John Thomas Micklethwaite

[1] He was born at Rishworth House, Bond Street, Wakefield, Yorkshire (which stood on the site of what is now County Hall, Wakefield) to James Micklethwaite of Hopton, Mirfield, a worsted spinner and colliery owner, and his wife, Sarah Eliza Stanway of Manchester.

He grew up in the Micklethwaite family’s ancestral home at Hopton Hall and was educated in Tadcaster and Wakefield.

In 1881 he wrote a paper On The Treatment Of Ancient Architectural Remains in which he argued that the "restoration" practices of the last generation had been "...more destructive than the axe of the Puritan, or the century and a half of churchwardenism which came after it" (p. 353).

He was a member of the Art Workers' Guild to which he was elected Master in 1893,[5] and took a leading part in the affairs of the Archaeological Institute and of the Society of Antiquaries.

From 1898 until his death in 1906, aged 63, Micklethwaite served as Surveyor of the Fabric of the Abbey, where he is buried in the West Cloister.

The Dean wrote: "Yesterday (October 31, 1906) we laid in the cloisters an eager, reverent, skilful worker.