Malcolm Neesam

As of 2022, Neesam's "vast collection of papers and photo library" which "took up an entire room at his home" was to be deposited in the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, as part of the Walker-Neesam Archive. That archive also includes the papers and historical research of Harold Walker, a former editor of the Harrogate Herald.

Neesam was associated with the organisation Friends of Valley Gardens, and helped lead the reopening ceremony of the restored Old Magnesia Well Pump Room on 6 October 2015 when it was about to become an information and education centre. He was also associated with the Friends of the Mercer Art Gallery, and gave a talk to that association in 2017, about "Harrogate's connection with the Russian Imperial Family". He was vice president of Harrogate International Festivals, which asked him in 2016 to write the history of its music festival on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, and the finale of the 2022 music festival was dedicated to Neesam. He was involved with Harrogate Theatre and Harrogate Dramatic Society, and assisted in the creation of a new play about Samson Fox: The Man who Captured Sunlight, which was premiered after his death, on 23 September 2022.

Neesam's life's work as a historian was his projected trilogy of works on the history of Harrogate. It took him forty years of research and preparation to finally produce the first part in 2005: his weighty 448-page Harrogate Great Chronicle, 1332–1841. The second part was a two-volume set, of 684 and 598 pages respectively. In 2022, when he published it as Wells and Swells: The Golden Age of Harrogate Spa, 1842–1923, The Harrogate Club named its dining room after him. When he died, he was still engaged upon the uncompleted third part, which was intended to encompass Harrogate's history from 1923 onwards. Neesam said of his concentration on Harrogate history: “Some writers can turn to anything. I can only write about things that interest me”.

For his services as a historian, Neesam was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Harrogate by Harrogate Borough Council in 1996, when he was also given honorary membership of The Harrogate Club. He was involved in the inception of the Harrogate Brown Plaque Scheme, and was influential in the listing of many Harrogate buildings. He was a founder member of Harrogate Civic Society and assisted other major local organisations where their work required historical input. For thirty years he wrote the weekly "Bygone Harrogate" column in the Harrogate Advertiser, and his published works spanned a period of fifty years.

Neesam was made an honorary member of The Harrogate Club in May 1996, when he was given Freedom of the Borough "for his services as a historian", and "in recognition of his eminence as a local historian and for the help and advice he had given to the Council on a range of matters for many years", by Harrogate Borough Council.

Neesam served three years as a Harrogate Central Library assistant. He then trained and qualified as an archivist and librarian at the University of Leeds. He spent over four years in Hereford setting up a library service for children, then was employed as one of the Duchy of Lancaster's archivists in Northwood, Hillingdon, London. After that he moved back to Harrogate and commuted to York, where he was the York city music librarian until 1974, the year when local government and its employees were reorganised. However the reorganisation made him county music and audiovisiual librarian, overseeing new administration and the development of media from vinyl through casette tape to compact discs. From 1996 he was arranging vacations for visiting Americans, for the firm Alumni Holidays.

Neesam's literary life began when as a schoolboy he wrote stories. In 1972 he was asked by the Library Association to edit the 16-page booklet Into Space, a "guide to children's sci-fi", which was distributed throughout the libraries of England. While still an employee in York, Neesam was also serving as a tour guide there. With Alumni Holidays he gave lectures on the local environment, literature and architecture. He became a full-time historical author in 2006, and in due course he was termed "chronicler of our town" by Harrogate MP Andrew Jones. As a member of the Harrogate Society, he received requests to write local company histories, and to assist with the creation of commemorative plaques in the town. Neesam wrote a "weekly column in the Harrogate Advertiser running for 30 years on every aspect of the town's heritage".

Besides writing, Neesam's historical work included involvement with the listing of various Harrogate buildings, and in the establishment of a conservation area there – the first one in the town. He was also in at the inception of the Harrogate Brown Plaque scheme, when he took part in designing Harrogate's first brown plaque, dedicated to Tewit Well, in 1971. He was still unveiling them in 2022, when the 89th one was installed in honour of The Harrogate Club.

In 1970 or 1971 Neesam was a founder member of Harrogate Civic Society, then known as the Harrogate Society. Harrogate trader William Woods said:

Malcolm George Neesam (28 June 1946 – 28 June 2022) was an English historian and writer specialising in the history of Harrogate, North Yorkshire. He was also a librarian and archivist. His major works were the first two parts of a projected trilogy on that subject: Harrogate Great Chronicle, 1332–1841 (2005) and Wells and Swells: The Golden Age of Harrogate Spa, 1842–1923 (2022). The third part was to remain unfinished when he died, although his research papers are preserved in the Walker-Neesam Archive at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate.

Malcolm George Neesam was born on 28 June 1946 in a nursing home on Ripon Road, Harrogate, North Riding of Yorkshire. His father worked in a shoe-sole factory. His mother's maiden name was Craggs. He was a pupil at St Peter's Church of England Primary School, and Christ Church Secondary School for Boys (later amalgamated with St Aidan's Church of England High School, Harrogate). Neesam never married. He died of cancer in a Harrogate care home on his 76th birthday in 2022. After his death, Graham Chalmers of the Harrogate Advertiser described him as "Harrogate's greatest historian", and said he had made "a lifetime's contribution to Harrogate's civic life which it is difficult to over-state".