A LOCAL art historian is calling on the help of readers to identify dozens of mystery people in paintings.

Colin Neville has unearthed 51 portraits painted by Silsden artist Kathleen Gorell, who was born in Bradford in 1911 and died in 1989, but he has no idea who many of them are. He hopes that local people might recognise some of the figures on this page, or in the entire collection, which he has placed on his website Not Just Hockney.

Mr Neville created the Not Just Hockney site to highlight the lives and works of many artists across the district, dating back through the last century. Under the same banner he presents regular displays of paintings by current artists from the district on the Big Screen in Bradford’s City Park.

Mr Neville said the 51 portraits were found recently in an attic, adding: “Just before she died in 1989, Kathleen gave over 60 portraits she had painted or drawn over a 30-year period to Keighley Art Club to dispose of as they wished.

“The Art Club managed to trace some of the sitters, but for nearly 30 years the remaining 50-plus unframed portraits, along with some local urban landscape paintings, lay undisturbed in the attic of the club secretary, and were only recently found after his death.”

The portraits have now been donated to the Silsden History Group. History Group member David Mason and Silsden resident Mr Neville are researching the identities of the sitters as well as finding out more about Kathleen Gorell.

Mr Neville said: “We know she was born 1911 in Bradford and her name at birth was Kathleen Briggs. Nothing is known yet about her early life, but in 1937 she married John Kenneth Gorell, a police constable.

“John and Kathleen lived at first at Bolton Lane, Bradford, then later moved to Westleigh, Bingley, and finally to 9 Howden Road, Silsden. Kenneth died in 1984.

“In the mid-1950s Kathleen studied art part-time at Shipley Art & Technical Institute and we know she was a member of the Keighley Art Club when she lived at Silsden. But we would like to find out more about her and the identities of the people in the portraits. Judging by the fashions and hair styles, they date from the mid-1950s onwards.”

Silsden History Group are planning to stage an exhibition of the portraits at the Silsden Town Hall in March this year.

Mr Neville added: “We are hoping to reunite the surviving sitters with their portraits, if possible, or at least give their relatives a chance to claim them.”

All the portraits can be viewed via the home page of the Not Just Hockney website at notjusthockney.info, Mr Neville can be contacted through the website.

Silsden History Group is a group of volunteers who focus on researching the history of their town and the surrounding ‘Cobbydale’. The group’s website silsdenhistorygroup.co.uk contains a detailed timeline of Silsden’s history, along with several articles and pictures of Silsden in past times.

One picture features Kirkgate in the 1930s, while another shows bygone Brunthwaite, but points out, Nicholas changed over the years.

There are images of the aquaduct built across Swartha Beck in the 1850s for Bradford’s water supply, Holden and Howden Park which was once an enclosed private hunting park belonging to the Lords of Skipton Castle, and outlying farms on Crossmoor and Silsden Moor which were tenancies of Skipton Castle until 1947.

There is an article about the establishment and early history of Becks Worsted Mill, the first steam-driven textile mill to be built in Silsden, investigating the stories of the men who had it built in the early problems they faced.

Another article tells how the Leeds and Liverpool Canal opened for barge traffic to pass through Silsden in 1773, and follows the story through to the end of the 19th century, telling how the canal through Silsden was particularly important for carrying limestone, coal and passengers.

Other articles relate the history of Penny Peck Hall, an early Victorian, classically styled, double-fronted villa in Keighley Road; the life of James Pickard who founded the King’s Arms in Silsden; and the Great Silsden Reservoir controversy ‘which saw Bradford Corporation plan three reservoirs in the 19th century to help meet the city’s water needs.

A research paper explores the anguished outpouring of a young National School teacher, named John Phillip, who lived in Silsden in 1861.The young man puts into words his sense of isolation and abandonment in a culture that is alien to him, along the way vividly describing some of Silsden’s characters and customs.