This is a story with a few gaps in it that will probably never be filled but that makes it more intriguing.

Before the Suez Canal was built , Gibraltar was hugely important for Britain in gaining safe access to the Mediterranean. This was especially so when pirates from North Africa, the Barbary states of Mauretania which was opposite Gibraltar. Algeria and Tunisia which guarded another narrowing in the Mediterranean. The region was were named from the indigenous Berbers.

Solemn Dupier was a member of the Gibraltar garrison when it was taken by Sir George Rooke in 1704. “There seems to have been some understanding before the attack” suggests Dupier betrayed the Spanish. The rock was granted to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Dupier was given a generous pension for life. He settled in Pontefract with Captain Loy.

Following his death in 1732 his wife Elizabeth replaced the ancient market cross with the new butter market house in 1734 to provide shelter to women selling their wares, a fine act of charity,

The Dupiers are buried in Darington church