SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Just reading Bill Brysons latest book called Home.Came across this interesting piece.Quote " In 1897 a young ironmonger in Leeds named James Henry Atkinson took a small piece of wood,some stiff wire and not much else, and created one of the great contraptions of history: The Mousetrap.Atkinson sold his patient for 1000 pounds, a very considerable sum for the time and went on to invent other things, but nothing that secured hime more money or immortality"Well you learn something every day thats for sure. I have a few and I know my folks in Leeds have some as I was busy setting theirs whilst visting earlier this year. I like to use peanut buuter where my old man ( well he is 83) likes to use chocolate.Well I thought it was quite interesting.Mods please place in the correct forum if I posted it in the wrong one.Maybe it should be in Famous Leeds Persons or the like. Please delete if this has already being a thread posted.CheersPS I did a search on this , nothing came up. But its not the most friendly search feature, but then again it could be just me

yorkiesknob wrote: Just reading Bill Brysons latest book called Home.Came across this interesting piece.Quote " In 1897 a young ironmonger in Leeds named James Henry Atkinson took a small piece of wood,some stiff wire and not much else, and created one of the great contraptions of history: The Mousetrap.Atkinson sold his patient for 1000 pounds, a very considerable sum for the time and went on to invent other things, but nothing that secured hime more money or immortality"Well you learn something every day thats for sure. I have a few and I know my folks in Leeds have some as I was busy setting theirs whilst visting earlier this year. I like to use peanut buuter where my old man ( well he is 83) likes to use chocolate.Well I thought it was quite interesting.Mods please place in the correct forum if I posted it in the wrong one.Maybe it should be in Famous Leeds Persons or the like. Please delete if this has already being a thread posted.CheersPS I did a search on this , nothing came up. But its not the most friendly search feature, but then again it could be just me Amazing what snippets turn up in here! Intersting to see your choice of bait - cheese is always thought of as the favourite but never had much luck with that - and our feline mouse traps try to pinch it, should see them move when the things snap closed Sweet things do seem to be more attractive to the little murines

chameleon wrote: yorkiesknob wrote: Just reading Bill Brysons latest book called Home.Came across this interesting piece.Quote " In 1897 a young ironmonger in Leeds named James Henry Atkinson took a small piece of wood,some stiff wire and not much else, and created one of the great contraptions of history: The Mousetrap.Atkinson sold his patient for 1000 pounds, a very considerable sum for the time and went on to invent other things, but nothing that secured hime more money or immortality"Well you learn something every day thats for sure. I have a few and I know my folks in Leeds have some as I was busy setting theirs whilst visting earlier this year. I like to use peanut buuter where my old man ( well he is 83) likes to use chocolate.Well I thought it was quite interesting.Mods please place in the correct forum if I posted it in the wrong one.Maybe it should be in Famous Leeds Persons or the like. Please delete if this has already being a thread posted.CheersPS I did a search on this , nothing came up. But its not the most friendly search feature, but then again it could be just me Amazing what snippets turn up in here! Intersting to see your choice of bait - cheese is always thought of as the favourite but never had much luck with that - and our feline mouse traps try to pinch it, should see them move when the things snap closed Sweet things do seem to be more attractive to the little murines Setting up such a mousetrap was always a tricky business trying to avoid the trap working and catching a finger, which was very painful when it happened. I felt sorry for any mouse caught that was still alive, as sometimes did happen.

You are better off with a soft bait on a mouse trap.With cheese and other hard baits the mouse has a better chance of getting the bait without springing the trap.A soft bait sticks to the trap so the mouse has to spend longer trying to get at it often licking it for a long time.Just thought dont i know some rubbish.    

chameleon wrote: yorkiesknob wrote: Just reading Bill Brysons latest book called Home.Came across this interesting piece.Quote " In 1897 a young ironmonger in Leeds named James Henry Atkinson took a small piece of wood,some stiff wire and not much else, and created one of the great contraptions of history: The Mousetrap.Atkinson sold his patient for 1000 pounds, a very considerable sum for the time and went on to invent other things, but nothing that secured hime more money or immortality"Well you learn something every day thats for sure. I have a few and I know my folks in Leeds have some as I was busy setting theirs whilst visting earlier this year. I like to use peanut buuter where my old man ( well he is 83) likes to use chocolate.Well I thought it was quite interesting.Mods please place in the correct forum if I posted it in the wrong one.Maybe it should be in Famous Leeds Persons or the like. Please delete if this has already being a thread posted.CheersPS I did a search on this , nothing came up. But its not the most friendly search feature, but then again it could be just me Amazing what snippets turn up in here! Intersting to see your choice of bait - cheese is always thought of as the favourite but never had much luck with that - and our feline mouse traps try to pinch it, should see them move when the things snap closed Sweet things do seem to be more attractive to the little murines murines now thats a word I've never heard before.I caught 6 over the space of a week about 2 weeks ago.1 using cheese and 5 using chocolate.Haven't seenany sign since.Just as a matter of interest we seem to get them about every 3 or 4 years anyone know of a reason for that?We also live on a terrace block and the nextdoor neighbour says they haven't seen any but she's only been there a year,previous owners seemed to get them at same time as us over a period of about 12 years.Any thoughts on this?     

Fascinating - more info herehttp://www.mylearning.org/jpage.asp?jpageid=72 ... yid=200Why were we so good at inventing back then?

Leeds Hippo wrote: Fascinating - more info herehttp://www.mylearning.org/jpage.asp?jpageid=72 ... yid=200Why were we so good at inventing back then? Hippo,That link is very interesting. Seems the source of Bill Brysons information. He has the same sketch of the trap in his book and some of the wording too.

yorkiesknob wrote: The Mousetrap.Atkinson sold his patient for 1000 pounds, a very considerable sum for the time and went on to invent other things, but nothing that secured him more money or immortality" The poor old mice found the same - well the immortality at least, but no money !!

Some things don't change. I remember "Little Nippers" being a stock item in my godmother's hardware shop in Farsley, and that's been closed for getting on for fifty years.

In the 1960s living in Beeston we found a trace of mouse droppings down by the cooker in the kitchen. I went out and bought a Little Nipper, put a small piece of bacon on it and caught him the first night. I cemented around the gas pipe where there was a small gap and reset the trap. nothing happened even though i put fresh bait on the trap. after about two weeks i put a small piece of bacon on as usual and the more or less forgot about it. about three weeks went by and i was having a pint in Tommy Wass's when my wife rang up and told me there was some noise in the kitchen. I was there in minutes and found next doors lad's hamster in the trap, sadly he was a gonner. His father said he had had the floorboards up sometime before and the animal had gone underneath. how he got into my house was a mystery but the poor thing must have been desperate to try that old scrap of bacon. The lad and my son had a burial ceremony in their garden at the weekend and i kept well out of the way.