Description
Postcard of a print from 1893, drawn by Joseph Rideal Smith and printed by Stott Brothers, lithographers of Halifax, from Smith's series of a dozen views, "Old Halifax", the set selling for 50 shillings. So commercially successful were Smith's drawings that he became known as "Old Halifax".
Joseph Rideal Smith was born in 1837 at the Waggoners Inn, which was on the top side of Northgate. He studied as an architect, but due to ill health returned to Halifax in 1870, gaining employment at the Duke of Bedford's estate. After this he worked as the town's first sanitary inspector, and had great influence in building the Halifax goyte* system. He married Miss Empsall of Craven Edge in 1873 and they had one daughter. Smith died in 1915.
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