Which individual or group has done most for pride in York in the last 800 years of its history? We want you to have your say. STEPHEN LEWIS reports

YOU PROBABLY haven’t heard of Hugh de Selby . Unless you’re a student of medieval history, there’s no particular reason why you should have. But in the early 1200s, he was York’s foremost citizen. And he may even have played a part in helping the city win its charter from King John.

City archivist Victoria Hoyle certainly believes that’s possible. We don’t know a great deal about Mr de Selby, she admits. But what we do know is this. He became, in 1217, York’s first documented Mayor – and he went on to be Mayor at least five more times. He even founded a dynasty of mayors. “His son John, his grandson Nicholas and his great-grandson William also served multiple times as Mayor,” says Victoria, who is part of the city council’s archives team, based at York Explore library.

The de Selby family, who were clearly leading figures in medieval York for generations, were instrumental in the development of York as a self-governing city after it was granted its charter in 1212. And there is more than that. “Hugh was probably one of the men who first advocated for and secured the charter from King John in 1212,” Victoria says.

If that’s true, then Hugh de Selby may well be a good candidate for one of York’s most important and influential citizens of the past 800 years, because that charter from King John was hugely significant.

It allowed York to take charge of its own finances, trade freely and create a council led by a Mayor to manage the city’s affairs. Those early mayors were almost certainly members of the city’s wealthy merchant elite. And they’d probably pretty much have run the city to suit themselves. Nevertheless, the charter laid the foundations of local democracy in the city.

That’s why, in this York 800 year, York has been celebrating. And that’s why, with your help, we’d like to choose for a special honour the man, woman or institution who, in the past 800 years, has done most to make York the beautiful, successful, prosperous city it is today.

A special category has been created in this year’s Community Pride Awards, which are run jointly by The Press and City of York Council , for just this reason.

We want readers to nominate the person or organisation from the past 800 years that they think has done most to make York the city it is today. Nominees will then be put to a public vote, and the winner will be unveiled at the Community Pride Awards ceremony at York Racecourse in October.

It is a real chance to celebrate the people and the institutions who have helped make this city great, says Sonja Crisp , City of York Council’s cabinet member for leisure, culture and tourism.

“York’s history is unique and has been influenced by so many different people in so many different ways over the centuries. Let’s celebrate the past 800 years of York by getting involved in this vote to mark the contributions of some of the city’s most important figures – I await the result with great interest, as it’s a tough choice.”

It’s a tall order, we know. There are so many extraordinary York men and women who deserve to be honoured with what we are calling the York 800 Community Pride Award.

There are some obvious candidates. These include the Rowntrees, Joseph and Seebohm – one a philanthropist who not only built up a great chocolate-making dynasty, but who also ensured his workers were properly housed and treated, the other a social reformer whose work ultimately helped usher in the welfare state; the ‘Railway King’ George Hudson ; and John Goodricke, the young astronomer who gazed at the skies from a window at Treasurer’s House and made observations which, for the first time, made us begin to realise just how big the universe we live in is. Then there are people such as glazier John Thornton who, between 1405-08, made York Minster’s stunning Great East Window; or – why not? – the medieval stonemasons who, from 1220 onwards, built the gothic Minster we know today itself.

But we want to be able to consider less obvious candidates as well: which is why, to help get you started, we invited Victoria to name the men, women or institutions from each of the last centuries who she felt had made the most significant contribution to York – and yet about whom most of us knew comparatively little.

Her suggestions, featured on these pages, include the above-mentioned Hugh de Selby, but also figures like John Snow, the York-born doctor who effectively founded the science of epidemiology, saving countless lives.

Don’t feel bound by Victoria’s suggestions, though. If there is a man, woman or institution you feel deserves consideration, we want you to nominate them. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a historical figure, either. There are plenty of very worthy contenders from the modern era: people such as Dame Judi Dench ; the late, great John Barry, son of York cinema-owner Jack Prendergast; and Dr John Sentamu, our charismatic Archbishop of York .

Any of them would make a worthy winner. But it’s your choice – so get nominating now. Nominees should be submitted to Press reporter Kate Liptrot by email by next Wednesday. We’ll run a complete list of all the nominees next Friday. And then the voting can begin…

• To nominate a person or institution for the York 800 Community Pride Award simply email the name and details of the candidate you would like to nominate to Press reporter Kate Liptrot at kate.liptrot@thepress.co.uk by close of office hours on Wednesday, August 15.

Serious nominations only, please. Inclusion of any nominee will be strictly at the editor’s discretion. His decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Victoria Hoyle’s suggested nominees

• Hugh de Selby, Mayor of York in 1217 and on at least five other occasions, who may well have helped York gain its charter from King John in the first place . See above for details.

• The Guilds of the City of York
York’s guilds were one of the most important features of city life in the 1300s, says Victoria. Some were professional guilds, others religious, but all had social, economic and spiritual roles.By around 1350 the guilds had began to stage and perform the cycle of York Corpus Christi or Mystery Plays on wagons around the city – plays that have been reinterpreted in such spectacular style in the Museum gardens this summer. The guilds also helped pay for funerals, the protection of widows and children and food on feast days.

• King Richard III (died 1485, Battle of Bosworth)
Did he kill the Princes in the Tower? Or has he been mistreated by history? None of us really know, admits Victoria. “But he was very popular in York both before and after he was King, and on his death the Council made a special entry in the House Book lamenting his death and remembering how many good things Richard had done for the city.”

• Robert Holgate , Archbishop of York (died 1555)
“Robert Holgate was a native Yorkshireman and made his mark by founding three grammar schools, including Archbishop Holgate’s School in York, in 1546,” says Victoria. “Originally the school was in Ogleforth and offered a rare opportunity for boys to receive a free or low-cost education. Another similar school was established in Hemsworth in West Yorkshire, Holgate’s place of birth.”

• Ann Middleton (died 1655)
“Lady Ann Middleton was one of several York women who left money to found Almshouses or charities,” says Victoria. “She was the wife of Peter Middleton, a sheriff of the city, and left money to build a refuge for 20 Freeman’s widows. Her charity continued to benefit poor widows for over 200 years.”

• Dorothy Wilson (died 1717)
“Dorothy Wilson … founded a charity that distributed money to blind men and women of the city for over 150 years. These charities were a lifeline in an age before social and medical care were available,” Victoria says.

• Mary Tuke (died 1752)
Mary was one of York’s most successful businesswomen, owning her own grocery shop and trading independently. The shop was eventually left to her nephew William Tuke, who turned it into the tea and cocoa business that eventually became Rowntrees and Co.Mary was the matriarch of the extended Tuke family, which also went on to found The Retreat, a “beacon of human treatment for mental illness”, Victoria says.

• John Snow (born in York in 1813), Queen Victoria’s anaesthetist
Snow was instrumental in the development of anaesthetics in the mid-19th century. He attended Queen Victoria at the birth of two of her children to administer chloroform. “He also proved that cholera is waterborne, helping to shape public health policy and saving many thousands of lives.”

• William Giles (born 1846), Deputy Town Clerk
Giles almost single-handedly rescued the medieval archives of the City of York from the flooded basement at the Guildhall in 1892. “He waded into water up to his chest to save documents dating back to the time of Richard III.,” says Victoria. “He then worked in his spare time to repair them and catalogue them. Without his work one of the most important medieval archives in the world would have been lost.”

  • Bertha (‘Betty’) Stephenson (born in York in 1896, died at Étaples in France, 1918), First World War ambulance driver

Betty joined the YMCA volunteer corps in the First World War and was sent to France in 1916. She initially worked in the canteens that produced food for the soldiers on the front. In 1917 she became an ambulance driver at a hospital in Étaples.“She was killed in an air attack while on duty in May 1918 and was one of only a handful of women awarded the Croix de Guerre avec Palme (the French equivalent of the Victoria Cross),” Victoria says. She is buried amongst fallen soldiers in Étaples Military Cemetery.