Marie Hartley
Marie Hartley was the author or co-author and illustrator of some 40 books on the social history of the Yorkshire Dales. She was born into a prosperous family of wool merchants at Morley, near Leeds. She attended Leeds College of Art and then the Slade School in London, where she specialised in wood engraving. On her return to Yorkshire she settled in the market town of Wetherby. During the 1930s and 1940s she set up in partnership with a local writer, Ella Pontefract, illustrating books on the Dales and Yorkshire. The two women published six books on Yorkshire life and customs before Pontefract died in 1945.
Subsequently, Marie Hartley was joined by Joan Ingilby. Marie Hartley spent 75 years gathering material which related to disappearing rural traditions of Yorkshire. The women travelled across the county collecting stories, written material and artefacts, all of which they brought back to the 17th-century cottage they shared at Askrigg in Wensleydale. In the early 1970s they donated their collection to the former North Riding of Yorkshire County Council. In 1979 this gift formed the basis of the collection now housed in the Dales Countryside Museum at Hawes.
Their masterpiece was Life and Traditions in the Yorkshire Dales, although many rank The Old Hand Knitters of the Dales alongside it as a local history classic. The archive of their documents and photographs remains in the care of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, whose Silver Medal they won in 1993. Both were appointed MBE in 1997, and in 1999 received honorary degrees from the Open University. Ingilby died in 2000 aged 89.
Works
Works by or about Marie Hartley with Ella Pontefract and Joan Ingilby| Title | Date | Publisher |
| Swaledale by Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley | 1934 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Wensleydale by Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley. | 1936 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| The Charm of Yorkshire Churches by Ella Pontefract, sketches by Marie Hartley. | 1936 | The Yorkshire Post |
| Wharfedale by Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley. | 1938 | J.M.Dent & Sons |
| Yorkshire Tour by Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley. | 1939 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Yorkshire Cottage by Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley. | 1942 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Yorkshire Heritage, A Memoir to Ella Pontefract, written and illustrated by Marie Hartley. | 1950 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| The Old Hand Knitters of the Dales by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1951 | The Dalesman |
| Yorkshire Village by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1952 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| The Yorkshire Dales by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1956 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| The Wonders of Yorkshire by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1959 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Yorkshire Portraits by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1961 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Getting to Know Yorkshire by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1963 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Life and Tradition in the Yorkshire Dales by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1968 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Life in the Moorlands of North and East Yorkshire by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1972 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Shell Guide to East and North Ridings by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1974 | Shell Publications |
| Life and Tradition in West Yorkshire by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1976 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| A Dales Heritage by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1982 | The Dalesman |
| The Origins of the Upper Dales Folk Museum by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1984 | Wensleydale Press |
| Alexander Fothergill & and the Richmond Turnpike Road, edited by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1985 | North Yorkshire County Record Office |
| Dales Memories, by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1986 | The Dalesman |
| Yorkshire Album by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1988 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Yorkshire Dales Wood Engravings by Marie Hartley. | 1989 | Smith Settle |
| A Dales Album by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1991 | J.M. Dent & Sons |
| Yorkshire Dales Wood Engravings – A Further Selection. | 1991 | Smith Settle |
| Forms and Colours, Marie Hartley. | 1992 | Smith Settle |
| A Farm Account Book from Wensleydale edited by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1992 | North Yorkshire County Record Office |
| Poems by Joan Ingilby, | 1994 | Smith Settle |
| A Favoured Land, Yorkshire in Text and Image, the work of Marie Hartley, Joan Ingilby and Ella Pontefract. | 1994 | Smith Settle |
| Marie Hartley's Picture Book | 1995 | Quince Tree Press |
| Fifty Years in the Dales by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby. | 1995 | Smith Settle |
| Marie Hartley : Wood Engravings by Marie Hartley. | 1996 | Smith Settle |
| Making a Backcan | 1997/8 | Smith Settle |
| The Harvest of a Quiet Eye: A Tribute to Marie Hartley MBE | 2006 | The Friends of the Dales Countryside Museum |