Older readers who remember when sweet shops displayed their wares in labelled glass jars will affectionately recall Keighley-made Bottomley’s Mint Rock and other delicacies.

Founder of the firm, Jonas Bottomley, pictured on this old advertisement, died in mysterious circumstances under the Dark Arches at Leeds railway station one October night in 1883.

Witnesses – some of whom called him “the old gentleman”, though he was only 52 – told how he had been seen going in and out of the station the worse for drink, had been pestered by girls selling matches, had talked to two young women and had a brush with a gang of youths, who stole his watch.

But none of this really explained how he came to be found dead on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal towpath early the next morning. The case was never solved.

It was even suggested Mr Bottomley might have fallen out of a train and down an embankment.

J Bottomley and Sons Ltd ceased production in 1981, the business transferring to Bradford wholesale confectioners F W Bishop and Sons six years later.