources. The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council generously supported the North East editors with an annual research conference for five years, culminating in a volume of essays on early drama in the North East. In Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council provided research funding for several editors, myself included, and significant funding came from Father Edward Jackman and the Jackman Foundation.
Finally, the North Riding collection is dedicated to the memory of my husband, Kenneth Luby, who put up with it all and even came to Durham.
David N. Klausner