Huddersfield Local History Society: Journal 26 (2015) by various

The following is the OCR text of a book and will likely contain conversion errors. This page is designed to be indexed by search engines. Click on a page number to view the book in your web browser.

Please note that the text is not in the Public Domain and should not be reproduced further without the express permission of the copyright holder or their estate.

• source: https://www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk/publications/archive/journal-26/
• licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Page 1

Journal

Huddersfield Local History Society

2015/2016

ISSUE No: 26

ne I o

+

Page 2

HUDDERSFIELD LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY was formed in 1977. It was established to create a means by which peoples of all levels of experience could share their common interests in the history of Huddersfield and district. We recognise that Huddersfield enjoys a rich historical heritage. It is the home town of prime ministers and Hollywood stars; the birthplace of Rugby League and famous Olympic athletes; it has more buildings than Bath listed for historical or architectural interest; it had the first municipal trams and some of the first council housing; its radical heritage includes the Luddites, suffragettes, pacifists and other campaigners for change.

MEMBERSHIP of the Society runs from 1° September until 31° August and the present subscriptions (2015/16) per year are:- Individual membership £10 Double membership £15 Group membership £15 Double membership consists of 2 named persons using a single address and receiving one copy of the Society’s Journal. Cheques should be made payable to “Huddersfield Local History Society” and sent to the Membership Secretary (address inside back cover) or submitted at a Society meeting. Payment by annual Standing Order is encouraged and a form may be downloaded from: www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk/membership

MEETINGS: The Society organises a full programme of meetings each year and the programme for 2015/16 is published in this Journal (page 4). Our Monday evening meetings are held in Heritage Quay at Huddersfield University (entrance at the foot of the Central Administration building), commencing at 7.30pm. Occasional visitors are welcome at a charge of £2 per meeting.

PUBLICATIONS: The Huddersfield Local History Society Journal is produced on an annual basis, free to Members and at a cost of £4.00 to non-members. In addition the Society publishes a number of booklets which are listed separately in this Journal (page 5) together with details of prices and how they may be purchased.

DATA PROTECTION ACT: Members are reminded that their names and addresses are held on computer. The information we hold will only be used for membership purposes and will not be passed on to any other person or organisation. Please inform the Membership Secretary (see inside back cover) if you do not wish your details to be stored in this way.

© This Journal is copyright and no part may be reproduced for publication in any form without the written consent of the Editor.

Page 3

HUDDERSFIELD LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY

JOURNAL

2015/16 Issue No. 26

Picture House — Ramsden Street (date unknown) Courtesy Kirklees Image Archive, www.kirkleesimages.org.uk

Readers may like to suggest a possible date for this nostalgic view of The Picture House on Ramsden Street. Anne Brook’s article on page 9 provides some interesting information about the history of cinema in Huddersfield.

Would you like to submit an article for inclusion in the Journal? The Society welcomes letters, articles, diary extracts, photographs on any aspects of local history. We are planning a “Special Edition” of the Journal in 2018 to mark the 150" anniversary of Huddersfield Corporation, articles linked to this theme will be especially welcome.

Please send items for publication to the Editor (John Rawlinson, 12 Station Road, Golcar, Huddersfield, HD7 4ED. Email address: editor@huddersfieldhistory.org.uk ) The deadline for submission of copy for the 2016/17 Journal, (Issue 27), will be Friday, April 1° 2016. A “Style Guide” is available for Members (or others) wishing to produce articles and the Society offers help for those less confident in using a computer. The “Style Guide” can be found on the Society’s website www.hudderfieldhistory.or.uk

Page 4

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About the Society Inside Front Cover HLHS Committee................ Inside Back Cover EDITORIAL 3

NEWS & EVENTS: The Society’s Programme of 2013/14 cesses The Society’s PUBLICATIONS Kirklees Heritage FOPUIM Discover Huddersfield Initiative

ARTICLES: Mark Freedman and the Early Cinema in Huddersfield ANN C BrOOk 9

A Canadian Soldier’s Grave in Upperthong: A Postscript JOAN H RUMSDY 15

‘All Huddersfield’: Our town on the wireless in the 1920s Christine cos 20

“The Case I Suffer is for Taking a Few Oats” — Continued — Part Two “An Afflicted Man” PAM COOKSCY 29

‘And Along Came (C H) Jones’: Personality, politics and the crisis in policing Huddersfield in the mid-1850s Professor DAVid 36

The Huddersfield Based Family Firm of David Haigh and his Descendants CHriStiNG PIPL 46

Colne or Holme? GEOrge REAMONAS DD

ODICUATLICS 00... ccc 58

The Huddersfield Scientific & Mechanic Institute (HSMI): a response to John Halstead David Griffiths 62

Marsden Mechanics’ Institute — Before the Hall

Steve 64 Book Reviews David Cockman & Keith Brockhill 75

Paddock Primary - The Story of Chocolate Evie Rushworth, Millie Gray, Hira Mazhar, Erin Taylor OL

Page 5

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 3

EDITORIAL

Welcome to the 26" edition of our Society Journal. It has been a year of change for the Society marked by a new venue for our Monday evening meetings. We have been able to welcome a significant number of new Members and, sadly, said a final goodbye to a number whose names are recorded in the obituary section of this magazine.

John Rawlinson Journal Editor

Once again we have put together a ‘bumper’ edition of the Journal. \n addition to the standard items outlining our programme of events, publications and involvements and book reviews, you will find some substantial articles and pieces of research covering a broad range of topics and interests. If you wondered what happened to Samuel Haigh after he was transported to Australia in 1814 for stealing a bag of oats then Pam Cooksey’s follow-up article will interest you. There is a media and learning theme in this Journal — the wireless in our town in the 1920s; early cinema and its Jewish connection; and Marsden Mechanics’ Institute. Professor David Taylor’s article on policing Huddersfield in the 1850s gives some fascinating insights into what a difficult place it could be! Did our town have its beginnings at the confluence of two rivers — the Colne and the Holme? George Redmonds’ fascinating article explores and challenges this view. Becoming interested in the history of your family is often a starting point for many new writers and we are so pleased to include Christine Piper’s account of how she found out about the family firm of David Haigh. Finally, how good it is to include another article written by budding young writers from Paddock Primary School.

Our Society continues to be active on a wide range of fronts. Our publications are listed in the following pages and our website (www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk) is comprehensive and informative.

As we go into press the new season’s programme of meetings and activities is almost finalised. The 2015/16 Programme is produced in later pages of this Journal and we are looking forward to another interesting year. Can |, therefore, encourage you to renew your subscription — at £10 for single and £15 for double membership it is good value. New members are very welcome. The arrangements for paying the annual subscription will be included in our September letter to Members or can be found on the Society’s web site at:- www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk

Page 6

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 4

THE MONDAY EVENING PROGRAMME FOR 2015/16

Monday, September 28th 2015 > TO BE HELD IN THE PARISH CHURCH < Huddersfield Parish Church Conservation Stuart Beaumont Monday, October 26th 2015 Annual General Meeting (short), followed by:-

Miners & Mining in New Mill. Pamela Cooksey Monday, November 30th 2015 World War II Immigrants in Huddersfield Dr Janette Martin Monday, January 25th 2016 Loss and Legacy: the Tolson Story Jenny Salton Monday, February 29" 2016 Bentley and Shaw, Brewers, Lockwood Robert Tomlinson Monday, March 21” 2016 The Woodsome Panels & Early Modern Marriage Professor Jessica Malay Monday, April 25th 2016 Huddersfield’s Chartist Roots Alan Brooke Monday, May 23 2016 The Pilgrimage of Grace Julia Hickey

Please Note: All the above meetings (with the exception of September 23"" 2015) will be held in HERITAGE QUAY, Huddersfield University - commencing 7.30pm.

OTHER EVENTS ENJOYED BY MEMBERS & FRIENDS 1. AStudy Day November 21° 2015 with a theme “War & Peace 1815 & 1915” 2. ANew Year Social Event to be held in January 2016 3. An Evening Excursion to a place of historical interest in June 2016

NOTE: Details of all these events will be circulated to Members later

Page 7

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal

HLHS PUBLICATIONS - AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

As well as our annual Journal, the Society has a range of booklets in print, as follows:

oe

NEW PUBLICATION

“Yours for Eternity” A Romance of the Great War Edited by John H Rumsby (ISBN 978 9509134 90

£8.00 plus £1.75 postage and packing

Joseph Brook of Greenhead

Joseph Brook of Greenhead ‘Father of the Town’ By David Griffiths (ISBN 978 9509134 8 3)

£6.00, plus £1.25 postage and packing

Liberty or Death: Radicals, Republicans and Luddites, 1793-1823 By Alan Brooke and Lesley Kipling (ISBN 978 9509134 7 6)

£8.00, plus £1.95 postage and packing

Liberty ox Death Raina, Pears arc di «708 ~ (823

Huddersfield in the 1820s By Edward J Law (ISBN 978 950913 45 2)

£6.00 plus £1.25 postage and packing

Page 8

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal

Pioneers or Partisans? Governing Huddersfield, 1820-48

OR PARTISANS?

Ciowerning ae be Li

1a 18.

By David Griffiths (ISBN 978 9509134 4 5)

£5.00 plus £1.25 postage and packing

JOSEPH KAYE

BUILDER OF HUDDERSFIELD

Joseph Kaye, Builder of Huddersfield, c. 1779-1858 By Edward J Law (ISBN 9509134 1 3)

c.1778 io

£2.50 plus £0.75 postage and packing

John Benson Pritchett: First Medical Officer of Health for Huddersfield page aie By J B Eagles Ge (ISBN 95091350 5)

JOHN BENSON ta is prone a fem Mit

£1.50 plus £0.75 postage and packing

Queen Street Chapel and Mission Huddersfield By Edward Royle (ISBN 9509134 2 1)

£4.00, plus £0.95 postage and packing

All the above are available from HLHS, 24 Sunnybank Rd, Huddersfield, HD3 3DE, with a cheque payable to Huddersfield Local History Society, or via our website, www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk, with secure on-line payment by PayPal. Look out for the Society’s bookstall, at our meetings and other local events, which also carries a wide range of local history materials from other publishers.

Page 9

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 7

KIRKLEES HERITAGE FORUM

Kirklees Heritage Forum is an informal body which aims to list what has been written about the minority ethnic and religious groups which have resided or settled in Kirklees and to encourage further research and writing about their histories. An audit of what has been done so far can be found on the Migrations page on the website, www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk

In July 2014 the Tour de France passed through Kirklees. Along its route from Ainley Top to Holmfirth the riders passed many sites associated with Kirklees’ diverse international community. The Huddersfield Examiner, under the headline ‘Speeding past some cultural landmarks’ noted many of these: The Ukrainian Club, the Guru Nanak Gurdwara, the Spring Wood mosque, and many others. The article concluded ‘So the Tour is far more than just a cycle race. It’s the route of Huddersfield’s rich and varied heritage.’ The same theme was taken up by Kirklees Local Television, which produced four programmes of interviews with people connected with these sites. These can be found on www.kirkleeslocaltv.com and contain interesting material on features such as the Punjab Stores and the RanX nightclub on Chapel Hill.

Huddersfield Local History Society continues to encourage the objectives of the Forum. The 2014/2015 Journal contained an article by Anne C. Brook, ‘A Communal History of Jews in Huddersfield’. In November Dr Rebecca Gill gave a talk on ‘Belgian Refugees in World War 1’. This was attended by the granddaughter and members of the family of Belgian carpenter Josephus Van Camp and his wife Bertha who had found refuge in Huddersfield. Frank Grombir, one of the Society’s Committee Members, has produced the European Exile Communities Trail for Discover Huddersfield.

These additions to the record are very encouraging. However, there is still much to be done to identify and preserve the records of the various groups which have made their homes in this area. Many of the first arrivals have passed away; their memories and the records of their arrival are being lost. Now it is time to look at the achievements of their descendants.

Anyone interested in supporting the objectives of the Forum please contact Bill Roberts at bill@roberts04.plus.com.

Page 10

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 8

DISCOVER HUDDERSFIELD — CONTINUING PROGRESS By David Griffiths, HLHS rep to DH management committee

a» Uiscover

The Society continues to make a strong contribution to the Discover Huddersfield partnership, which has expanded its activities aimed at developing public appreciation of the town and its heritage. A second year of Town Centre Innovation Fund grant from the Council, and contributions from sponsors, have enabled the production of three new printed town trails over the last year to add to the six already in print. The new trails have a strong historical flavour, covering World War I, the Ramsden Heritage in the town, and a European Exile Communities trail linking sites of significance to migrants from central and eastern Europe. The last two, and the earlier Radical Heritage trail, have been contributed by HLHS authors. All three will be included, with other themes such as public art, historic buildings and women’s suffrage, in a programme of over a dozen guided walks running from April to November 2015. Details of these have been circulated to HLHS members and can be found at www.discoverhuddersfield.com along with the print trails (also widely available in the town centre).

The expanded programme of guided walks means that Discover Huddersfield seeks new volunteers to support the walk leaders, collect money, ensure nobody gets lost, and so forth — and perhaps in due course to lead walks themselves. Anybody interested in helping in this way is welcome to make contact via info@discoverhuddersfield.com or by phoning Karen Hobson on 01484 480890.

Page 11

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 9

MARK FREEDMAN AND THE EARLY CINEMA IN HUDDERSFIELD By Anne C Brook

In his history of the cinema in Huddersfield, published in the early 1950s, Stanley Chadwick chose an image of Mark Freedman to face the title page, indicating how important he felt Freedman’s contribution had been to the story he was telling’. Freedman had died during the Second World War, aged 70, and the picture shows a man who looks the epitome of respectability in formal, rather old-fashioned, dress. He was a member of Huddersfield’s small Jewish community, the history of which was outlined in an article in last year’s Journal’.

Freedman had arrived in Huddersfield from Russia, in an area now part of Lithuania, around 1890. In January 1892, he married the daughter of another Russian émigré, Charlotte Harris, both families being in the tailoring trade. They had four children, two sons and two daughters. Freedman took British citizenship in 1903, around the time that he established his own business in West Parade (later renamed Trinity Street)”. However, by 1911, he had begun to move into a very different industry, converting a former toffee factory into a cinema, the Olympia, in Viaduct Street.

The first animated pictures are said to have been shown in Huddersfield in 1896, and, in 1898, two hours of films were shown in the Town Hall — all of boxing! Bamforth, Holmfirth’s pioneering film company, released its first short films in 1899*. Initially, film emerged as part of working class entertainment, seen in temporary settings such as travelling fairs or local halls. One full reel of film lasted no longer than 15 minutes, with music hall acts being perhaps the closest parallel in terms of the often raucous interaction between audience and screen. The Boer War brought a brief indication

* Chadwick, Stanley (1953) The Mighty Screen: The rise of the cinema in Huddersfield, Venturers Press, Huddersfield. Much of the detail about the local scene comes from this publication. For Freedman see particularly pp 21, 41-42, and 66-69. * No. 25, pp 9-17. ; The London Gazette, 3 November 1903. Freedman used both Mark and Marks as Anglicised versions of his Hebrew name, Mordechai. Family information comes from his obituary in the Huddersfield Weekly Examiner (12 December 1942) and from Mark Freedman’s grandson, Michael, via Nigel Grizzard’s invaluable assistance.

‘ The British Film Institute published a series of volumes on early cinema after the Second World War, of which the third volume, Low, Rachel (1950) The History of Film 1914-1918, Allen & Unwin, London, is the most relevant. Low considered Bamforth one of only two provincial film makers worth documenting.

Page 12

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 10

that the new medium might have a more versatile future, with the Town Hall screening films about the war in 1900 and 1901, and one featuring Queen Victoria’s funeral, also in 1901. Nevertheless, film was most certainly not a “respectable” genre at the turn of the century. However, it was beginning to be seen as a potentially profitable one. Freedman’s Olympia was followed, in 1912, by Huddersfield’s first purpose-built cinema, the Picture House on Ramsden Street, and, in 1913, Bamforth started making longer films with professional actors. By the time the First World War broke out, Huddersfield’s second purpose built cinema, the Empire, was under construction on John William Street, opening on 8

; I March 1915, with a capacity of 796 eee. seats. Newspaper _ reports es sae described in great detail the ee |, splendour of the new building,

using the recently coined phrase “oicture palace””. The manager of the new venture was Mark Freedman, and the first film to be shown there was Kismet, a 40 minute adaptation of the 1911 ees NE ee. play. In later life, Freedman would Empire Cinema, John William Street tell the story of a rival cinema manager in the town who told him that long films would never catch

Courtesy of Kirklees Image Archive

on in Huddersfield.

The First World War was to transform the film and cinema industries but it took some time for the opportunities to be identified and exploited’. In April 1915, The Times argued that films should be used as an aid to recruitment, as the audiences contained many young men, the underlying assumption being that cinema audiences were still on a par with those of the music hall’. It was the end of 1915 before the

Colne Valley Guardian, 5 March, Huddersfield Weekly Examiner, 6 March, 1915. For the national scene, in addition to Low, see Reeves, Nicholas “Official British Film Propaganda” in Paris, Michael (ed) (1999) The First World War and Popular Cinema: 1914 to the Present, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp 27-50. 7 The Times, 14 April 1915. In early 1916, Pathe News filmed the Lord Mayor of Leeds visiting the Leeds Pals in camp. For a private soldier’s view of the process, see Rumsby, John H (ed) (2014) “Yours for Eternity” A Romance of the Great War, Huddersfield Local History Society, Huddersfield, pp 95-96.

Page 13

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 11

authorities started to use film for factual documentary style material and for news bulletins, and almost the end of the war before the potential of fiction as a vehicle for morale building was officially recognised. By 1919, cinemas had a much wider audience, and film makers a broader range of subject matter. The turning point was the release of the film, The Battle of the Somme, in August 1916. 20 million tickets were said to have been sold across the country in each week of its run. It reached Huddersfield in September and was shown at the Empire, and at the Palladium, Birkby’. Although we now know that some scenes were recreated for the camera, at the time the whole film was seen as actual footage of the battle. Distressed soldiers from both sides of the conflict were seen, as well as explicit and detailed images of the dead. The film was mainly viewed in silence by audiences. It gave those at home an idea of the context in which their relatives had died or been injured, and some means of imagining how that had happened. Two follow-up films were made, featuring the battles of Ancre (released January 1917) and Arras (June 1917), but the latter particularly was a box office disaster; the content of these later films had become increasingly sanitised whilst public knowledge of the realities of warfare had become more widespread. For the rest of the war, officially sponsored film tended to concentrate on newsreels, and on short factual films, highlighting subjects such as munitions factories, royal visits, food production, and the navy.

Wartime cinema was not all doom, gloom, and government propaganda. People at home, and servicemen on ae oP eae ae oe leave, needed hope, amusement, and Mark Freedman (1872-1942) romance. Local people could swoon (Chadwick, The Mighty Screen) over Gladys Cooper and her rivals, laugh with Charlie Chaplin or the Keystone

8 A 500 seater, opened in 1914, on the corner of Blacker Road and Leslie Street (Chadwick, p. 112).

Page 14

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 12

Cops, and thrill to a Sexton Blake detective story. The film often cited as the first cinema masterpiece, Birth of a Nation, an American Civil War epic, was released in 1915. Mark Freedman booked the Town Hall for the 1916 August Bank Holiday weekend, in order to show the film, anticipating full houses, even though ticket prices had had to be increased from 6d to 2/-"° in order to cover the new entertainment tax.

Meanwhile, Bamforth’s film section had become a separate company, the Holmfirth Producing Co., and moved to studios in Clapham, London, in October 1915. Between then and the end of the war, the firm produced films as diverse as Ye Wooing of Peggy (May 1917), probably a dialect tale, The Chance of a Lifetime (Feb 1917), featuring high life society and horse LSS } racing, and The Cripple of Ypres (April 1915), a short film in which Germans force a French cripple to guide them and he leads them into an ambush. 5 hie Probably their most famous film of the [am period was Paula (1916), a 5 reeler, based on a distinctly risqué novel by Victoria Cross, in which the playwright heroine marries in order to get her play produced, tries to return to her lover, who virtuously rejects her,

a eel Rane

———

returns to her husband and nurses him Princess Cinema, until he dies, returns again to her lover Northumberland Street. who is by then also seriously ill, gives Courtesy of Kirklees Image Archive him a life-saving blood transfusion, and (www.kirkleesimages.org.uk)

dies herself as a result!

7 Rumsby has many references to cinema visits by Henry Coulter, Lucy Townend, and their friends and families; for example, pp 8, 10, 37, 39, 65, 80, 81, 91, 105. Heywood, Brian (ed) (2014) Huddersfield in World War I, Upper Calder Valley Publications in association with Huddersfield Rugby League: A Lasting Legacy, Cleckheaton, p. 154.

10 A 400% increase.

Page 15

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 13

After the war, in 1922, Mark Freedman left his position as manager of the Empire, and took over a warehouse on Northumberland Street for conversion into a new “picture house and café dansant”, the Princess. The cinema part was opened in May 1923, with the road outside made impassable by the crowds waiting to see Peggy Hyland, the star of the opening film, Shifting Sands, and her film producer husband, Leroy Granville, arrive to open the new venue. The café dansant part of the Princess opened in October, with a private cabaret dinner dance. However, the financial stability of the new venture was not as strong as the backers had hoped, and the company went into voluntary receivership in March 1924, with ownership of the Princess being transferred to a new company ~. For a period, Freedman transferred his business interests to Bradford, where he ran the Regent in Manningham Lane for a decade. , He returned to Huddersfield in the mid 1930s, buying the Savoy in Marsh, and building a new Savoy in Lupset, near Wakefield, both of which he continued to own until his death in

Had it not been for the First World War, Huddersfield might have had a dynasty of Freedmans as cinema owners and managers. Mark Freedman’s eldest child, Myer, enlisted in the army in September 1914, when he was 21. At that time, Myer was the manager of a cinema in Yeadon, having previously Myer Freedman (1892-1916) assisted his father in the management (British Jewry Book of Honour) of the Olympian at Longroyd Bridge’. He is said to have been the only member of the Jewish community in the town who was of military age. Volunteering to serve in the war was not an easy decision for anyone but was particularly

tM The London Gazette, 25 March 1925. 12 Mellor, G J (1971) Picture Pioneers, The Story of the Northern Cinema 1896-1971, Frank Graham, Newcastle, pp 141-142. 3 Stansfield, J Margaret (ed) (2014) Huddersfield’s Roll of Honour 1914-1922, University of Huddersfield Press, Huddersfield, p. 156.

Page 16

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 14

problematic for Jewish men. It was difficult to see how an observant Jew could possibly continue to fulfil his religious obligations within an army or navy environment. For observant and non-observant Jews alike, Britain’s wartime alliance with Russia was abhorrent, as many had arrived in this country to escape the Tsar’s persecution of their communities. However, they could easily identify with the plight of the people of Belgium, whose country was being overrun by the German army, and many Jewish leaders in London urged that this was a welcome opportunity to demonstrate loyalty to Britain, the country which had given them refuge. Further complications arose around issues of nationality and place of birth in relation to the acceptability of Jews who did wish to volunteer and, later, their eligibility for call-up when conscription was introduced”. There is no record of how Myer and his family felt about these matters, and how controversial his decision to enlist might have been amongst the other members of the Huddersfield synagogue. Having completed his military training, Myer arrived in France on 26 August 1915. In May of the following year, still a Private, his “initiative and good work between May 16 and May 21 1916, during which period he controlled and fired a mortar single-handed under trying circumstances with great skill” earned him the Military Medal. Sadly, he died on 19 September 1916, serving with the 10" Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment on the Somme, the day after hearing of the award of the medal. Mark’s other son, Ephraim, was too young to serve in the war and chose accountancy for his career.

Biography

Anne C Brook (a.c.brook0O1@members.leeds.ac.uk) Anne Brook is Huddersfield born but resident in Bradford. She took early retirement to celebrate the millennium, following a career in various parts of higher education, and completed a PhD on Huddersfield’s commemoration of the Great War in 2009, at the University of Leeds.

\4 Until relatively recently, the complex nature of Jewish responses to the First World War has been a divisive topic within British Jewry. A useful guide to some of the issues is Lloyd, Anne (2010) “Between Integration and Separation: Jews and Military Service in World War I Britain”, Jewish Culture and History, 12:1&2, pp.41-60.

Page 17

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 15

A CANADIAN SOLDIER’S GRAVE IN UPPERTHONG: A POSTSCRIPT By John H Rumsby

Readers of this Journal may remember a short article published in the 2013 issue, about a Canadian soldier, Clarence Denman, who died of wounds in Holmfirth War < hs Hospital in 1915.°° He was buried in Upperthong parish churchyard, the staff providing an imposing grave marker. In May 2013 the Huddersfield Examiner published a short account based on the article, so of course the story is now ‘out there’ on the worldwide web. This was fortunate, as the Examiner's piece was seen by a Canadian, Marnie Schaefer, who was researching the writer of a letter written to her grandfather, William Moore, on 5 February 1915. The writer of that letter was Clarence Denman. Marnie has very kindly agreed to allow me to publish the letter here. It gives us a glimpse of Denman’s life as a soldier — and also those of his comrades who came across the Atlantic to help in Britain’s struggle in the Great War.

The grave of Clarence B

Denman, St John’s churchyard, Upperthong.

The letter is mainly self-explanatory, but a little background may be helpful. Denman was serving in the 14" Battalion of the Canadian Contingent, formed from the Royal Montreal Rifles, the equivalent of a British Territorial Force regiment.” The 14" was part of the 3" Infantry Brigade, along with the 13" (Royal Highlanders of Canada), 15" (43 Highlanders of Canada) and 16" (Canadian Scottish). As these titles suggest, the volunteers in Canada maintained an active commemoration of their origins in the homelands in the British Isles. The Canadian contingent initially trained at Valcartier in Quebec, before crossing in a convoy of troopships, landing at Plymouth in October 1914. From there

* JohnH Rumsby, ‘A Canadian Soldier’s Grave in Upperthong.’ Journal of the Huddersfield Local History Society 24 (May 2013) pp 46-52. *® A list of the personnel in the Contingent was published as: Pay and Record Office, List of Officers and Men Serving in the First Canadian Contingent of the British Expeditionary Force (no date — probably 1920s). The 14" Battalion, including Denman in D Company, is listed on pp 128-41. The Regimental history is: R C Fetherstonhaugh, The Royal Montreal Regiment 14" Battalion C.E.F. 1914-1925 (1927; reprinted Naval and Military Press, 2014).

Page 18

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 16

they moved to Salisbury Plain for further training, being transferred between various

camps.

[Addressed to Mr Wm. Moore, 2475 Mance St., Montreal, Quebec,

Pte C.B. Denman No. 25944 No. 3 Company 14" Bn. Royal Montreal Regt. 1° Canadian Contingent British Expeditionary Force.

Lark Hill Camp Salisbury Plain Feb 5/15

Dear Bill, I received your letter, also the Standard Extras,” a few days ago, and wish to thank you very much for them. The Wanderers ought to take the Cup this year if they can keep up the pace they are going, too bad they lost in Ottawa. We have had a pretty nasty week, raining and windy almost every day. Tonight it is raining hard. We have had an easy week, only one or two parades, on account of our moving out in a few days. Tuesday, I was on headquarters fatigue, looking after horses, it was a cinch.

Yesterday, we paraded at 8 A.M. for inspection by the King. We stood on the parade ground about an hour, then marched off to the review ground, only about a mile or so away from our huts. We marched into our position and had to wait a couple of hours for the royal train. The King first walked past and inspected each battalion in turn, stopped and spoke to the 0.c.° inquiring after the comfort of the men, etc. This took about an hour. Then the march past took place, the King standing on the saluting base, with the Royal Standard flying overhead. The artillery came first, then the cavalry, then the three brigades of infantry. It was a wonderful sight, the best I ever saw, our regt. was standing almost directly in front of the base so could see the whole thing, the cavalry especially looked splendid. After it was all over, (the march past took one hour and was done in double column of route, that is eight abreast) we lined the railway track and cheered the King as he passed in the train. He looks something awful, Bill, you would think he was about seventy years old. ” This war has certainly aged him terribly. When he passed in the train he looked so sad that it

‘” The Montreal Standard was a national weekly pictorial newspaper, published from 1905 to 1951. *® Officer commanding. King George V was not quite fifty at the time.

Page 19

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 17

almost made us cry, in fact the boys say that he was crying himself. We arrived back in camp about one o’clock, and had the rest of the day off.

We got paid in the afternoon only got three pounds, but it helped some as everybody was stranded. We should have been paid on the 31°, and as the boys had been without money all month having spent it all in London at Xmas, they were nearly wild, and they were threatening to go on Strike and all kinds of things, and if they had not paid us, I am afraid something would have happened. The boys are a pretty decent lot, but when they have to go without cigarettes for weeks they naturally get peeved.

A lot of them as soon as ever they got paid, beat it off for the surrounding villages to get booze. The pubs are not allowed to sell it to soldiers but they get civilians to get it for them. The boys came back about 8 o’clock feeling pretty happy and they were still carrying on after “Lights Out.” They quieted down about 10.30 and then as none of us could sleep we asked one of the sober boys to sing. He has a dandy voice and was just in the middle of the “Rosary,” when the door opened and in walked the sergt. major. He arrested the corporal in charge of the hut and three men, but let two of them off again; and put the others in the guard room. There were disturbances all over the lines last night so there were about thirty prisoners. To-day the singer was fined 10 shillings, and the corporal lost his stripes. Naturally, we all feel pretty sore over the sentences and think they are unjust, as we were not making enough noise to disturb anyone outside. Besides, when men are without money for a month, they have to break out a little bit. The officers have a devil of a time, last night they had a dance and supper in their mess, and had all the Canadian nurses over from Netheravon Hospital. They kept it up until three A.M.

There is not much wonder that our officers are none too eager to get to the front, they are having too good a time here, and when they get into the field they will have to take the same as the men.

They have to carry packs now so as to make it hard to pick them off. We have had our equipment changed for a slightly improved model, the same equipment exactly but a few improvements.

When we have full packs, rifle, ammunition, etc. the whole weighs about 75 Ibs. some weight to carry all day, isn’t it?

*° The officers were armed with revolvers (and in the early days of the war with swords), and this, with ‘Sam Browne’ belts and conspicuous rank badges worn on the cuffs, made them easy targets for snipers. Later in the war the rank badges were moved to the epaulettes, and many officers took to carrying rifles like their men.

Page 20

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 18

Do you see much of Charley now, he has only written me twice since coming to England. He said he was going to come over himself this month if possible.

Went down to a little village called Durrington this afternoon, and spent quite a lot of cash on food etc. to help out our poor rations.

The boys are feeling pretty happy again tonight, so am looking forward to a little fun. Our hut orderly was put in the clink to-day for refusing to do a little job. We are having all kinds of excitement lately. I enjoy it immensely. Well, Bill, this is not very interesting so will close. Goodby. Your old friend Claire.

P.S. Am enclosing a short poem of the Canadians, which is very fine. a

The inspection by the King on 4 February 1915 marked the Canadians’ assignment to the Western Front. They embarked ten days later, arriving at St Nazaire on 16 February. Two months later they found themselves fighting against a German offensive at Ypres. As was related in the previous article, it was during this battle that Clarence sustained the shrapnel wounds to the lungs, which ultimately lead to his death in Holmfirth Hospital on 25 May 1915.

The recent publication of Margaret Stansfield’s wonderful Huddersfield Roll of Honour has provided a source for tracing many men from the town who emigrated to Canada, and returned to fight with the Canadian forces in Europe.” The Roll lists 23 local men who died whilst serving in the Canadian forces, as well as eleven from Australia, four from New Zealand and three from South Africa. Amongst these men was one who served in the same battalion as Clarence Denman. John (Jack) Lee was born in Huddersfield in 1885, one of four sons of Henry and Ada Lee of Springfield Road, Marsh. He emigrated to Canada in 1912.”° It is tempting to think that he was the man who gave Sgt Taylor the Huddersfield newspaper describing Denman’s funeral.~” However, Taylor stated that he received the newspaper on 28 May, and it was on that day that Lee was wounded in the trenches by a sniper, so that it seems unlikely (although not impossible) that it could have been him who had gave him the

*" Not preserved with the letter. 2 I Margaret Stansfield, Huddersfield’s Roll of Honour 1914-1922 ed Paul Wilcock (Huddersfield, 2014). ** Stansfield, Huddersfield’s Roll of Honour, pp. 274-5. *“ Rumsby, ‘A Canadian Soldier’s Grave,’ p. 50.

Page 21

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal

Canadian War Graves in Egerton Cemetery, Huddersfield: left to right - Driver G R Climo, Canadian Army Service Corps, died 20.5.1917 Private T S A B Shearman, 46" Battalion, died 26.4.1917 Corporal T H Pownell, 73" Battalion, died 20.5.1917 Private T Lawson, 49" Battalion, died 26.4.1917

19

newspaper. Lee, a married man, died of his wounds on 29 May 1915, aged 29. Tragically, he was one of three brothers killed in the war.

Where __ British war memorials note not only the name but the regiment of the man commemorated, it can often be seen that he served in the Canadian army. It is obvious that many of these men maintained close connections with the home

country, and were among the first to respond to the call to arms in 1914. As I hope these two articles show, there is a story worth telling behind each of those names.

Biography

John Rumsby worked as a curator for Kirklees Museums from 1981 until his retirement in 2007. This article combines his two favourite subjects: military history,

and exploring cemeteries and churchyards.

Page 22

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 20

“ALL HUDDERSFIELD’

Our town on the wireless in the 1920s By Christine Verguson

Emley Moor, Holme Moss and Moorside Edge — the broadcasting transmitters that surround Huddersfield are proof enough that the town has played a significant role in broadcasting history but so too have its people. Huddersfield was the first place in the country to have its own ‘night’ on the radio~” and Huddersfield Nights continued to be broadcast at regular intervals throughout the 1920s, a time when, it can be argued, sound broadcasting was both newer and more exciting than the Web is today.

A two-hour programme, Huddersfield’s Night, was broadcast on Friday 19" June 1925 from the BBC’s Leeds-Bradford studio (call sign 2LS) in Basinghall Street, Leeds. This is not to suggest that this was the earliest demonstration of Huddersfield talent on the wireless — the first ever issue of the Radio Times shows that the Crosland Moor United Hand-bell Ringers were given three spots on the Manchester station, 2ZY, on the evening of 28" September 1923.°° Nor did radio begin with the BBC; W.E. Denison, chairman of the Halifax Courier, had operated an amateur station from Wainhouse Tower’ and Huddersfield radio dealer Clifford Stephenson’s first experience of broadcasting was hearing a demonstration being transmitted from the Eiffel Tower even though this consisted of little more than bursts of morse code and time But in 1922 broadcasting was put on a formal footing when the broadcasting interests of the ‘Big Six’ radio equipment manufacturers were brought together to form the British Broadcasting Company.” In Manchester the Metro- Vickers factory at Trafford Park had begun broadcasting as 2ZY in May 1922 and in October it became the BBC’s second station.*” However, poor reception, especially in some major cities, led the BBC to build a series of relay stations beginning with

** Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 12" June 1925 © Radio Times, vol 1, 28" September 1923 *7 Entry for William Ernest Denison in Malcolm Bull’s Calderdale Companion. (http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~calderdalecompanion/d.html#d24) Accessed 6” January 2015 *8 Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 31° October 1974 * Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Vol 1 — The Birth of Broadcasting (London: Oxford University Press), 106 and in passim. * Ibid, 85.

Page 23

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 21

Sheffield in November 1923 followed in Yorkshire by the Leeds/Bradford station in July 1924.

These local relay stations, although short of resources, were able to broadcast their own programmes, providing a marvellous marketing opportunity for Huddersfield’s small band of radio dealers. As the Examiner explained: The event (Huddersfield’s Night) was, indeed, organised by the dealers themselves. One of their number criticised the Leeds-Bradford programmes rather strongly. The official reply was ‘Can you do any better?’ The challenge was immediately accepted, and the BBC were told that they could do better without going out of Huddersfield for the It is likely that one of the dealers responsible for this initiative was Clifford Stephenson, manager of the Radio Equipment Company shop in Market Avenue.”

—— 7s Sy ™~

-

SAI)

ot! TH gy 4 '

1 ie is

td ce

Clifford Stephenson’s shop in Market Avenue Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archives Service

** Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 12" June 1925 ** In later life Clifford Stephenson served for many years on Huddersfield CB Council, becoming both an Alderman and Freeman of the town.

Page 24

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 22

Although the wireless trade had little to do with the production of mineral water, the Opportunity was set up by the four-man board of Ben Shaws; two of its directors, Broadbent Stephenson (Clifford’s father) and Sidney Shaw were enthusiastic ‘home constructors’, assembling their own receivers.” Clifford Stephenson later recalled that it was the opening of the Manchester radio station that prompted the new venture.

Even when the BBC’s Leeds-Bradford station was launched in 1924, listening to the radio was far from straightforward as can be seen from a humorous description of a fictional family’s experience on opening night with ‘father frenziedly waggling “cats- whisker” and commanding family to hold its breath’”’. And Stephenson noted that that the ‘tangling of chords was a common family hazard’.*’ Although it is not possible to estimate how many Huddersfield families were able to listen to Huddersfield’s Night programme at home, it has been estimated that 33% of households in Yorkshire and North Derbyshire had licences by 1931 and 73% by 1938.°° To ensure that all those who wanted to could listen to Huddersfield’s Night (and be tempted to buy wireless sets) the town’s radio dealers remained open until the end of the programme which was also broadcast from the bandstands in Greenhead and Ravensknowle Parks.*’ But Huddersfield’s Night was not the first radio broadcast to be heard in Greenhead Park — in April 1924 the Marconi Company tested equipment there before the broadcast of the King’s Speech opening the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley later in the month,” and loudspeakers were fitted to the bandstand in May 1925 for the reopening of the Even in 1937, when radio ownership was much more widespread, a ‘large crowd’ gathered around the bandstand to listen to the King’s Speech.”

Huddersfield’s Night was broadcast live from Leeds but we can still get some impression of the programme because of the detailed listing in both the Examiner and Radio Times. The performers,’ all of whom are well know locally on the concert

*° Note of back of photograph, Clifford Stephenson Collection, West Yorkshire Archives Service (WYAS) KC592/1/2 4 Bradford Daily Telegraph, 9’ July 1924 *° Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 31* October 1972 °° Mark Pegg, Broadcasting and Society, 1918-1939 (Beckenham, Croom Helm, 1983) 13 *” Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 12" June 1925 °8 Post 19™ April 1924 David Griffiths, secured for the Town: The Story of Huddersfield’s Greenhead Park (Huddersfield: Friends of Greenhead Park, 2011), 47 *” Ibid

Page 25

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 23

were, in order of the Radio Times listing, Ada Thornes (soprano), Lottie Beaumont (contralto), Harold Hallas (baritone), Wilfred Sizer (solo cornet), Ernest Cooper and James Stott (duettists ‘on two pianos’) and Herbert Leeming (entertainer), all of whom had appeared regularly with the Huddersfield Glee and Madrigal Society. The title, author and the time of transmission of each item was also provided.

Herbert Leeming was already well known in Huddersfield, and beyond, for his humorous songs, recitals and sketches. His many appearances in support of the war effort included reciting a poem at a recruiting meeting in August entertaining troops as part of a concert party touring military camps and hospitals as well as accompanying the Huddersfield Glee and Madrigal Society on a tour of North Wales and on visits to London where not only did they perform at both Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey but twice entertained the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, at 10 Downing Street. When Leeming died in 1949 his obituarist reflected that in 1929 the Examiner had described him as ‘one of the most famous of the exports of Huddersfield’. In the obituary Leeming is described as ‘a man of commanding presence’ who ‘on the concert platform relied entirely on “putting over” a joke and never resorted to comic makeup or actions’.”” This style of performance would have been particularly suited to the radio.

The line-up of performers for this first ‘Huddersfield Night’ does indeed suggest that — as the Examiner and the radio dealers had claimed — there was no need to go outside the town to find talent. Lottie Beaumont and Ernest Cooper had been in the Same wartime touring concert party as Herbert Leeming.” In 1915, on the occasion of her marriage to Harold Hallas (baritone), Lottie was well enough known to be described by the Yorkshire Evening Post as ‘the Yorkshire contralto’ with a ‘notable career on the concert platforms and in oratorio in the north and south of England’.”° Both pianists had been founder members of the Huddersfield Organists’ Association in 1903. James Stott was not only the organist at St Thomas’ Church in Huddersfield

** Huddersfield Daily Examiner 19™ June 1925 * Radio Times w/b 12 June 1925, https://theworkerhuddersfield.wordpress.com/1914/08/29/recruiting- at-huddersfield/ (accessed 15" December 2014) *? The Worker, 29" August 1814, https://theworkerhuddersfield.wordpress.com/1914/08/29/recruiting-at- huddersfield/ (Accessed 1° December 2014) “ Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 13" October 1949 *° Ibid. “© Yorkshire Evening Post, 18 March 1915

Page 26

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 24

but was part of the organ builders P. Conacher & And in 1922 James Stott’s Party’ played for the Huddersfield Town team at a dinner in London after their victory in the Cup Final.” Described as a ‘professor of music’ in the 1911 census, fellow duettist Ernest Cooper acted as organist to many of Huddersfield’s musical societies. Sydney Crowther in his centenary history of the Glee and Madrigal writes that Cooper’s ‘work for both the Choral and the Glee and Madrigal Society earned him the respectful admiration of every singer in the town’.

The Examiner article promoting the first ‘Huddersfield Night’ urged those who enjoyed the show to send ‘applause cards’ to the BBC. It is not known if any were ever sent but ‘the Second All Huddersfield Concert’ (the first according to the Yorkshire Post) was transmitted on the Leeds-Bradford station on 25" September 1925 but with different artistes. Herbert Leeming took part in three more Huddersfield Concert Party programmes and made regular broadcasts for the rest of the decade, including presenting Vaudeville?’ with the fast-talking Liverpudlian Tommy Handley. While Handley would become one of the country’s best-known broadcasters, the listings suggest that Leeming’s last radio appearance was on 16" May 1932 when he provided the humour for a special Yorkshire and Lancashire evening to tie in with that day’s Roses match.’ Lottie Beaumont only took part in the first “Huddersfield Night’ but her later broadcasts included conducting the Huddersfield Ladies Choir in 1936 and Ernest Cooper also only appeared in the first programme but he accompanied the Huddersfield Choral Society on many of their broadcasts including the televising of the Christmas Music from Messiah from Huddersfield Town Hall, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent, in 1955.”°

In October 1925 the Yorkshire Post advised readers to tune into the following day’s ‘All Huddersfield’ night, the first to be broadcast from the BBC’s Manchester

*” In the Dictionary of Organs and Organists (London: Geo., Aug., Mate and Son, 1921) Stott is listed as Company Secretary and Business Manager since 1913 but at the time of his death in 1956 he is described as ‘head’ of the company. Huddersfield Daily Examiner 19" October 1956. “® Huddersfield Daily Examiner 1°* May 1922. I am grateful to Dave Russell for this reference. Sidney H Crowther, ‘Huddersfield Glee and Madrigal Society Centenary 1875-1975’ http://huddersfieldsingers.com/100.html, accessed 10 January 2015 °° Vaudeville, 2ZY, 7°" March 1927 >! Manchester Guardian 16" May 1932 The Huddersfield Ladies Choir, BBC North Region, gn September 1936; Elgar and Holst, BBC Home Service, 3'" November 1949 °3 The Christmas Music from Handel’s Messiah, BBC TV, 22" December 1955

Page 27

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 25

station.” Making a one-off appearance was violinist Reginald Stead who later became Leader of the BBC’s Northern Orchestra, performing alongside the Huddersfield Choral Society on many occasions. This was also the first appearance by Frank McGauvran (bass) and Arthur McGauvran (tenor) who would feature in all subsequent Huddersfield Concert Party broadcasts. The 1911 census lists Frank as a manufacturer’s clerk and Arthur, 15, as a printer’s apprentice. The brothers had long associations with both the Huddersfield Glee and Madrigal Society and the Huddersfield Choral Society and another brother, Ernest, was also a well-known tenor.

The Radio Times listings suggest there were ten Huddersfield Concert Party broadcasts between 1925 and 1928”° although, as time went on, the ‘nights’ were shortened to hours with programmes coming not from Leeds, where they had originated, but from Manchester. That this may have been the result of rivalry between the two BBC stations is suggested by 2LS’s preference to simultaneously broadcast the output of the London station rather than provide their Yorkshire listeners with the opportunity to hear Huddersfield artistes broadcasting from Manchester.

The exception to this was the Huddersfield Concert Party programme broadcast on 12 June 1928 on both 2ZY and 2LS as part of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary’s Carnival Week selected as This Week’s Good Cause by the Manchester station. The appeal, entitled ‘The Needs of the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and the Aim of Carnival Week’, was made by Lawrence Crowther, chairman of the Infirmary’s governors.” The hospital needed to raise money to purchase new equipment and to expand and modernise its accommodation in order ‘to reduce the waiting lists’? = Part of

Crowther’s five-minute broadcast was quoted in the following day’s Examiner: (The) word Huddersfield would conjure up great achievements in the world of sport but long before it had gained a reputation in that field it had obtained fame as one of the foremost woollen manufacturing centres. With the thoroughness which has characterised the town in these other directions, the citizens of Huddersfield had

Yorkshire Post, 21" October 1925; Melody and Mirth: The Huddersfield Concert Party, 2ZY, 22"° October 1925. °° Yorkshire Post, 1° November 1933 °° BBC Genome: Radio Times, 1923-2009 http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/ (accessed 1* December 2014) °” Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 9" June 1928 °8 Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 8" June 1928

Page 28

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 26

set themselves to promote a gigantic carnival in aid of the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and it was hoped that £20,000 would be raised.”

Both the radio broadcast and the Examiner promoted the Huddersfield Concert Party programme to be transmitted on the Tuesday of Carnival Week. The newspaper's anonymous reviewer travelled with the Concert Party to Manchester and his report suggests that taking part in a radio programme was far from glamorous. Commenting that there was little ‘carnival spirit’ on the journey to Manchester, he emphasised the sterility of the studio experience: ‘Silence’: the red lamp above the ‘mike’ is glowing and thousands of North Country folk are the unseen audience. The announcer having introduced the party leaves the studio to them, and the quartet with set faces take up their position for the first time. Not a cough, not a rustle of paper, just the peculiar effect of singing in an echo-less room.”

One item even had to be cut short because of lack of time. Although there were fears that the relay of the programme to Greenhead Park would have been ‘washed out’ because of the rain, the journey home was much ‘jollier’ and, on returning to Huddersfield, the performers handed over their fee to the Infirmary Fund. And, despite the rain, a few people did turn up at the park to hear the programme being “excellently reproduced’ by the Venus Radiophone

Taking part in the hour-long programme were humourist Clifford Garner, singers Madame Elsie Robertshaw, Marie Pownall and the McGauvran brothers with Frank Dodson at the piano, all described as ‘favourites on the ether’. The programme of ‘popular classics’ began with a quartet, ‘The Commotion of Love’ from ‘Flora’s Holiday’ and ended with ‘A Slumber Song’. Clifford Garner’s humorous interludes included ‘The Operatic Policeman’. In the studio, the Examiner’s observer noted: ‘The small audience of five watch the back of his head dolefully’.°” The Huddersfield Concert Party finally bowed out with An Hour’s Entertainment on 12" June 1928 on 2ZY and, two years later, the BBC announced the purchase from the Earl of Dartmouth of 30 acres of land at Pole Moor, the site for a new high-powered twin transmitter station for the North region, designed to carry both the national and regional With the opening of the new station, Moorside Edge,” 2LS and

°° Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 11" June 1928 °° Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 13" June 1928 ** Ibid *? Ibid °3 The Manchester Guardian, 1° August 1929.

Page 29

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal

rf ny ee

————— (eos Ne eee ae eee PERTRIX LIMITED, 233 SHAFTESBURY AVENUES Teptoce: TEMPLE BAR rors (4 lined) Se

Radio Slaithwaite? Getting ready for the Moorside Edge transmitting station

‘appearances at Lindley Zion Methodist School must have run into three figures

27

2ZY went off air but

Huddersfield people continued to be heard on the wireless. First

appearing in 1927 the CX Huddersfield Quartet, a name perhaps suggested by the West Riding’s vehicle registration plates and featuring members of the Glee and Madrigal Society, made _— several appearances in the 1930s and the — Huddersfield Choral Society made at least 32 broadcasts between 1930 and 1950.

The mid-1920s was the time when radio broadcasting was_ being invented and the artistes who took part the Huddersfield Concert Parties — already used to performing in — church, chapel and concert hall — played their part in this story. It was said that

Herbert Leeming’s 765

whilst Ernest Cooper was the Church’s organist and choirmaster. This was also the time when the radio audience was being created and Huddersfield people could tune in to the wireless with the expectation of listening not only to national figures but, on occasion, to their friends and neighbours. And perhaps the last word should go to

** See John White, ‘Huddersfield and the “wireless” in Isobel Schofield (ed.), Aspects of Huddersfield: Discovering Local History (Barnsley: Wharncliffe, 1999), pp 149-162 for a history of Moorside Edge.

6° Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 13" October 1949

Page 30

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 28

radio dealer Clifford Stephenson: ‘Wireless was a national obsession, the craze which swept the country, a hobby, a cult and passion cutting across class and creed but especially attractive to those on limited income as it offered near continuous entertainment at comparatively small

A note about programme sources Early radio programmes of this nature would not have been recorded. The contents of programmes have to be pieced back together from listings, reviews and other references in the press. The research for this article has benefitted from the launch of the BBC’s Genome project in 2014 which consists of listings taken from the Radio Times but as the data has been electronically generated it is incomplete and is no substitute for the journals themselves — Manchester Central Library’s holdings date from the very first issue in 1923. Detailed listings can also often be found in the local press.

Acknowledgements Thanks to David Griffiths for information on the installation of loudspeakers in Greenhead Park, and also to Dave Russell and John Rumsby for their encouragement.

Biography Having started her career in the Local Studies and Archives department of Huddersfield Central Library, Christine Verguson spent 30 years at the BBC in Leeds as librarian, researcher and journalist before leaving to become a research student at the University of Huddersfield. Having completed her doctorate on the history of the BBC in Yorkshire in 2014, Christine is now free to pursue her interests in local and urban history. As well as belonging to Huddersfield Local History Society, she is a member of the Lindley History Research Group.

°° Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 31* October 1972

Page 31

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 29

“THE CASE I SUFFER IS FOR TAKING A FEW OATS” continued

PART TWO “AN AFFLICTED MAN” By Pamela Cooksey

The 2013 edition of the Journal included a fascinating article by Pam Cooksey in which she told of her research into the conviction and deportation of Samuel Haigh of Wooldale for stealing a ‘quantity of oats’ belonging to Elihu Dickinson of High Flatts in Denby. We were all left wondering what became of Samuel and what is known of his life in Australia so Pamela promised to research a follow-up article — this is it. (Editor)

It has not been easy to establish what became of Samuel after his arrival in Australia. The looked-for pardon that he had written to Joseph Wood about whilst waiting on the prison hulks in Portsmouth prior to embarkation on the convict ship the “Surry” had not been granted. Ever-hopeful however he had written: “the same interests extends to New South Wales as it does in this country.” °” The awaited pardon never materialized so his seven year sentenced commenced. The evidence to support what is known of the details and circumstances of his life in Australia has been found in the Australian Convict Records and those of the Colonial Office of New South Wales. The limited nature of the six surviving records relating to Samuel has meant that it has only been possible to piece together a very incomplete account of his life in Australia.

On arriving in Sydney Samuel and the other survivors of the stricken “Surry” were immediately quarantined on account of the deaths and_ illness caused by a_ typhoid epidemic on board. After three weeks spent in the temporary tented camp at Port Jackson they were transferred to the convict barracks in Sydney prior to being allocated to an

Convict ship "Surry"

°” Letter from Samuel Haigh to Joseph Wood 1814

Page 32

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 30

employer, this being done according to each man's trade or the work he was capable of doing. By these selection criteria it is not unreasonable to assume that Samuel, as a clothier, was soon working for a local woollen merchant. Unfortunately nothing is known of the early years of his convict servitude and it can only be a matter of conjecture as to how he adapted to the life he was then forced to live. The first recorded evidence relating to him is dated four years later. Many of the convicts, who like Samuel had little or no hope of ever returning to England, considered that, given their circumstances, it was not unreasonable to take wife. By 1818 it is clear that Samuel had met and wished to marry Elizabeth Brown from Yorkshire. She had been sentenced to transportation for seven years for larceny at Lincoln Assizes in 1815.”°

J} “lf 7 Preps wp fle tivillhe up Lo Lo Shaw named hh ti

i Lhe. — (4/8 .-

Ak. — pannel pr lad Ihr fad. 0&2 Mey Mi -

utd He tid ova Aunty (F and

Maabel Ghee “ a May linn e mie. % amie > Lo Oe Pe Arle) on ‘ye ) eA h 7 Hacer C

ty e 4 Oo

List of Persons wishing to marry °°

After arriving in Sydney on the “Mary Ann” Elizabeth had been put to work as a laundress in the household of Colonel Lachlan Maquarrie, the State Governor. Two years later she gained her freedom having received a Ticket of Leave. She was then employed by Mrs Lord, wife of Mr S. Lord, an eminent businessman, wool merchant and dyer.

°8 Transported Convicts 1788-1868 Lincolnshire Archives °° New South Wales, Australia, Colonial Secretary’s Papers 1788-1825

Page 33

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 31

Three years later Samuel gained his freedom “through servitude” and by October 1821 he was an employee of the merchants, Jones, Riley and Walker.

In December the same year, however, it is clear that Samuel and Elizabeth were not yet married. The explanation for this situation is to be found in a letter written by Elizabeth to F. Goulbourn Esq, the Colonial Secretary, in which she was seeking protection from Samuel: Sir May the undersign’d lay before your Honour my humble situation of the life while I dutifully solicit your onerous protection from Samuel Hague whom I had the Misfortune to Consent to Marry in this Colony not Knowing he had at that time a Lawful Wife living in Huddersfield. having since that period learnt that his Wife and Family is now living I left him and seeks an honest living by Strenuous Industry Which Mrs Lord my present Employer will Bear Testimony. from the said Samuel Hague Intemperance and Bad Usage I left him whom he is Endeavouring for me to Maintain him its not in my power. after I having spent all my little savings for his Support under his Afflictions and sickness. Your Honours attention and protection to an Unprotected Woman will be Gratefully acknowledg’d Shall always pray Flizabeth Brown

The following Testimonial, submitted in support of her application was with Elizabeth’s letter: We hereby certify that Elizabeth Brown, who came by the Ship Mary Ann the year 1816. Was Employ’d By Mrs McQuarrie Two years as Laundry Maid and had her Liberty and now she has been Employ’d by Mrs Lord three years have always found her faithful and Industrious Merits every Encouragement

So what were the factors that had led to the unhappy circumstances in which Elizabeth found herself, one from which she was seeking official protection. The discovery that Samuel had a lawful wife living in Huddersfield was the principal reason for her leaving him but clearly there were other issues within their relationship.

”° New South Wales, Australia, Colonial Secretary’s Papers, 1788-1825

Page 34

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 32

What were the explanations for the apparent change in Samuel’s personal circumstances and the extent that he appeared to be living off Elizabeth’s meagre earnings? What had caused the deterioration in his physical well-being and what was the nature of his afflictions and sickness? What had given rise to his unacceptable behaviour, conduct which appears to have been associated with heavy drinking? What constituted the bad usage Elizabeth was experiencing?

It is unclear as to where Samuel was then living or how he was supporting himself. Whatever the circumstances of his life there is evidence that these had worsened for in October the following year Samuel was: charged with felonously stealing a shawl the goods of Celia Cox at Parramatta. Celia Cox was a convict who had arrived in Sydney on the convict ship John Bull in 1821. Being found guilty Samuel was sentenced to imprisonment for one calendar month. It is most likely that this sentence would have been served in the Parramatta goal.

I ae os enna a au een

PO bg. < si g os una apie y Gd 3 I se crt ete Bites ot berg And bi liantpor te weet pire OX Shw Saw), Lutdiniy etd Mati gh apline I Cg Wed Gre ae ada tlhe? al Bok Ee “ey Jor (Ad of ter ee feed 7

Sameel with wleatong’ I 9 Sp ond folenae I @ the Yooar of Soe ot £ Merl feare Cd aha’, Ml ara 4 > a. I 4 C%arks bela gee edhe Berle ally “tutte a { fas ey Colones I thefaad

|: wd Me Couey. hed LEO ov viiatt 4 far Loven Of ‘ oth im

‘ i ad I cat wrt mer wie « ~ } Gg eekly Sk OT anybr to viet pilase a4 ‘| I he

Entry in the Court Records 7

The Account of the Petition submitted by Samuel Haigh to his Excellency Sir Thomas Brisbane in February 1823 sheds some light on the reasons for the deteriorating circumstances of Samuel’s life.

” Ibid

Page 35

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 33

The Petition of Samuel Haigh dated 3" February 1823 The Petitioner is free by servitude, having unfortunately lost the use of his arms by a paralytic History he is induced to supplicate Your Excellency to grant him a passage to Europe Where he can find friends to support him Or that you will be humanely pleased to provide for him in such a way and manner as to Your Excellency may seem proper. (2

“A paralytic history” - clearly Samuel had been suffering from an illness that caused a decreasing ability in the use of his arms. The unnamed sickness and affliction that Elizabeth referred to in her letter to Coulburn in 1821 can be seen as being the early stages of this condition, one that would indeed have made life progressively more difficult and frustrating for him.

It will not have been from family members that Samuel envisaged the assistance necessary in the event of him returning to England so from whom did he think he could seek such help and support? Were the friends referred to perhaps members of the Quaker community of High Flatts in which he had grown up? It was of course to Joseph Wood and other members of Quaker Meetings that he had asked for help to gain him a judicial pardon in 1814.

The request for a return passage to England however was apparently rejected for later in the year Samuel pursued the second of his suggested options, namely to be considered for employment in a Government Factory. An Account of the Petition submitted by Samuel Haigh in 1823 The Humble Petition of Samuel Haigh most respectfully stateth That petitioner is a free man, a pauper in distress, by trade a wool sorter, and having long laboured under a paralytic disease, is incapable of earning a livelihood after the regular manner of a man in that Business, for reason, that journeymen in this Colony must be competent to take the_Fleece Wool as well as the loose Wool, and the disease under which petitioner laboured incapacitates him for other than loose wool, consequently his services are of no demand by the Merchants of the Colony:- But - Whereas Petitioner being capable of undertaking the sorting of Wool of which there is no doubt, sufficient to employ divers hands in the Public Factory at Parramatta, and Petitioner having a thorough Knowledge of his Profession to which

72 New South Wales, Australia, Colonial Secretary’s Papers 1788-1825

Page 36

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 34

Fact, Petitioner having worked for Messrs Jones, Riley and Walker, and Mr S. Lord, he most respectfully would offer as proof. That - Petitioner being in severe distress and at same time conscious of the utility his services would be to the government were he employed in the Factory aforesaid Petitioner most humbly prays that it may please Mr Coulburn, Colonial Secretary, to the above into serious consideration, and to take Petitioner into services of Government to make trial of him, in order that he may be removed from of living as a Pauper, and thereby be relieved from the extreme misery under which he at present labors The petition was successful and Samuel was taken on to work in a Government woollen factory.

The particulars relating to the next incident in Samuel’s life are not known but within a very short time of commencing work at the factory something unfortunate incident occurred concerning some cloth that gave rise to the following letter. To F Coulbourn Esq Sir May an Humble supplicant be permitted to crave your Honours attention to an afflicted man BEING at the Factory and a crime made of it without any Eville Intention of mine by Artful and Designing persons — should this Misfourtune not befallen me it was my Intention to Bring the Cloth of the same coulour and perfection as S. Lords Esq. And could point out unto your Honour which way there might Bring profit unto Government of Two Thousand a year — being afflicted as I am Intirely lost which way to Obtain Subsistance Humbly submitting this for your candid consideration and advice

Shall always pray Samuel Haigh

Unfortunately neither the outcome of this occurrence nor any details of his life in the years that followed are on record.

3 Ibid

Page 37

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 35

To have survived the journey from England on the “Surry” Samuel must have been physically fit and well. He must also have had the strength of will to survive in spite of all the suffering and horrendous conditions experienced during the weeks at sea. To have lived through the realities of such a journey must have, inevitably, affected him, this being perhaps an adverse and long-term influence on him. He then had to face the many implications of having developed a chronic, degenerative illness and this whilst living in a society that had little concern for or sympathy with men such as Samuel.

Biography Pamela Cooksey is known as both a speaker and writer on a variety of local history subjects relating to Huddersfield, Holmfirth and the New Mill Valley. She has a commitment to encouraging people to undertake local and family history researches with a particular emphasis on the use of original documents. Her lengthy commitment to researching the life and writings of Joseph Wood (1750-1821) A Yorkshire Quaker of High Flatts Meeting has resulted in three publications - Joseph Wood, A Yorkshire Quaker His life, ministry and writings, A Transcription, in five volumes, of his surviving Large and Small Notebooks and People and Places noted in the writings of Joseph Wood. As co-author with Alan Tinsdeall her most recent publication is Miners and Mining in the New Mill Valley.

Page 38

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 36

‘AND THEN ALONG CAME (C H) JONES’: personality, politics and the

crisis in policing in Huddersfield in the mid-1850s”* By Professor David Taylor

Abstract: This article looks at the vituperative clash between the chair of the improvement commission and the superintendent of police in the years 1854/5. Exacerbated by personal considerations, the clash involved conflicting views of the appropriate model of policing and of the relationship between the commissioners and the superintendent of police.

C H Jones, the first mayor of the newly- incorporated borough of has a reputation as a distinguished local politician. Reference is rarely (if ever) made his involvement in the less-than-distinguished “nose- pulling case” of 1855, which grew out of a longer- running clash with the superintendent of police, John Thomas. Although the clash of personalities attracted considerable attention, the dispute also involved important questions about the governance of the police and the model of policing in the town.

The 1850s were an important decade in the political development of Huddersfield in general and of its police force in particular. The Improvement Commissioners established a Watch Committee which appointed men to the town’s first police force. By the start of 1849 a hierarchy was in place and the first constables appointed under the Improvement Act had begun to patrol the town. There was a high rate of turnover amongst the first cohorts of constables. Some were too ill-disciplined to meet the requirements of the job and were dismissed; others found the expectations made of them too onerous and chose to resign. There was nothing unusual in this but Huddersfield was exceptional (if not unique) in having, during the nineteen year existence of the

Charles Henry Jones First Mayor of Huddersfield

” This article is part of a larger project on the introduction of ‘new policing’ in Huddersfield and the Huddersfield district.

Page 39

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 37

Improvement Commission, five superintendents of police, all but one of whom left unwillingly following friction with the town’s political leaders. In particular, the disputes that took place in 1854/5 raised a number of critical questions regarding the qualities required of a head constable, his role and responsibilities and his relationship with the Watch Committee and the Improvement Commission. Finding the right man and establishing an effective working relationship between him and the commissioners was problematic enough but the situation was exacerbated by a combination of political conflict and personal animosity.

New policing in the mid-nineteenth century was a matter of local trial and error. The experience and practices of men appointed to senior positions varied considerably (though many had a common background in the Metropolitan police) as did the experience, expectations and practices of local politicians, responsible for the oversight of their police force. It was accepted (in theory, at least) that Watch Committees were responsible for general policy but that chiefs of police were responsible for operational decisions. Determining the line between the two in practice proved problematic. In some towns and cities — Hull is a particularly good example — the Watch Committee trusted their chief constables, treated their police like professionals and adopted a hands-off stance with regard to day-to-day policing. In others, local politicians sought to involve themselves closely in police matters. Huddersfield was one such place and the upshot was ongoing conflict that threatened the efficiency of the borough force.

The first superintendent, John Cheeseborough, was forced to retire through ill-health in the spring of 1850. The commissioners decided to appoint in his place the superintendent of the night constabulary, John Thomas, notwithstanding his somewhat chequered career since joining the town police force from Ripon in December 1848. In August 1849 he had been in trouble on three separate occasions. One evening he failed to visit his men on duty between the hours of 10.30 p.m. and 2.40 a.m., spending the time in various local beerhouses. “Worse for liquor’ he then verbally abused Sergeant Sedgwick in the street. Later that month he was accused of immorality by two of his fellow officers. PC Mellor gave evidence that he ‘had seen Inspector Thomas in the Unicorn Inn with a female’. Sergeant Sedgwick was more explicit. ‘Inspector Thomas’, he told the Watch Committee, ‘had had improper connections with a woman that had been taken to the Watch-house for shelter.’

Page 40

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 38

Further, he alleged ‘from circumstances that he had witnessed [Thomas] was having improper intimacy with another man’s wife in Castlegate.’”” Amidst criticisms of ‘gross neglect’ and ‘gross impropriety’, the Watch Committee recommended his dismissal but for reasons that were not recorded in the minutes, the commissioners decided to over-ride this decision. Their faith in Thomas appeared well-founded. During the next five years he proved himself to be a determined officer, playing an active role in quelling disturbances in Castlegate, tackling the problems of immorality, disorderly houses and cruel sports. In May 1850 the commissioners praised Thomas and a fellow-officer, William Townend, for ‘exerting themselves in the most praiseworthy manner to check this great and growing evil [of] these plague spots brothels.’’° In January of the following year he brought to court nine men charged with organising a dog-fight in a cellar of a house in Bradley-street, while in April 1852 he demonstrated his personal courage in quelling, albeit with some difficulty, a major disturbance in Castlegate.” 1852 was very successful year for Thomas. He made a number of high-profile arrests — including a thief arrested in a Dewsbury singing-room and a forger tracked down and arrested in Manchester — while his conduct in the aftermath of the Holmfirth disaster highlighted another positive aspect of policing.”® However, his hands-on approach was to prove

Dock Street, from Castlegate, Windsor Court, Castlegate, Huddersfield, Date Unknown Huddersfield, 1910

Castlegate was a difficult area of the town in the 1850s needing tough policemen. Photographs courtesy of Kirklees Image Archive - www.kirkleesimages.org.uk

Huddersfield Improvement Commissioners, Watch Committee, 1848-55, KMT 18/2/3/13/1 [hereafter HIC Watch Committee]. 13 August 1849 76 Huddersfield Chronicle, [hereafter HC],11 & 18 May 1850 7 HC 18 Jan. 1851 and 17 April 1852. HC, & Feb., 13 Mar, & 2 Oct. 1852.

Page 41

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 39

problematic when new political leaders emerged in the town following the election of six new commissioners in 1853.

The conflict that culminated in Thomas’ dismissal in 1855 has to be set in a wider political context. The early years of the Improvement Commission had seen significant reforms in the town and, while a source of considerable local pride, this gave rise to concern among some rate-payers. In the run-up to the election ‘economy’ became a central issue. Addressing a public meeting in August 1853, a local solicitor, J I Freeman, was unequivocal: ‘many offices might be abolished; many salaries curtailed; and the whole affair [of local government] carried on upon a much more economical scale.’”” The election was a triumph for the ‘economical’ faction headed by C H Jones and his right-hand man, Joseph Boothroyd. Their impact was immediate. An Enquiry Committee, was set up and chaired by Jones, who was determined to root out lax book-keeping by the earlier commissioners. Joshua Hobson, a major figure behind many of the reforms in the town after 1848, found himself heavily criticised for negligence; John Jarrett, superintendent of scavengers, was found guilty of embezzlement — an incident which precipitated Hobson’s resignation; and Jones explicitly stated his belief that ‘sufficient supervision was not

exercised in the departments occupied by Superintendent

Jones was determined to exercise tighter control over financial matters but this was part of a wider vision of the role of the commissioners. He and his supporters adopted a business model of local government, likening their role to that of a company’s board of directors.** Jones also had no doubt that it was his responsibility to keep a close eye on all aspects of the work undertaken by the Improvement Commissioners and to intervene if necessary. As he informed the Watch Committee at its meeting of 4" August 1855: He considered it the duty of the chairman to watch what was going on; and if he apprehended that any officer was liable to be damaged, or an office was likely to be damaged by the conduct of an officer, he was bound to look on and prevent the injury.” In general terms, this meant asserting repeatedly the authority of the commissioners over the town’s police force; more specifically, taking an active role in the investigation of disciplinary matters.

”? HC, 13 Aug. 1853

8° HC, 4 March, 8 April & 15 July 1854 *" For example see Commissioner Shaw, Huddersfield Examiner [hereafter HE], 4 August 1855. HC, 4 August 1855

Page 42

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 40

The first skirmish took place in June 1854. Jones raised the question of the relationship between the officials, (especially Thomas, who had been sworn in at the Almondbury court leet), and policing within the limits of the Improvement Act. Jones’ argument that the swearing in of Thomas as an officer of the court leet was ‘a dangerous precedent’ owed more to his experience of policing in Manchester and revealed an ignorance (genuine or feigned) of the honorific nature of the post and the benign relationship between the court leet and the town police authorities that had developed since the mid-1840s.°* He also overlooked the fact that Thomas’ appointment and swearing in had been sanctioned by the commissioners themselves.”

Jones was more concerned to stress that the borough force should only act within the limits laid down by the Improvement Act and should not involve itself in ‘county’ work.” This was not without its own problems. As the town’s magistrates had observed, it was folly for the borough police to stop their enquiries or halt a pursuit simply because a suspect had moved out of the area defined by the Improvement Act. The situation was further complicated by the relationship with the Superintending Constable for the Huddersfield (Upper Agbrigg) district, Thomas Heaton, whose salary was paid in part by the ratepayers of Huddersfield, which meant that Thomas could call upon Heaton for assistance but not vice versa. Heaton had developed a good working relationship with Thomas and other town officers, which resulted in mutually advantageous reciprocal actions. Further, as the Holmfirth tragedy clearly demonstrated, it was important to leave ‘some discretionary power in the hands of Superintendent Thomas [because] many emergencies happened where there was neither time or [sic] opportunity for running after commissioners to grant Jones was undeterred and in January 1855 he persuaded the Improvement Commissioners to instruct Thomas ‘not to allow the night or the day police to act beyond the limits of the act without the previous joint sanction of two members of the [Watch] This decision had more to do with the personality and politics than the practicalities of policing. Jones was determined to

°° HC, 10 June 1854 ** HC, 6 Jan. 1855. Jones reference to Thomas at a meeting of the commissioners as ‘acting as a bum bailiff at Lowerhouses’ did nothing to lessen the personal animosity between the two men. HC, 15 July 1854. ®° HC, 9 December 1854 8° Mir. Thornton, HC, 4 November 1854 *” HC, 6 Jan. 1855

Page 43

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 41

assert his authority and curb the independence that Thomas had shown previously on a number of occasions.”

The clash between the two men had a strong personal element. Jones, a gentleman and Congregationalist, described as ‘a sturdy Nonconformist of the old-fashioned type’ had little in common with a man with a reputation for drinking and gambling.” Nor did Jones approve of Thomas’ ‘hands-on’, thief-taker style of policing. The tension between the two took an unexpected turn in the spring of 1855. Thomas, for reasons that were unclear, was attacked by the enigmatic figure of Henry Lord in the Zetland Hotel. Lord, no lover of the local police, was part of the wider ‘economical’ faction headed by Jones. Later that month Lord wrote to the Watch Committee alleging misconduct by Thomas, which set off a long running clash that culminated in Thomas’ dismissal.” The first charge, relating to the incident at the Zetland, was dismissed and it was noted that ‘the person bringing the charge [i.e. Lord] had been subject to penal consequences for an assault upon the superintendent and two out of the four witnesses were relatives of the complaining party.’ The second allegation, that Thomas had been at a fancy-dress ball and subsequently drinking at the Cross Keys, High-street, from the evening of Easter-Monday through to seven the following morning, was also dismissed, though Thomas was criticised for being in a public house for such a length of time when his professional presence was not required. A third accusation, that Thomas had been drinking and gambling at the Golden Lion Inn, Pontefract when he had accompanied a prisoner to the quarter sessions, was upheld and the Watch Committee recommended his

A special meeting of the commissioners was called to consider this recommendation by which time news had spread round town and memorials were delivered to the commissioners from the magistrates of the Huddersfield bench, the Superintending Constable of the Upper Agbrigg district, ‘166 of the principal inhabitants of the town’ and the town’s pawnbrokers. Each ‘spoke warmly of the excellent qualities of

At times Jones played fast and loose with the truth. He accused Thomas, on one occasion, of permitting two constables to assist the Hull force during the visit of the queen, without the permission of the commissioners. It transpired that the Watch Committee had discussed and approved Thomas proposal in response to a request from the authorities in Hull. Huddersfield Chronicle, 4 Nov. 1854. ®° AW Sykes, Ramsden Street Independent Church, Huddersfield. Notes and Records of a Hundred Years, 1825-1925, Huddersfield, 1925, p. 99-100 cited in E AH Haigh, ed., Huddersfield: A Most Handsome Town, Huddersfield, 1992, p.128 °° HC, 19 & 28 May 1855; Huddersfield Improvement Commissioners Minutes, 2/2/1, [hereafter HIC Minutes], 6 June, 13 July & 1August 1855. ** HIC Watch Committee, 19, 23 and 28 May

Page 44

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 42

Superintendent Thomas, and of his great efficiency as a police officer.’ The ensuing debate was more than a dispute about the fitness (or otherwise) of the police superintendent. Political factionalism and personal dislike fuelled an ill-tempered series of exchanges. Earlier allegations of drunk and disorderly behaviour were aired, though there was widespread acceptance that Thomas was ‘an officer of great talent... fully alive to all his duties [who] had served them efficiently for five years.’ His defenders adopted a pragmatic argument, conceding that he had ‘little venial peccadilos’[sic] but arguing that it was ‘sometimes necessary for a policeman to appear to be fit company for the bad characters they might have to associate with. Some had to get liquor in order to get others in a similar Indeed as Benjamin Thornton asserted, it was not possible to get ‘the most pious and moral men to become policemen.’”” Such arguments cut no ice with the chairman, Jones, and his leading supporter Boothroyd. They conceded that Thomas had been an effective officer but the central issue in their eyes was one of morality and fitness for position. Boothroyd in particular dwelt upon the details of Thomas’ behaviour at Pontefract and argued that not only had this charge been proved beyond ‘the shadow of a doubt’ but also that this proof of his present drinking and domino-playing (albeit while off duty) ‘quite removed the doubt entertained respecting former To complete his case he resurrected yet further charges against Thomas dating from 1849. In similar vein commissioner Shaw argued that ‘they ought to have an upright and honest man’ as police superintendent.” A motion to suspend Thomas for a month, rather than dismiss him, was defeated by nine votes to five.”®

A new police superintendent was needed. Advertisements were placed, a short-list drawn up; candidates interviewed and a decision made by the Watch Committee: the best man for the post was none other than John Thomas!” This provoked a crisis in local politics. There were questions about the constitutionality of re-appointing a man who had been dismissed by the commissioners; further clashes between pragmatists and moralists; and heightened personal animosity. The first special meeting of the commissioners took place in mid-July. Thomas’s enemies were

*? HIC Minutes, 6 June 1855 and HC, 9 June 1855 °° Messrs. Thornton and J Brook, HC, 9 June 1855. Mr Dransfield, a local solicitor, though appearing in a personal capacity, presented the memorials supporting Thomas and also added his praise. ** HIC Minutes, 6 June 1855 and HG, 9 June 1855 *° HCG, ibid °° Ibid °7 HE, 14 July 1855 °° HIC Minutes, 6 June 1855 °° HC, 30 June 1855

Page 45

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 43

accused of prior collusion and Jones was specifically accused of ‘vindictiveness and persecution’. Despite strong support from men such as Thornton, who claimed that Thomas ‘a most useful, vigilant and excellent officer [who] was very popular with the ratepayers ...[and] liked by every body except thieves, rogues and vagabonds’, there remained a powerful group who were totally opposed. At the vote the commissioners were evenly split (8:8), leaving the chair, none other than C H Jones, with the casting vote. This he refused to use, notwithstanding the fact that he told the meeting that he could ‘never act with him again [as] all my confidence in that officer is forfeited’ and that should Thomas be appointed ‘he should feel obliged to resign his office as chairman.’

The local press was unimpressed. The question, according to the Chronicle, had become ‘the occasion of a series of party moves as unprincipled as they are contemptible waged with an intemperance and virulence [that was] not very creditable to those concerned.’*”” Instead of debate there was ‘a long and irregular conversation’ conducted in ‘a regular babel of The Examiner made a veiled criticism of Hobson and ‘his puppets’ who were ‘disgracing and degrading’ the commission. The paper was scathing in its condemnation of the Jionathan Wilde’ defence that ‘it is necessary for a police superintendent to be a rogue and vagabond, a drunkard and gambler’ to catch Behaviour at the second special meeting was more heated and Jones’ resignation prior to the meeting further heightened personal animosity. In a lengthy and vituperative speech, Jones became increasingly shrill. He listed all those who had made major errors of judgment: the magistrates who had ‘decided wrongly’ in the original case involving Lord; the Watch Committee, with whom ‘he entirely differed’ regarding the Cross Keys incident and even the commissioners, who ‘now were in a wrong position.” Jones continued his excoriating personal attacks on Thomas, accusing him of ‘encouraging gambling and drunkenness’ and condemning him as ‘a violent worthless character’. Boothroyd was equally intemperate. The man was ‘utterly incompetent’. ‘The simple question’, he asserted, ‘was whether Thomas was morally qualified for

100

HIC Minutes, 4 and 13 July 1855, HC, 14 July 1855 & HE, 14 July 1855 HE, 28 July 1855 HC, 14 July 1855 HE, 28 July 1855 HIC Minutes, 1 August 1855, HC, 4 August 1855 HC, 4 Aug. 1855. There was extensive coverage in the Examiner, which also alleged that freemasonry had played a part in the dismissal of Thomas, 4 August 1855.

101 102 103 104

105

Page 46

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 44

the post.’ Commissioner Shaw supplied the answer for the ‘moralist’ faction.

Thomas, clearly, was not ‘a fit man to be at the head of the

Personal animosity apart, there were important principles involved. Jones was arguing for a different model of policing in which the superintendent was not simply a morally superior figure but also above day-to-day thief-taking. Further, it was a model of policing in which ultimate responsibility rested unequivocally with the Improvement Commissioners, who would exercise oversight of police practice. Thus, Jones condemned the superintendent for his ‘improper conduct, including drunkenness, [which] would be an encouragement to crime’ whereas he should be ‘superior to the vices he was employed to Further, he argued ‘the chief constable ought to act as a head constable not as a thief taker [and] ought to be the director of the thief takers.’"”’ Passions were inflamed on both sides. Joshua Hobson (himself much criticised by Jones and his clique) saw Thomas as a victim of personal spite and condemned the ‘system of espionage’ that had been employed against him by Jones and his supporters. Thomas had been ‘tracked down from street to street, from house to house, and all his faults Tempers flared. Boothroyd was denounced as a man ‘who assumed the tone of a person who thought himself purer and better than others’; Jones was attacked for attempting to brow beat the Watch Committee and pursuing Thomas with a ‘rancorous and vindictive Once again the commissioners were evenly divided (9:9) but this time the new chair, John Firth, voted in favour of not re-appointing Thomas."

Thomas’ police career was ended but not the personal conflict with Jones. A month after his dismissal Thomas met Jones in Market-street. Words were exchanged, Thomas tweaked Jones’ nose and was indicted on a charge of assault and actual bodily harm. The ‘nose-pulling’ case, as the press labelled it, was heard at the Wakefield Quarter Sessions and Jones’ evidence was ridiculed in the local press. ‘We fancy,’ opined the Chronicle, ‘that some of the many who saw Mr. Jones passing up and down the street so prominently after the encounter will be surprised to learn that “his life was greatly despaired of” in consequence of the “bodily harm” which

106

HC, ibid HIC Minutes1, 6 June, 4 & 13 July, and 1 August 1855. The matter was extensively reported in the local press which contains details of issues briefly mentioned in the official minutes. *°8 HC, 4 August 1855 HC, 4 Aug. 1855 Ibid ‘™ HIC Minutes, 1 Aug. 1855

107

109

Page 47

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 45

the nose-wringer The jury found Thomas ‘guilty of a very slight assault

under very aggravated circumstances; and therefore recommend[ed] the defendant to the merciful consideration of the Jones’ behaviour in court did little to enhance his reputation. He told the magistrates that he was not pressing for imprisonment, an ‘effort at magnanimity [which] excited derision and merriment among the spectators at In fact, Thomas was fined £5 and ordered to find a surety for good behaviour for six months of £100 and an additional two of £50 from

115 others, a harsh sentence which ‘created considerable surprise’.

Jones’ personal reputation was damaged but his political career was not derailed. Nor did he stop attempting to reform policing in the town. He and his supporters installed a new police superintendent, George Beaumont, who fitted Jones’ managerial model of policing and accepted his view of the pro-active role of the commissioners. However, no lasting working relationship between the improvement commissioners and the superintendent of police was established. The Beaumont experiment was unsuccessful. His new, more managerial regime led to dissent in the ranks and the resignation of experienced officers. His career ended in ignominy, collapsing in sexual and financial scandal. Beaumont’s successor left after three years, citing lack of support and respect from the commissioners as his reason for resigning; and the last police superintendent appointed under the Improvement Commission also left, again complaining that his position had been undermined by the commissioners — but that, as they say, is another story.

Biography

David Taylor is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Huddersfield and the author of several books and articles on the history of policing and can be contacted at d.taylor2@hud,ac.uk

112

HG, 29 Dec. 1855. HC, 5 Jan. 1856 Leeds Mercury, 3 Jan. 1856 Ibid.

113

114

Page 48

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 46

THE HUDDERSFIELD BASED FAMILY FIRM OF DAVID HAIGH AND HIS DESCENDANTS. By Christine Piper

The surname Haigh is a common one within the Huddersfield area and has been recorded in the area as far back as the 1640’s, so unravelling a family line can be, and was for me, quite an undertaking. The information presented here has been gathered over many years by following up numerous leads to see where they end up and then trying to confirm information wherever possible. It is of no surprise that the Haigh family members worked in the textile industry as this was one of the commonest occupation following the industrial revolution, in Yorkshire. Huddersfield opened its Cloth Hall on 1766, where the independent home based clothiers sold their wares. While the Haigh family were involved in the woollen textile industry they were also active in other organisations and societies which shaped Huddersfield. Searching through the numerous trade directories in the Huddersfield Reference Library it has been possible to identify some of the firms that three generations of family members were involved with.

The first generation of the Haigh family identified as being active in woollen manufacturing was Joseph Haigh (b. 1737) in Quarmby-cum-Lindley and he was described as a clothier. However it was one of his descendants who appeared to have expanded the business. Joseph (b.1737 in Lindley) had a_ grandson called David, who was also born in Lindley in 1789 and was the eldest son of Joseph Haigh (b. 1763) and his wife Sarah , nee Hall (b.1700). David had five siblings including four brothers, namely Thomas (b. 1791), Jonathan (b. 1793) George (b. 1798) and John (b. 1800). The brothers also had a sister Betty born in 1797. Together David and his brothers formed a woollen company and in 1848 they were listed as David Haigh and Brothers, woollen cloth manufacturers and merchants based in the Shambles, Kings Street, Huddersfield (Slater’s Directory, 1848).

David married a woman much younger than himself who was called Mary Haigh (b.1813) in 1833. I believe Mary was the only surviving child of John Haigh, a farmer who lived at Pond House and when David and Mary married they lived in her family home. In the 1841 census David and Mary are living there with John who was 72 years old and four of their children (a daughter Hannah was eight months in 1841 but subsequently died). In 1841 David’s occupation was recorded as a clothier. The couple had six sons, the eldest son was Allen (b. 1834), followed by John (b.1836), Frederick (b. 1838), Sam (b. 1847), George (b. 1853) and Edward (b.1857). When he

Page 49

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 47

died aged 69 years old, in 1859, David Haigh lived at Pond House, Haughs Lane in Quarmby, Huddersfield. David was buried at Salendine Nook Baptist Church, along with his wife, their daughter, Hannah, and their eldest son Allen.

David and Mary’s eldest son, Allen (b. 1834) was brought up in the family business and remained involved all his life. In the 1851 census Allen, who was then 17 years old, was recorded as a warehouse man but it is not clear if this was in the family business or not - maybe he was working in various parts of the business to gain experience before taking charge. By 1861 and age of 27, Allen was described as a woollen merchant, he was married and living a Spring Street West. In the 1861 census his brothers John (25 years) and Frederick (23 years) were both recorded as being cloth merchants. At some point the company name was changed from ‘David Haigh and Brothers’ to ‘David Haigh and Sons’ (White’s Directory, 1866). In 1866, Allen was listed as living in Edgerton and his place of work as David Haigh and Sons, woollen merchants based in a property in St George’s Street, Huddersfield. The only other of David’s sons listed as working for this family business was one of his brothers, Frederick. At this time Frederick lived at 17 Fitzwilliam Street but by 1879 Frederick had moved further away from the town centre and lived at Sunnybank (on Cleveland Road, Marsh).

A silver tankard presented to Allen (b. 1834) has been passed down through generations in the family to children in the family called Allen (or sometimes with the different spelling such as Alan). The tankard is engraved with the message:- Presented to Allen Haigh as a token of respect by Thomas Moulden, Oct 20" 1878. There was a business connection between the Haighs and the Mouldens as evidenced in the 1879 Huddersfield and District Directory where Haigh, Moulden and Co., were listed as wholesale readymade clothiers based in St. John’s Road (Huddersfield Examiner, 1902). It would be interesting to know more about the inscription and the occasion on which it was presented - one possibility is that it might have been given to Allen when the companies merged but that is pure speculation. Allen was also a partner in Messrs. Allen Haigh and Co, of Fitzwilliam Street, who specialised in waterproof clothing.

By 1881, Allen was 47 and his occupation was woollen merchant and wholesale clothier employing 220 hands (1881 census). He lived at 10 Imperial Road, with his wife Hannah and his youngest brother Edward (aged 23). The company name ‘David Haigh and Sons’ continued for a number of years after David’s death and in the 1891 Huddersfield Directory, the company’s telephone number was recorded as No. 76, and their telegram address was ‘Haigh, Huddersfield’. By 1901 Allen and his wife

Page 50

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 48

Hannah were living at 2 Mount, Imperial Road, as lodgers, even though Allen’s profession was still a woollen merchant and employer. Allen died in June 1902 aged 68 years. In his later years he had become deaf, which must have been hard for a man who had been a lover of music and been involved in the Huddersfield Choral Society and was at one time the President. From 1884-1891 he had been vice president of the Glee and Madrigal Society and was involved in the Mrs Sunderland golden wedding celebrations in 1888.

Allen’s youngest brother, Edward (b. 1857) was two years old when their father David died in 1859 and when his mother Mary died in 1865, he was only 9 years old. Edward then went to live with Allen and Hannah, who had no children of their own. It appears that Allen made Edward a partner when he was still quite young (1881 census when Edward was 23 years old). Initially Edward worked for Haigh, Moulden and Co. but later Edward either established his own companies or changed their names to Messrs. Edward Haigh (wool) Ltd.

The Hollies - New Hey Road

Several members of the family appear to have had connections with the Freemasons. Allen joined the Freemason in January 1868 when he was 32, and Edward joined as soon as he was 21 years old in 1879, this was the youngest anyone other than

Page 51

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 49

Oxbridge graduates could join. Allen and Edward were members of the Lodge in Greenhead Road, Huddersfield at the same time their uncle Sam was a member of the Thornhill Masonic Lodge on New Hey Road. Sam (b. 1847) joined the Thornhill Lodge in 1876 and resigned at the age of 81, in 1928, having been a member for 52 years. Sam was a woollen merchant (originally in the family business of David Haigh and Sons), and had continued to live at the family home, Pond House in Quarmby. In 1910, Sam bought the Calf of Man a small rocky island off the south west coast of the Isle of Man. Apparently he had a great love of the islet and operated it as a farm. The family possibly owned the islet up until the 1930’s and it eventually passed to the National Trust of England and Wales.

By the time Edward married Kate Crosland in 1887 his business was well established and they first lived at Wellfield House on New Hey Road and later at the Hollies, also on New Hey Road (see photo of house). The children were cared for by a nanny (see photo of children with nanny and the children on a donkey). Edward and Kate’s first born child was Dorothy in 1889, followed by two sons Edward (b.1891) and Frank (b.1894) but both these boys died in infancy. John Middlebrook Haigh was born in 1896 and his younger brother Allen Mortimer Haigh in 1898, followed by my grandmother Joyce Crosland Haigh in 1903. In the 1901 census, Edward and his family were not ao living in Huddersfield The Haigh children with their nanny but were included in the census for Llandudno, in Carnarvon , North Wales. The census gave Edward’s age as 43 and his occupation as a wholesale clothier and employer. The family were staying at a Lodgings House, as Edward was unwell and staying at the seaside for the ‘air’ away for the industrial conditions of towns such as Huddersfield. They had a nurse staying with them at the lodging house suggesting they were wealthy enough to be able to afford to pay for a the services of someone to live with them. Edward died in 1915

Page 52

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 50

aged 58 years and was interred at Salendine Nook Baptist Church, on New Hey Road, Huddersfield.

Edward and Kate’s two surviving sons John (b. 1896) and Allen (b.1898) were both educated at Sedbergh School , Sedbergh, Cumbria. John was at Sedbergh School from 1910-1913 and Allen from 1912-1915. Both the boys had probably been destined to join the family businesses, however their lives took a different turn with the outbreak of the First World War. John was only 17 at the outbreak of the First World War but received a commission with the 5" Duke of Wellington Regiment in March 1914 and was mobilised in August 1914 the month he turned 18. He served with the Duke of Wellington regiment in France from April 1915 until September 1916. By September 1916 John had been appointed a Lieutenant but soon afterwards he was seriously wounded in the Somme. In early 1917 he was posted to the 4" West Riding Regiment and was subsequently appointed Captain. He had several other postings, before being demobilised in February 1919. On the reformation of the 5th Battalion of the Duke of Wellington Regiment in 1920, he was approved for service with the regimental Defence Force. In 1929 he received the Territorial Decoration and was promoted to Major in 1930 and in 1939 to Lt/Colonel in the Royal Artillery (Territorial Army). He relinquished his post of Lt/Colonel in 1942. While in the Defence Force John continued to be active in the family businesses in Huddersfield.

Allen Mortimer enlisted as a Private in the West Riding Regiment Short Service in June 1916, when he was 17 years old and was subsequently mobilised in May 1917. He served with the 17" Battalion of the West Riding Regiment , later he was serving with the Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, attached to the 1°74" Battalion of the KOYLI. He received a commission with the KOYLI in August 1917 but eight months later was killed in action in April 1918. Allen has no known grave but is remembered on one of the panels at Tyne Cot cemetery and the family grave at Salendine Nook Baptist Church.

In 1947, the company that Edward had founded and that still bore his name was in the news. Early in the morning of 1°* March a fire broke out at the premises in Dundas Street. The account in the Huddersfield examiner focused on the difficulties experienced putting the fire out due to the fire hydrants being frozen over. The fireman had to burn petrol over the hydrants to melt the ice so they could be used and as water sprayed back from the fire it apparently froze on the streets. The fire was thought to have broken out on the ground floor and the roof of the three story building collapsed within half-an-hour. One of the greatest concerns was that the fire would spread to adjoining businesses.

Page 53

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 51

For a considerable number of years Haigh businesses continued to operate as separate companies before eventually merging with another family run company. In the 1940-41 Bradford, Leeds, Halifax and Huddersfield District Trades Directory, there was a company called Haighs Ltd in St Johns Road and a separate one called Bairtows, Sons and Co., at 81 Fitzwilliam Street and both firms were clothiers - manufacturing and wholesalers. Bairtows, Sons and Co. Ltd, Wholesale Clothiers and Costumiers, were also listed as being at 84 Fitzwilliam Street. In 1958, a company listed as Edward Haigh (wool) Ltd, wool merchants was also trading in Fitzwilliam Street, but at 81a. There appears to have been a connection between these companies since at the time of his death, aged 63 in 1960, John Middlebrook Haigh was chairman of the directors of the wholesale clothing business, Haighs (Huddersfield) Ltd. and of Haigh and Bairstow (Huddersfield ) Ltd,(previously Haigh, Moulden and Co) located on St John’s Road, Huddersfield.

John lived at Ashleigh, Edgerton with his wife, Councillor Mrs M.L. Middlebrook- Haigh (MBE) who survived him. Since they had no children after John’s death there was no direct Haigh descendant to continue to run the family businesses, although several family members remained involved as shareholders and members of the Company Boards. Disaster struck in August 4" 1970 when there was another fire, this time at the Haighs and Bairtows works in St John’s Road. At the time it was estimated that over £100,000 worth of new autumn stock was lost in the fire in what the Daily Examiner described as one of the largest clothing warehouses and factories in Huddersfield. The fire fighters drew approximately 40,000 gallons of water from the nearby Cambridge Road Baths to quench the flames. It took over one and a half hours to get the flames under control and the business never fully recovered and consequently Haighs and Bairstow (Huddersfield) Ltd. went into liquidation in 1974.

It was the end of the family business which coincided with the decline of the textile industries of Huddersfield. Huddersfield had once been known as a textile town but many of the manufacturing business have gone.

Biography Christine Piper was born in Birmingham but was a regular visitor to Huddersfield to

see family members and friends. She came to live in Lindley in 1996. Her connection with Huddersfield has been strengthened by her research into the history of the town and the small part her ancestors played in the life and businesses of the area.

Page 54

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 52

COLNE OR HOLME? By George Redmonds

I wrote a first draft of this article in 1982 and published it in the local history journal OLD WEST RIDING (vol. 2 no. 2) and around the same time tried to publicise the arguments more widely in a piece for the Huddersfield Examiner. Since then I have come across many more pieces of evidence which confirm my original conclusions; too many to include in the article. However, when David Griffiths saw a reference to the River Colne in Holmfirth dated 1812, in a recent publication, he considered it time to raise the matter again, so I offer this present slightly revised version in response to his encouragement.

When D.F.E. Sykes wrote a century ago that Huddersfield had its beginnings hard by the confluence of two streams, the Colne and the Holme, he was simply stating what he took to be self-evident: this is, after all, the starting point for almost any history of the town. His more detailed account of the courses of the two streams was, I think, designed to emphasise the contrasts between the two valleys; the Colne ‘bound on either side by undulating heights, whose rugged formation would seem to indicate an angry sea of lava chilled into adamantine rock’ and then, in quite a different vein, the Holme, ‘richly wooded and affording to the appreciative eye rare glimpses of sylvan beauty: the scenery less harsh and rugged than that of the sister river’.

pening This view of the two valleys has es ee ee developed into something of a a 3 ean cliché. The very words ‘Colne Valley’ Se ese ier! I have become emotive, descriptive of 7 , a region. closely linked with The ‘richly wooded .....sylvan beauty’ of the 4, and the Holme Valley Holme at Holmbridge. and yet somehow distinct from both: Courtesy Kirklees Image Archive the bleakness, the harsh industrial

landscape, the remote hillside

Page 55

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 53

cottages have all somehow become stereotyped, evoking that fast-disappearing West Riding so faithfully portrayed by Dr Phyllis Bentley. There are many who have romanticised the scene; Lettice Cooper for example, in Yorkshire: West Riding (1950) saw the Colne Valley as ‘a place fortified for the industrial battle, the steep banks battlemented with chimneys and square mill fronts and the high walls of mill yards’. It was a ‘grim continuous city, stripped like its countryside for action one of the centres of the textile world’. Such descriptions by both residents and outsiders helped to build up a concept of what the Colne Valley once stood for which embraces mills and music, politics and pollution. The geographic definition is less expansive though, and for some the Colne Valley runs only from Marsden to Longroyd Bridge: it is an interesting thought that Bradley, Deighton, Kirkheaton and Dalton, not to mention Huddersfield, all share the

valley of the Colne but are not considered locally to belong to ‘the Colne Valley’. There is a less obvious but nonetheless real distinction between the valley of the Holme and ‘the Holme Valley’. The irony is even greater if we examine the history of the river names. For us now the Colne is an important river which rises in the hills west of Marsden and flows into the Calder near Cooper Bridge; the Holme is considered to be its affluent, joining it at Folly Hall. And yet the description of the two streams west of Huddersfield as the river Colne and the river Holme is almost certainly a comparatively modern habit: in all probability even the terms Colne Valley and Holme Valley have no great antiquity. Most surprising of all though is the discovery that our ancestors in the two valleys may have had a totally different view of what the Colne was. Indeed, the historic evidence runs so contrary to our modern understanding of the two river names that its presentation poses a real problem. I have, therefore, in the argument which follows, adopted the device of calling the Colne ‘River A’ and the Holme ‘River B’: this in no way implies a precedence of one over the other.

Spring Mills at Milnsbridge, showing the weir across the River Colne, and Stafford Mill on the

extreme right — a view taken in the early 1900s Courtesy Kirklees Image Archive

Page 56

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 54

Fortunately there is one issue which is not in dispute. From the point where the two streams in question come together at Folly Hall and then flow eastwards into the Calder, the river has apparently been known as the Colne for as long as records exist. In documents which relate to the lands held by Fountains Abbey the ‘Calne’ is described in the twelfth century as running between Bradley and Kirkheaton’”: in 1507 Dalton’s inhabitants were forbidden at the manor court to ‘fish in the water of These and many other references leave us in no doubt that in the past, as now, the river which flowed from Huddersfield to Cooper Bridge was called the Colne. On the other hand \ i the question of what was meant by the ‘Colne’ west of Folly Hall is much more complicated, and I propose to tackle the problem in two ways. The first of these considers those references where the name Colne is used and the river can be positively identified.

For example, a deed of 1236-58 describes a messuage known as the ‘Ermitage’ as lying near to the water called The context makes it quite clear that the locality is Armitage Bridge and the river in question River B. The

The confluence of the Holme and Colne at Folly Hall - Folly Hall Mills in the background.

7118

Lancaster, W.T. (ed.), Abstracts of the charters and other documents contained in the chartulary of the

Cistercian abbey of Fountains, 2 vols (Leeds), 1915. The court rolls of Dalton manor 1483-1581, Kirklees archives, West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS), M/D. Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, vol. |X, pp. 393-4.

Page 57

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 55

same stretch of water is also called Colne in the 1584 Survey of Almondbury manor’. Unfortunately, Senior’s map of Almondbury for 1634 does not name the two rivers but a deed of the same year which is now in the Ramsden collection refers to land adjoining ‘upon a Rocke or skar and the water of Colne’, where the scar must be Lockwood Scar and the river once again River B **9 Even 150 years later there are similar examples, and some maps of Huddersfield actually have ‘Colne’ written on River B: a famous document of 1778 which recounts the details of a flood in Holmfirth attributed the damage to the ‘river known by the name of Colin [sic]’ which flowed from its source ‘on the hills dividing the counties of York and Chester, to its junction in the River Calder’; that is River B once more a In some of these examples the documents from which I have quoted are the work of copyists and if I play Devil’s advocate I must concede that at least some of the references might be transcription errors. Indeed, for some years I took it for granted that this was the case but they are so numerous that I was obliged, almost reluctantly, to conclude that they cannot be explained in this way. Local historians in the past may have had a similar experience. The second point in the argument concerns the name or names formerly given to River A, but before I deal with that it is worth taking account of the terms generally applied to water courses in this district before the modern period. The word ‘river’, for example, was rare and may never have been used colloquially: it is possible occasionally to find examples such as ‘Slaighwait river’ in legal documents, where the clerk was probably not a local man ‘2 but descriptions such as ‘brook’ and ‘water’ were far more commonly employed. Later, particularly after 1700, ‘beck’ also became popular and often succeeded in ousting the longer established ‘brook’. In Marsden, where River A has its source and is very narrow, it was uSually called a brook. The name ‘Marshden Bruke’ occurs in a deed of 1477 *** and the court roll of 1664 defines it thus: ‘Marsden Brooke as it runs from Marsden up to the water of Calder’**” In Slaithwaite it was often called a ‘water’: Robert Meeke who was the

**? No fewer than seven copies of this document have survived, including a typed transcript in Huddersfield

Library. In six of them it says ‘Colne’ and in one only ‘Holme’. ‘2° Ramsden family and estate records, Kirklees archives, WYAS, DD/RD/IV/17. The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, vol. XXXII, p. 352. 12 Redmonds, G. Slaithwaite Places and Place-Names, Huddersfield, 1988, p.43. The original is in the Dartmouth estate records, DT/211, Leeds WYL150, WYAS. 123 Redmonds, G. (ed.), Yorkshire Deeds in Kansas, 2000, p. 114. Almondbury manor court rolls 1627-91, Kirklees archives, WYAS, DD/R/M/3.

121

124

Page 58

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 56

minister there from 1685 to 1724 compiled a diary and had occasion to refer to the river on several occasions but did not call it the Colne. In August 1691, after a heavy shower, he noted that ‘Bridley Brook was very strong but the broad water was not very big, the rain falling only in one quarter’. The following year, when explaining why his afternoon service was poorly attended he wrote ‘few people came; especially from Linfit side, the brook being up’ It is not absolutely clear though whether this referred to the river or to Bradley Brook. An interesting and almost complete set of references occurs in the Quarter Sessions records for 1709. A number of men were brought before the court that year for illegal fishing and the inference is that the offences concerned River A rather than any of its tributaries: not once was the name Colne used. John Barraclough and John Dransfield, for example, each took twenty fish out of ‘Slaughthwait Water’ and the former, fishing in Golcar, also took fifty fish out of ‘Goldcarr beck’. Finally, near Linthwaite Hall, John Dison and his companions ‘fished illegally’ in the stream (rivus) called Linfleet [sic] beck belonging to Richard It seems almost certain that as late as 1709 River A did not have one name but that different stretches were identified by the places through which it flowed. Even in its passage through Huddersfield it was not at all unusual for it to be called Huddersfield Water. On the other hand from c.1775 there are several references to it as the Colne upstream from Folly Hall and the problem is to know just when and why that development took place. It does not seem to have stabilised as ‘the Colne’ for a number of years: indeed on one or two maps between 1775 and 1825 it is called the river Mars. There have been some imaginative explanations of this name but my own view is that it is a cartographer’s back formation from the name of the village: as late as 1882 Marsden was defined by C.A. Hulbert as ‘the Marsh Dean, that is Vale’ ner What should also be considered is the fact that River B which had been called the Colne for much of its early history, and as late as 1812 128 later came to be known as the Holme. In volume VII of his West Riding Place-Names, A.H. Smith found no evidence for this latter name before the mid-nineteenth century, but there are

‘*° These quotations are from the full text of the diary not the published volume: Morehouse, H.J. (ed.),

Extracts from the Diary of the Rev. Robert Meeke, 1874. **® The Quarter Sessions Records of the West Riding of Yorkshire, The Registry of Deeds, Wakefield, WYAS; indictment books QS4/21. 7 Hulbert, C.A. Annals of the Church and Parish of Almondbury, London, 1881-2, p. 423. Hargreaves, J.A. (ed.), The Court Roll of the Manor of Wakefield, 1812-3, The Wakefield Court Rolls Series, vol. XVI, p. 39. 128 Hargreaves, J.A. (ed.), The Court Roll of the Manor of Wakefield, 1812-3, The Wakefield Court Rolls Series, vol. XVI, p. 39.

Page 59

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 57

occasional precedents over 150 years earlier. In 1655, for example, the published parish register for Almondbury recorded the fact that Edward Blackburn of Armitage had lost his life in the waters ‘vulgo vocatis Holme waters’. The unfortunate man may have drowned in the river during its passage through the township of Holme, but it seems more likely that he died at Armitage Bridge, and that ‘Holme’ was already becoming a popular name for the river. At least one version of the Almondbury Survey of 1584, referred to earlier, used the description ‘the water of Holme’ for River B, but that was in a copy made in 1631. In 1738 a Quarter Sessions document which recorded the fulling mills on the two rivers, named them as ‘Holm River and Marsden Beck’. Similar clerical confusion about what to call the rivers is reflected in a deposition of 1768 which described Lockwood Bridge as ‘situated upon a rivulet called Holmfirth water otherwise Honley water otherwise Lockwood water It is not possible to offer a full explanation of the development of the two river names, for there is still some documentary material which has not been examined with this particular issue in mind. Nevertheless one or two relevant points can be made. First of all it should not be forgotten that a river name can be used less by those who live near to it than by outsiders. Even today the inhabitants of Slaithwaite and Golcar are more likely to say they walked by ‘the river’ or ‘the water’ rather than ‘by the Colne’. It may be therefore that it was mostly outsiders, clerks, travellers or engineers perhaps, who decided which of the main feeder streams was ‘the Colne’. If that was the case, the fact that River A was eventually given the name officially may have had much to do with its greatly increased importance during the Industrial Revolution. In particular the building of the canal in the closing years of the eighteenth century may have been decisive: it was done in two stages, first to Huddersfield, and then to Marsden and beyond.

Biography:

George Redmonds is a local historian who specialises in names studies. His dictionary of Yorkshire surnames is due to be published this year.

129

See note 11: QS4/36

Page 60

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 58

OBITUARIES (1)

ALAN PETFORD

Although Alan was not a member of the Society he

had close links with us, has been our speaker and guide on many occasions — he will be sadly missed and I am grateful to Richard Coomber and Cyril Pearce for the tribute included below.

Editor

=

Alan Petford, who died on 11 February, aged only 61, was that rare combination, an academic historian and an inspirational teacher. After gaining his MA at Oxford, he taught at a number of grammar schools in the north of England before becoming a lecturer for the University of Leeds and the WEA, and a guiding light for a number of local groups. His classes in Marsden directly influenced the creation of the Marsden History Group. Alan’s passion was for local history. He had no truck with academics who looked down on the subject, pointing out that a close study of local history would often challenge perceived wisdom of those who cared only for the ‘bigger picture.’ His breadth of knowledge, especially on West Riding history, was at times breath- taking. It came from his extensive reading but more importantly from a tireless study of the primary sources and from walking the ground to look at the evidence in the landscape, something he had done since his boyhood in Saddleworth. It was almost impossible to ask Alan a history question he could not answer, not just in general terms but backed up with names, places and dates, usually with a slide of a photo he had taken, and often with a quirky fact that ensured it stuck in the mind. It was something of a surprise that his lectures and his courses finished on time because he was always willing to pursue a new path that grew out of an inquiry or observation from the class before coming seamlessly back to his prepared talk. Whether lecturing or on one of the field trips he loved to lead, he was able to bring the subject to life, again by backing up the general point with precise and sometimes startling nuggets of information. Many a student has stood in awe beside a building while Alan dated its changing story from a few details. His explanation of the

Page 61

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 59

OBITUARIES (2)

succession of buildings at Fixby Hall on the occasion of the launch of the then brand- new Slavery in Yorkshire, lives inthe memory. His greatest strength was that whether he was teaching students working for a degree or taking a WEA class who just wanted to know a bit more about their surroundings, he maintained a high level of scholarship while making everyone completely comfortable. Many shy and unsure amateur historians have been encouraged by their question being greeted with ‘That’s a very interesting idea’ and receiving a reply that would normally send them back to the sources to discover more. Those of us fortunate enough to work closely with him will be for ever grateful for his enthusiasm, dedication and encouragement. For those who were his students, we'll remember fondly how much he loved the opportunity to continue a discussion over a cup of tea, preferably with cake or biscuits. We'll miss those precisely written notes on essays and the feeling that we were in for a memorable couple of hours when we saw him turn up in his vintage car at a field trip and we'll be thankful that we had the chance to study with one of the great teachers.

NORAH ENGLAND We were saddened by the news of Norah England’s death on December 10" 2014 in her 100" year. Although she has not been able to come to our meetings for a little time now she was one of the Society’s founder members with a deep interest in local history. She led a full and interesting life, a teacher with a wide range of interests, music, literature, politics and her family by whom she was much loved and respected. Her burial at Rose Hill, overlooking the town she loved and knew so well, was a fitting final resting place for a much loved member.

MICHAEL GREEN Michael had only been a member of the Society for a short time but he will be sadly missed. He was a former Chair and stalwart member of Huddersfield Civic Society; a trustee of the Kirklees Historic Buildings Trust and a devoted defender of local buildings under threat. He fought hard, for instance, to secure the preservation of the former Corporation transport offices on John William Street when they were threatened with demolition.

Page 62

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 60

OBITUARIES (3) A COTTAGE INDUSTRY — LESLIE ROBINSON PRESERVING SKELMANTHORPE’S PAST We are sad to record the death Copy of an article which appeared in the Society’s of another of the Society’s Journal Number 5 in 1993 founder members. This article from an old Journal of 1993 is For the majority of local historians, the ultimate reward I "eproduced as a tribute to for their labours is to see their work published — as a Leslie.

article, pamphlet or even, for the fortunate few, as a book. Very few aspire to anything more tangible than the printed word, but, within our own Society is one member who has achieved a much more remarkable ambition - to create and run his own museum.

In Skelmanthorpe’s Queen Street stands a terrace of small and apparently unremarkable weavers’ cottages, previously best known as the backdrop to a television comedy series. There are no signs or notices, but behind one door is a remarkable tribute to the village’s textile industry and the people who worked in it.

Built around 200 years ago, the little one up, one down cottage fell into such disrepair that it was condemned by the local Council and it has taken twenty years work by Leslie Robinson and friends to achieve its present immaculate condition.

The ground floor is the living room, dominated, as in most Victorian kitchens, by the range. Made in Huddersfield by Bower and Child of Moldgreen, it is flanked by the original stone sink with tiled splashback and a massive cupboard that originally contained the fold-up bed. There are pottery fairings on the shelf, period photographs and military souvenirs; a child’s rocking commode and even a jar of goose greese among the many objects that make up the cosy clutter of domestic life. But it is upstairs that the serious business of life, and this museum, is found.

The Museum as it is today — 6, Queen

Street, Skelmanthorpe

Page 63

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 61

OBITUARIES (4)

Skelmanthorpe was particularly notable for its fancy weaving and silks and these are comprehensively illustrated by the many framed displays that line the white-washed walls. There are samples of shawls, textile tools, printing blocks, pattern books, a Norton family tree and contemporary posters. The domestic nature of much of this industry is represented by a spinning wheel and the room’s centrepiece, a fully operational hand loom. Nearly a century old, it is one of the few survivors of the hundred or so that were in reputedly use up to the First World War and now forms part of the museum’s educational programme. Access is necessarily limited, but working demonstrations and lectures are planned for selected groups. If the opportunity offers, this small museum is well worth a visit.

Visiting the Heritage Centre

At present the Heritage Centre is only available by advance booking or during national or local heritage events. Families or groups are most welcome. Generally party size is restricted to 10 persons, because of the size of the accommodation. Special arrangements can be made for school or larger parties in accociation with other local community facilities. A tour will typically take about an hour and your guide will describe various aspects of the cottage and the weaving community to which the family would have belonged. There will be time to browse and look more closely at the exhibits.

Entry is free. Donations are greatly appreciated. Please contact:- Secretary - Richard Brook 01484606275 Chairman - Tony Weatherby 01484 863889 Treasurer - David Collins 01484 864123 The information included in this box was taken from the Friends of Skelmanthorpe Heritage Centre website (Editor)

IRENE WROE

Born in Paddock and a teacher by profession Irene had a wide range of interests and involvements. She made a significant contribution to local Archaeological Society and to her local church. She enjoyed singing and walking and was very close to her family. Although she had not been a member of our Society for very long she will be sadly missed

BETTY HILL We were also very sorry to lose Betty Hill.

Page 64

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 62

THE HUDDERSFIELD SCIENTIFIC AND MECHANIC INSTITUTE (HSMI):

A RESPONSE TO JOHN HALSTEAD By David Griffiths

John Halstead’s article, ‘The Huddersfield Philanthropic Institution’, in the 2014/15 Journal, filled an important gap in our knowledge of the new social institutions of early 19" century Huddersfield, but in one respect it was misleading. In contrasting the HPI with the earlier Huddersfield Scientific and Mechanic Institute, founded in 1825, John asserts that “the HPI was not simply another HSMI, which had foundered in 1826.”"*° If we take ‘foundered’ to mean it had ceased to function, this is not the case. Certainly the HSMI lost its reserves with the crash of Dobson’s Bank in the winter of But it survived until 1836/7, when it metamorphosed into the Huddersfield Philosophical Society which itself lasted until the 1860s. The HSMI therefore deserves a little more recognition than it has received from a succession of local historians who have not looked beyond its early financial crisis.

The Institute’s aims were:

to bring within the reach of all, but more particularly the trading and working classes, the acquisition of useful knowledge — to diffuse the generally correct principles of Science and Mechanical Philosophy, especially as these are applicable to the explanation and improvement of the arts of social life. This object is to be accomplished by the circulation of a well-selected selection of Books — by Public Lectures on the various branches of Science, particularly practical Mechanics and Chemistry — by Chemical Apparatus, and Instruments, applicable to the advancement of the Arts — and by Evening Classes for instruction in the higher branches of Arithmetic, Mathematics,

By the mid-1830s it was clearly in reasonable health and meeting these objectives. In 1834 it had a library in New Street, with Thomas Kemp as a post he had held from the outset. In 1835 lecture series on botany and chemistry were reported at the recently-founded Infant School in Spring Street and the latter, by Dr Murray of

130

John Halstead, ‘The Huddersfield Philanthropic Institution’, HLHS Journal 2014-15, p.74. Alan Brooke (1988), ‘The Social and Political Response to Industrialisation in the Huddersfield area, c.1790-1850’, unpublished draft PhD thesis, at Huddersfield Local Studies Library. *** Rules of the Huddersfield Scientific and Mechanic Institute, for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge, printed by T Kemp, Huddersfield, 1825; Huddersfield Local Studies Library, Tracts, AO80 (hereafter Rules,1825). **? Pigot’s Directory, 1834.

131

Page 65

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 63

Edinburgh, were “attended with overflowing Membership was

almost certainly above 200 — it had been some 150 at the outset and would reach

250 by 1837.

These successes led the directors, in 1835, to seek to raise £1250 to build a purpose- built Scientific & Mechanic Hall, including a museum, by recruiting 500 additional members.’ The foundation stone was laid by HSMI President James Astin, a surgeon, in May 1836, °°” and the Hall opened in Ramsden Street, on today’s Piazza site, in May 1837. A museum with a “small but interesting collection”, chiefly ornithology, geology and mineralogy, was established there by 1838.°°°

By then the HSMI had become the Philosophical Society, changing its name in 1836 and its constitution in 1837, and the hall followed suit to become the Philosophical Hall. The constitutional change stripped away some of the Institute’s early radicalism (perhaps underestimated by Halstead), substituting “all classes of the community” for “trading and working classes” as the target group, and dropping the original requirement for half of the directors to be “operative mechanics”.

The HSMI was therefore unconnected with the much more successful Mechanics’ Institute founded in 1841, from which today’s University can trace a direct descent. Nonetheless, its early ambitions for working class education deserve not to be lost from the historical record.

Biography David Griffiths is Treasurer of Huddersfield Local History Society. His article,

“Blending Instruction with Amusement: The Huddersfield Philosophical Society Exhibition of 1840”, published in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 2011, is available on-line at http://www.maneyonline.com/toc/yaj/33/1.

134

Huddersfield & Halifax Express (HHE), 2/7/35. Rules, 1825; 1837/8 Annual Report. HHE, 15/10/35. 7 HHE, 19/5/36. HHE, 13/10/38.

135 136

Page 66

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 64

MARSDEN MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE - Before the Hall By Steve Challenger

People that know Marsden in West Yorkshire think of the Mechanics’ Institute as the 19th century building with a wooden clock tower in the middle of the village. This was the Hall that was opened for Marsden Mechanics’ Institution in 1861. By then the Institution had been going for twenty years and the Hall would be its third home. Little seems to have been written about the Institution. In Bygone Marsden, describes a little of the Institution’s early years, but he mostly addresses the building of the Hall and the ultimate demise of the institution. This is the story of Marsden’s Mechanics’ Institute in its early years between 1841 and the late 1850s, before the building of the Hall was planned. The sources used are mainly the newspapers of the time, particularly the Huddersfield Chronicle and the West Yorkshire Advertiser, which contains reports on the Institution’s Soirees, meetings, activities and entertainments.

With the rise of the industrial revolution, literary and philosophical societies were formed where groups of workers came together to undertake self-improvement through education. It was from this demand for education that the mechanics’ institutions were formed: the first in Glasgow in 1823 and the second in London in 1824. The latter was established by George Birkbeck and Henry Brougham and it is interesting to note that the road on which the Hall was eventually built was renamed Brougham Road in 1863." Over the next years mechanics’ institutes were developed all over the country.

It was in November 1841 when the Mechanics’ Institution in Marsden held its first meeting in a cottage near to the Old New Inn on Carrs Road. At the time Marsden had a population of only 2402, but it was not unusual for villages the size of Marsden to have its own mechanics’ Institution. In the Literary and Educational Yearbook of 1859°", there were, in addition to the larger Huddersfield Mechanics’ Institute, twelve Mechanics’ Institutes within a 7 mile radius of Marsden including the villages of Meltham, Slaithwaite, Linthwaite, Dobcross, Delph and Saddleworth.

139

Whitehead, Lewis Buckley. “Bygone Marsden” (publ. 1942) p76 Thorpe, J & Pinder M. “Marsden. A Journey Through Time” (publ 2014) p60 ‘“" “| iterary and Education Year Book for 1859” p265

140

Page 67

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 65

Very little is known of the activities of the Institution in its first home. In 1843, the first report of the Institution appeared in the Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser’. On the 16th March, a vocal and instrumental concert was held in the Institution’s ‘large room’ with the Marsden Military Band providing the music. This was the first event of its kind, but the room was not large enough to accommodate the numbers who applied for admission. According to Whitehead*’’, the Mechanics moved from its first location to the large room above Dan Ineson’s Smithy at Ing Head off Carrs Road.

Sor I Final home of = i ay Mechanics I }t Mradew © f

a!

5

= ; oe

\ \ \ \ nae aa el hi \

sa

alll ee

‘| ————/ The O ‘ Dy y ans a we ty I J ocd ‘if fit: ee f ? * tk ee oe pa Lesh — \\ a ee in S ie er se j pS Ty : ak Home of the first “Al “él 3 : Mechanics eh =, hy a i Dan Ineson’s Smith

ofr Creede, Tg MO Mae ECHR, ANS ‘yh Second homé of A Crow NT) XS hei Wt the Mechanics

i 4 re I ; i re is Z / fF Jone ae: 2a - 7? oo il =

1854 Ordnance Survey Map showing the locations of the Marsden Mechanics’ Institution

It appears in the early days learning took place through self-education, lectures and the library. In his speech to the 1856 Soiree the President of the Institute (J. B. Robinson) stated that classes had been introduced ‘seven years earlier’ suggesting that formal classes were started in 1849. These classes were taught mainly by ex-

‘* The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser March 1843)

Whitehead, Lewis Buckley. “Bygone Marsden” (publ. 1942) p76

143

Page 68

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 66

scholars of the Institute. George Carter a wool spinner who lived at Clough Lee was one such person who started teaching algebra in 1858°"". The first trained teacher to take classes was Mr Bamford, the national schoolmaster, who taught classes in grammar”. This approach was common in the mechanics’ movement, but it was not always seen as good practice. At the Soiree of 1856, a guest speaker, Mr James Hanson, who was familiar with the teaching and management of mechanics’ institutions said that professional teachers were better than those from the community~’. Classes were not limited to men. Around 1858 classes for women were started, but only after women with the right qualifications had been identified to take the classes. It was evident that they were very successful when, J. B. Robinson, commented in his speech to the 1858 Festival that the progress of the women’s classes were much more successful than planned and went on to say: ‘If the stronger sex in Marsden did not bestir themselves, the weaker sex would soon be the

stronger in intellect’. 147

Lectures seemed to be an important way members of the Institution gained their knowledge. Some of the lectures that were delivered to the Institution were reported in the papers. It is unlikely that all of them were reported but there were enough to give us an idea of the subjects that were covered. The first lecture reported took place in 1844 by J. L. Quarmby who delivered a series of lectures on Oratory’. As might be expected there were lectures with scientific subject matter but not all. There were lectures on ‘China and the Chinese’*””, and ‘The Ancient as well as lectures on subjects such as ‘Gossip and Slander’*”* and there was even one scheduled on ‘Barnum the American Quack’*”’, but unfortunately the lecturer Mr G. S. Phillips failed to turn up. Two lectures were delivered by J. C. Nesbit FCS, FGS on consecutive nights in November 1850: the first on Agricultural Chemistry and the second on Geology’. The Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser dedicated one and a half columns of print to reporting the

144

Huddersfield Chronicle and Weekly Advertiser (9 January 1858) Huddersfield Chronicle and Weekly Advertiser (9 January 1856) Huddersfield Chronicle and Weekly Advertiser (9 January 1856) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser September 1858) Leeds Mercury (9™ March 1844) Leeds Mercury (21° January 1858) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (13 March 1858) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (24 April 1858) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (16" November 1847) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (28 April 1855) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (2"° November 1850)

145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153

154

Page 69

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 67

content of these lectures and it is obvious that a certain level of education would be required to understand their content. It was around this time that the first classes began, perhaps to help the members to better appreciate the lecture programme. As with the classes the principle of ‘self-help’ was important in creating and delivering the lecture programme. J. B. Robinson, Rev Hanley Pickersgill and Joseph Webster, all members of the Marsden Mechanics’ Institution, contributed to the lecture programme. J. B. Robinson delivered his lectures on ‘Self-made Men’ *° and on his visit to the Great Exhibition of 1850°”° to other mechanics’ institutions as well as Marsden’s. The Yorkshire Union of Mechanics’ Institutions had lecturers who gave talks to the Marsden Institution as well as other institutions. Barnet Blake was one such person who gave a talk on ‘the Life of George Stephenson’ in October and ‘China and the Chinese’ in January 1858°°°. T. J. Pearsall and G. S. Phillips were two other lecturers of the Yorkshire Union who gave talks in Marsden.

The report of one speech rather than a lecture given to the Institution on Friday 14th December in 1855 reached the London newspapers”. John Bright, the son of a cotton mill owner from Rochdale, was a Liberal MP representing Durham and future President of the Board of Trade. He was well known for founding the anti Corn Law League with Richard Cobden. In the middle of the Crimean War, his speech argued for an anti-war position: a lone voice in Parliament at the time.

It was probably the Institute’s library that members were most proud. The numbers of volumes of books within the library were regularly reported at the October annual meetings and the January Soirees. The first catalogue of books was produced in 1844, three years after the Institute opened, when there

John Bright (1811 — 1889)

155

Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (2"° February 1861) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (7 June 1851) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (20" October 1860) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (21° January 1858) The Morning Post (London) (18 December 1855)

156

157

158

159

Page 70

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 68

were 250 volumes. By the time the second catalogue was published in 1852 the number of books had risen to 1468°°". Books were obtained through purchases paid for with the funds of the Institution and through donations. Many of these donations were from members of the Institution, but others came from further afield. Mr and Mrs James Taylor of New York, probably relatives of the Marsden Taylor family who had emigrated, made regular contributions”. There were also donations from the Peace Conference, the Treasury” and the Yorkshire Union”. By 1861, the library had 2450 volumes and the Institution was having to restrict taking in more volumes because of lack of space. At the 1858 Festival”, J. B. Robinson reported that, at the last Yorkshire Union of Mechanics’ Institutes meeting, Marsden was referred to as ‘having one of the best and largest libraries of any village Mechanics’ Institute in the United Kingdom’. But did size matter? In his speech to the 1856 Soiree James Hanson”, advocated a smaller volume of good books rather than a larger library of cheaper ones. This comment obviously touched a raw nerve at the Institution, because the President responded to this point in the following year’s soiree’’’. In his speech he said ‘regarding the expurgation of books, suggested at last year’s soiree, the library needs no revision and stands comparison with any library. If you exclude fiction, it does not follow the people will take to the study of philosophy; the probability is, they will read nothing at all’. Here is a glimpse of some of the arguments found throughout the mechanics’ movement. On the one hand there was a sense of a puritanical approach to learning, while on the other hand there was the alternative position of engagement to develop a love for learning; education arguments still in existence 150 years later.

Like other institutions, the one at Marsden was run by a committee with a president, two vice-presidents and a secretary carrying out most of the business of the institution. Annual meetings took place when the new committee was elected, these were usually held in October. The first president was James Taylor, the son of Enoch Taylor famous for the manufacture of cropping machines in the Luddite story. He appeared to be a man who very much followed in his father’s footsteps as a reformer

160

Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (14"" February 1853) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (21° January 1854) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (ca January 1856) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (21° January 1854) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (12" January 1861) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser September 1858) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (ca January 1856) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (10 January 1857)

161 162 163 164 165 166

167

Page 71

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 69

and for 30 years had been a member of the Liberal Party. As a reformer, he was an ‘ardent friend of education’ and according to his obituary, it was entirely through his exertions that the Marsden Mechanics Institution was established. During his period as President he acted as Treasurer and was a major benefactor of the Institution” His obituary said that ‘his life was chequered with no striking events’, perhaps suggesting that he was a man who operated more in the background. Only two Soirees when he was President were reported in the newspapers and in neither of these did he make a speech. In the 1847 Soiree he excused himself because he had a and in 1848 because he ‘didn’t speechify’.”° By this time, however, a man with a more forceful character was emerging: John Bower Robinson. Born in 1827, he was the Secretary of the Institution and at the 1848 Soiree, when he was about 21 years old, he gave a very mature speech to the gathering.

J. B. Robinson was a wool manufacturer and it is evident he was very much involved in the mechanics institution movement. In addition to carrying out the office of secretary, he gave lectures to Marsden and other institutions. His visit to the Great Exhibition of London and his subsequent lectures to several institutions on this visit suggest he was extremely interested in science and progress. In 1845, he was involved in establishing the Institute in He was also a major benefactor: he donated more books to the Institution’s library than any other donor and his mill (Bower and Robinson) provided a room for the annual soiree on at least two occasions. After the death of James Taylor, J. B. Robinson was unanimously elected President and Treasurer at a meeting of the committee held on Friday 24th September 1852°’*. At the same meeting, Joseph Hesselgrave (the village’s General Practitioner) and George Taylor (probably an engineer at the Taylor Iron Foundry) were elected Vice-presidents and Samuel Robinson (possibly the younger brother of J. B. Robinson) the secretary. The Librarians were Joseph Mellor and Allan Hall.

We can learn about J. B. Robinson’s educational philosophy, his views on the role of Mechanics’ Institutions and society through his speeches to the annual Soiree. Newspaper reports of the events also give us an insight into how the Marsden

168

Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser September 1852) Leeds Mercury January 1847) Leeds Mercury (15"" January 1848) Leeds Mercury (18° October 1845) Leeds Mercury (16° January 1847) Leeds Mercury (15"" January 1848) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (2"° October 1852)

169 170 171 172 173

174

Page 72

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 70

Mechanics’ Institution was developing and the type of entertainment enjoyed by the people of the 1850s. To quote from the report of J. B.Robinson’s speech to the 1854 Soiree ‘they had come for three things; one was to be amused, another was to have laid before them the claims of that and similar societies to public support, and the third, he believed the most important of all, the institution wanted to make money by

them. ( Laughter)’.’”°

The soirees followed a similar pattern. About a week before an advertisement was placed in the local press advertising the event and the cost of the tickets. To begin with the event was held in the large room of the Institution. Subsequent soirees were held in a large room of the new mill of Bowers and Robinson’’”’’’, the large room connected with the Old Ram Inn’”®, the new Assembly Room of the New Inn?” and in the National School’. The rooms were decorated with ‘evergreens’. The description of the decorations in the report of the 1855 Soiree is as follows: ‘The room was well lighted and decorated with evergreen from which peeped forth artificial roses red and white’. Along one side the motto “Let there be light” was formed by green Other mottos at the soirees were ‘Prosperity to the Marsden Mechanics’ Institute’*** and

Speeches to the various soirees gave us an insight into the thinking and principles behind the mechanics movement. In the early years, there was a great deal of distrust of the institutions because they challenged the social norms of the times. All membership was open to all classes of society irrespective of religious belief. It was probably the latter that was seen as the major threat. The report of James Kerr’s (secretary to the Holmfirth Mechanics Institution) speech summarised the mechanic’s position ‘mechanics institutions were not established to support party objects, neither full discussion of religious topics, for under all circumstances when these things were introduced contentions always arose; but by avoiding them the working of the institution runs more smoothly’.

175

Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (21 October 1854) Leeds Mercury January 1847) Leeds Mercury (15"" January 1848) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser January 1855) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (ca January 1856) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser January 1857) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (6" January 1855) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (21° January 1854) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (ca January 1856) Leeds Mercury January 1847)

176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183

184

Page 73

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 71

By the early 1850s the institutions were accepted. The report of J. B. Robinson’s speech to the 1853 Soiree’’’, said ‘he would not insult the understanding of his audience by attempting to prove that the designs of such institutions are neither dangerous or doubtful. The day when that was necessary and when it was requisite to offer an apology for supplying men with the means of information was happily past’. The issue of religion was still being addressed. In the report of the 1854 Soiree’ in his letter of apology for not attending, which was read out to the audience, Joseph Batley said ‘Wany persons whose character, station, and influence in society demand our respect, stand blood ‘ae’ Institulio ne because religious instruction is forbidden; and Mechanics it is by some supposed that this is a mistaken ee "On Weinenday de 40th of Jan, sila I view; that nothing in religion is excluded but

Mateden Institation will be held

187 _ In the LARGE ROOM of the Institution. The speech to the 1847 Soiree by John Tea to be ov the Table al & o'Clock in the Evening, Robinson (not John Bower Robinson) gave an

AFTER WHC A

indication of political changes the country was CONCERT undergoing and the role of the mechanics movement in those changes. In the article he CAL 6 ee AT PERFORMERS was reported as saying ‘But to change has

MISS BERRY, come over England. The power which was

MWENSERS, BERRYS, once confined to a titled few, is now becoming GARTSIDE, HALL, &e. the prerogative of the many. Public opinion

Mes PEREGRINE THR now directs the statesman, and accomplishes ‘S. Oi = rs, changes by peaceful agitation which would I Russell will p »side at the Plado-Fort formerly have been the result of civil the gtr FRAN FA welt he eng and ether - oy ‘ sang Sorat aria pera commotion’... ‘The enlightened public opinion aaa ai at i rae has as yet but gently briefed upon the surface Poster advertising the 1844 Soiree of society, but every hour shall give its Photo courtesy of Duncan Mateley strength, every germ of knowledge shall

increase its power, until it sweeps down with irresistible might.’ He goes on to link the role of the mechanics movement in providing that enlightenment.

185

Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (3 January 1853) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (21° January 1854) Leeds Mercury January 1847)

186

187

Page 74

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 72

While the speeches exhorted the breaking down of class barriers within the Mechanics Institute, the labouring classes were also criticised for not taking up learning. John Robinson in his speech to the 1947 Soiree’ was reported to having said ‘It may be urged that the labouring classes have not time nor money to apply to the acquisition of knowledge. But I would ask this objector if they never give their time to the Tavern, common idle pursuits, or debasing pleasures; if they never spend their money in dissipation, or in the indulgences of common foibles’. In 1854 the (Mr S Robinson) report to the annual Soiree suggested this was being achieved’. The report of his speech said ‘At this day when so many mechanics’ institutes are pointed to as failures, or as coming middle class instead of working- men’s societies, this institution fortunately has been successful both in theory and practice’. This more likely than not hid the truth that Marsden Mechanics’ Institution was failing to attract the working men. Two years later at the 1856 Soiree, the fees were reduced for the over 18s from 10d per month to 6d in order to attract the ‘labouring However those that did pay the higher fee did have additional benefits. Whether or not the working man was attracted to the Institution, the end of the 1850s saw a large increase in membership.

Although the speeches gave us an insight into the philosophy and thinking of the leaders of the Mechanics’ Institution, for the people of Marsden it was probably more the entertainment on offer that was the main attraction of the Soirees. From the poster for the 1844 Soiree, it is obviously the concert that is a major selling point, together with the ‘Phantasmagoria’, the air pump and the Electrical machine. Entertainment has always been important to the Marsden Mechanics’ Institution. Earlier in this article we have seen that the first newspaper report of the Institution was of a concert held in In 1847 the Institution started a subscription so that it would have its own piano for future musical events. There appears to have been a band in the village, because in the report of the 1848 there is reference to the Marsden Military Band playing popular airs during tea. Who knows what the fate of that band was, but at the 1855 Soiree the Institution formed its own band.” For several years the band contributed to village life by playing at other soirees, summer

188

Leeds Mercury (16° January 1847) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (21 January 1854) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (ca January 1856) The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser (25° March 1843) Leeds Mercury (16° January 1847) Leeds Mercury (15"" January 1848) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (6" January 1855)

189 190 191 192 193

194

Page 75

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 73

festivals, mill parties, Congregational and Wesleyan School processions and Whit Walks.

But it was the Soirees where the people of Marsden went to for entertainment, and they went to them in large numbers. Given that there was more likely than not a lot of journalistic licence, the numbers reported were as follows: in the 1847 Soiree held at the Bowers and Robinsons new mill 700 sat down for tea with a maximum of 1000

MARSDEN MECHANICS INSTITUTION. HE SOIREE of this Institution will take place on Thursday evening, 8th January, 1857, in the New National School. J. B. ROBINSON, Esy., presi- dent of the in the chair. The following. amongst other gentlemen, are expected to be present, and take in the ings :--T. P. CROSLAND, Esq., J.P., of Huddersfield; Rev. A. SMITH, B.A., principal of Huddersfield Collegiate Schoo! ; J. FREEMAN, Esq, of Huddersfield; Rev. S. ROBIN- SON, B.A., of Birmingham; Mr. FRANK CURZON, of the Liudderstield Mechanicy’ Institution. For the Musical rt, the following Artistes are ed :—Mra. SUNDERLAND, Miss FREEMAN, Mr. DELAVANTI, Mr. WOOD. Pianoforte—Mr. J. WOOD. The Mechanics’ Institution Band will be in attendance Tickets—Reserved Seats 2s., Second Seats Is., Back Seats 6d. Tickets (not transferable) to the Reserved and Second Seats, balf-price.—Cupies of the Words uf the Music may be obtained at the dours, on the evening of the Soiree, at one Penny cach.

people present at one stage’; in 1848 at the same venue 600 sat down for tea’: and in 1856 - the only other year where numbers were reported - 400 people were reported to have attended at the new assembly room of the New Advertisements placed in the newspaper not only announced the performers,

but also indicated that

The doors will open at half-past Five, and the chair taken at Six. OE PINDER, Secretary.

Advertisement for the 1857 Soiree

there would be an Opportunity for audience participation as the words

for the songs were on sale.

The programme usually consisted of performers singing songs and ‘glees’ (an unaccompanied song of three or four parts usually sung by men) between the speeches. The formal part of the evening ended with the national anthem after which the room was cleared of the table and chairs for dancing. As described in the report of the 1855 Soiree’, ‘the remainder of the evening was spiritedly occupied by the youth of the village tripping on the light fantastic toe to the merry strains of an excellent quadrille (a form of square dance) band’. Many artistes performed over the

years but two regulars were Mrs Sunderland, the founder of the annual Huddersfield

195

Leeds Mercury January 1847) Leeds Mercury (15"" January 1848) Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (ca January 1856) 198 Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (6 January 1855)

196 197

Page 76

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 74

Mrs Sunderland’s music competition described at the time as the ‘the Northern Jenny Lind’ and Mr Delavanti. In 1856, Mr Delavanti missed the train from Manchester and having used ‘an alternative form of conveyance’, as reported in the newspaper I article of the event, he arrived over an hour late when ‘he was greeted with a mingle of cheers and hisses, the former prevailing”. By the end of the evening the discontent at his late arrival seemed to have been forgotten, as his singing of ‘Get up and bar the door’ earned him an encore.

Throughout this period of the 1840s and 1850s, the Mechanics’ Institution in Marsden grew from strength to strength. While many mechanics’ institutions were becoming less popular, Marsden’s membership grew. During this time, there was always pressure for more space and by 1856, there was open talk about raising money for a new building for the Institution. It would be another five years before the members moved into that building, but that is another story.

Susannah Sunderland Courtesy Kirklees Image Archive

Biography Steve Challenger moved to Huddersfield in 1974 from Loughborough in

Leicestershire. With degrees in Animal Physiology and Cardiovascular Studies, he had a career in further and higher education in Leeds and Huddersfield for over 35 years. Since retiring in 2011, he spends his time in photography, walking with a little

cycling and studying the local Steve Challenger is currently working on researching

history of West Yorkshire, and writing up the sequel to this article — bringing the Leicestershire and the South story of the Marsden Mechanics Hall up-to-date. We Wales Valleys. Much of his time is hope to be able to publish this in a future edition of the now spent in working with a Journal. (Editor)

group of enthusiasts trying to bring the Marsden Mechanics’ Hall into community ownership.

199

Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser (ca January 1856)

Page 77

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 75

BOOK REVIEWS Reviewers: David Cockman & Keith Brockhill

1. IN THESE TIMES

Living in Britain through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793-1815 By Jenny Uglow Published: Faber & Faber 2014, £25 (Amazon £17) ISBN: 978-0-571-26952-5 Reviewed by David Cockman

In recounting the long and complex unfolding of the Napoleonic Wars Mrs. Uglow turns the usual historical approach on its head, for we see its impact not through the eyes of the “big beasts” who controlled, or thought they controlled events,- Pitt, Castlereagh, Nelson, Wellington and, of course, the cause of all the trouble, Napoleon himself, but on how it affected a wide spectrum of citizens from all classes in this country. As she says in her introduction: “/ began to wonder, how did the wars affect the lives of people in Britain, not those who fought, but those at home looking on, watching?”

Mrs.Uglow achieves this by harvesting information from a rich legacy of diaries, letters, business accounts and newspaper stories, as well as reading between the lines from contemporary poets such as Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Byron whose lives and art were set against the backdrop of the wars. There is the inevitable country parson with his diary, several farmers whose careful records of weather, planting, harvesting and market prices reflect the ups and downs of the war’s progress, and a remarkable woman called Betsey Fremantle who began her diary at the age of eleven and kept it up, with one short break, until she died at the age of 80. Most famous contributor is perhaps Jane Austen who voices in her letters her concern for her two brothers, Charles and Francis, serving as officers in the Royal Navy, although in her novels there are fewer references to the wars than might have been expected. Perhaps her novels were a welcome escape from the war weariness,which afflicted so many during these twenty plus years of conflict. This also helps to explain the title of the work “/n these times” which had become the shorthand description of the era for a whole generation for whom the war seemed unending. It had become part of the fabric of their lives.

Page 78

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 76

What also becomes clear is how riven Britain was by the wars. A large faction, broadly described as Radicals, welcomed the French Revolution and hoped to see it replicated in this country. Some even declared their intention of standing on the beach in Kent to offer Napoleon a very warm “bienvenue”. On the other hand the ruling aristocratic elite became paranoid, fearing they they too would soon end up on the guillotine like their French counterparts. Free speech and dissent of any kind was ruthlessly and often brutally suppressed by them. Both sides are voiced in Mrs. Uglow’s sources.

It is also clear that the glorious British army was often not quite as glorious as sometimes claimed. It was frequently in a shambolic state,not least because its officers were appointed not on merit but on how much they were prepared to pay for a commission. (Much of this money ended up in the pocket of the Duke of York who used the cash to fund his various mistresses. No wonder there were radicals and cartoons lampooning the royal family. Revolution? Bring it on!)

This book is a long, rich and very engrossing read (some 720 pages including notes and bibliography.) From the aristocratic lady, more interested in the latest London fashions than war news, via the farmer struggling with fluctuating corn prices, to the limbless ex-soldier struggling to survive in an indifferent world we can witness the effects of the tyrannical ambition of one man on the fabric of a whole nation for more than twenty years.

One tongue-in-cheek criticism is the fact that for all her research Mrs Uglow fails to mention Holmfirth’s own surviving relic of the Napoleonic years, that is “Owd Genn”, a tall stone column still standing in the centre of town, erected to commemorate the short-lived Peace of Amiens in 1802. Local cloth makers welcomed the peace, hoping that the lucrative French export market would once more be open to them. Unfortunately they were counting their chickens, as the peace lasted but a few months. Not surprisingly those who had promised to subscribe to its erection failed to come up with the money once hostilities with France resumed. John Wadsworth who had provided the materials and labour for the column vented his anger by erasing the inscription commemorating the peace. A plate attached to it in 1852 marks the level of the flood water in the town centre after the catastrophic collapse of Bilberry reservoir. Napoleon’s legacy to the Holme Valley. Merci beaucoup!

Postscript In a subsequent correspondence with Mrs Uglow concerning “Owd Genn” she says she is hoping to include a reference to it in the paperback edition of “In These Times.”

Page 79

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 77

2. HUDDERSFIELD IN World War 1

Edited by Brian Heywood Published : Upper Calder Valley Publications in association with Huddersfield Rugby League: A Lasting Legacy. 2014 300pp, illustrated, £15 ISBN: 9780954714673 Reviewed by Keith Brockhill

Until the Commemorations of 2014, two of the most enduring images of the First World War were of brave soldiers, bayonets fixed, battling through the trenches and the belief that this cause, for which these ‘lions’ suffered was one of utter futility. This was the war of the ‘lost generation’, so eloquently lamented by poets and novelists, whilst numerous war memorials bore silent, stony, permanent testimony to those who had perished.

And yet, even in total war, life went on, and if the Commemorations have achieved only one thing it is a new understanding of what it was to be alive in this country at that terrible time. This book, the product of lengthy, painstaking research by the HLF—funded Rugby League Heritage project, has produced something of a valuable ‘one stop shop’ for those seeking an understanding of Huddersfield life at the time. Despite being arranged in chronological order, from the Declaration of War to the post war ‘transition and legacy” this isn’t really a title for reading from cover to cover, more for dipping into a topic, scanning the numerous pictures and maps, reading a poem, discovering what exactly a medal was awarded for, or how much a pound in 1914 would be worth today.

There are innumerable snapshots of life. Out on the front line, when life wasn’t dangerous, it was miserable. ‘By gum I am hungry Dad, half a loaf a day and a bit of boiled fatty bacon’ wrote one disconsolate soldier, and, as to the sound of shells ‘oh God if we stay here much longer it will wreck me and many more’. But even at home, shortages of vital foods became a problem, with rationing - in 1917, for example, the Huddersfield Food Control Committee commandeered 3 tons of margarine, with half redirected to the War Hospitals - and queues — hence the sharp exchange between two socially conscious seekers of that valuable commodity ‘I only require margarine to grease the tins, aye, an’aw nobbut want mahn to grease mi clogs.’

Page 80

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 78

Though even getting out of the house presented problems in the blackout. Trams became particularly lethal, so effectively were they blacked out in ’the worst lighted town in the district’.

Huddersfield’s response to the shells crisis of 1915 involved several engineering firms and the production of the vital picric acid at British Dyes, a process that covered the town in ‘filthy fumes and noxious gases’, affecting people’s breathing, destroying vegetation, including Cllr Thompson’s rose garden, and even turned ‘our beautiful town into a second “Widnes”’. Nevertheless, if advertisers were believed, a cup of Rowntrees cocoa was enough to see any young girl through a day on the factory floor’!

Not surprisingly, ‘people nowadays want some form of relaxation that calls for no mental effort’ as the adjudicator of a ‘sparse’ Mrs Sunderland Competition regretfully observed, adding that ‘in this town above all others that state of things ought not to be.’

But, it was also a town in which the sight of the first Belgian refugees ‘brought tears to the eyes of many...gathered in St George’s Square’ and where 6 blind girls at the Huddersfield Blind Society knitted over 1,400 items for the troops on one year. People did their best in countless ways.

The authors modestly state that this is ‘neither an academic book nor a military history’, but there are plenty of those elsewhere, and this like other local titles has ensured that far from being the history of a lost generation, it is, perhaps, the story of a generation found.

3. “IT’S ALWAYS WINDY UP THERE” A short history of Cliff Rec By Vivien Aizlewood and Deborah Wyles Available from: Holmfirth Tourist Information Centre — contact 01484 686799 OR friendsofcliffrec@ hotmail.co.uk Reviewed by David Cockman

Thanks to the enthusiasm and determination of local residents, backed by support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, a long neglected corner of the Holme Valley has

Page 81

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 79

been restored to something like its former glory and function. The corner in question is Cliff Recreation Ground, known by all who who use it as Cliff(e) Rec. (Both Cliff and Cliffe are correct).

The Rec is situated at the end of a major outcrop of rock high above the Holme Valley, offering one of the best views of Holmfirth and the upper Holme Valley. For more than a century it has served as a playing field for children and as a venue for every kind of sport. For many years the Rec was used by local Sunday schools for celebrations and the popular school feasts. In recent years, however, it had fallen into disuse and because of its rather isolated situation it had attracted anti-social behaviour. The Friends of Cliff Recreation Ground were determined to rescue and restore this, to them, valuable social amenity.

To celebrate the resurrection of the Rec Vivien Aizlewood and Deborah Wyles have produced this most interesting and very readable history of a Holme Valley community which has perhaps not received the attention it deserves. For, nestling under the Rec on its rocky promontory, lies the hamlet of Cliff itself which has some of the oldest buildings in the Holmfirth area. This neglect has almost certainly a lot to do with its position, for although close to Holmfirth centre the only way to reach Cliff is by a steep climb from whatever direction you choose. As an Edwardian guide to Holmfirth made clear: “/t is a 10 minute walk from the centre, although 20 minutes for half the population.”

Trawling through census returns and 19th century newspapers, as well as collecting more recent oral memories from locals, the authors have put together the history of a community which still maintains much of its individual character, the legacy perhaps of some of its earlier residents, - Joe Perkin, for example, musician and choirmaster, best remembered for his arrangement of the Holmfirth anthem “Pratty Flowers”, or the eccentric Jimmy Fitton,who dressed in women’s clothes would go from house to house with his five donkeys selling ashes. Although he had a house on Cliff he preferred to sleep in the fields. In 1744 the diarist Arthur Jessop, making his way home on a dark winter’s night fell some 6 yards over the edge of the cliff hurting himself so badly that he cold not move. He lay there until discovered the following afternoon, “almost frozen to death”.

Page 82

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 80

But without doubt the “must-see” of today’s Rec is the brand new seating and interpretation structure with carvings by children from local schools. It is the beautiful creation of master

a dr ity 19 a = _— y stone waller, John Ford, ie. ia || and a visit to it will repay anyone who huffs and puffs their way up the steep climb from Holmfirth. The seating and interpretation structure with carvings This excellent little book not

by children from local schools at the Rec only reflects what can be achieved when a community gets “stuck in” with a determination to improve their local environment for the general good.It is also a valuable new resource for the local historian. Highly recommended.

Page 83

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 81

PADDOCK JUNIOR INFANT & NURSERY SCHOOL Edited by John Rawlinson

ili

een, ee Tas

Paddock Junior, Infant & Nursery School as it is today. This is part of the original building opened by the Huddersfield School Board in 1884.

Paddock Junior, Infant & Nursery School is on Heaton Lane, Paddock and we are pleased to include a short piece from a group of writers in Year 6 in this edition of the Journal. The present school building, originally opened in 1884, continues to thrive with its modern extensions and attractive refurbishments. It was judged, by OFSTED, in January 2015 as a good school with outstanding features.

The school log books provide a real insight into school life and I thought it worthwhile to include some of the entries as an introduction to the short article by pupils. Paddock Board School (mixed) opened in January 1881 and was housed initially in the Methodist New Connection School. John Rhys Jones, the school’s first headmaster, reported that a large number of children seemed to have no idea of

Page 84

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 82

paying attention to the teachers. The boys were very bad-mannered, but the girls were much better. Nobody was caned during the school’s first week.

On 22"° August 1884 the new school buildings were officially opened by Mayor Wright Mellor — they had cost £8900 to build. In 1888 Mary Stott, an “obedient child” died; Arthur Taylor, a “disobedient pupil” fell down the railway cutting and was killed; Fred Heywood, “a real nuisance”, was publicly caned for locking girls in their toilets and, in July 1890 a boy dared to climb over the wall separating the boys’ and girls’ playgrounds. The headmaster drove him back with his cane. In 1899 boys walked to Ramsden Street Baths for swimming lessons — girls were not allowed to go.

In February 1901 a memorial service was held to mark the death of Queen Victoria, who had reigned for 64 years. In 1902 a special assembly was held to mark the end of the Boer War. In June medals were presented to each child to mark Edward V11’s Coronation.

In September 1914 the infant building was closed for a fortnight because of a measles epidemic. In November “refugee Belgian children” living at Royds Hall visit the school. In April 1917 Paddock School became a military hospital and pupils were transferred to classrooms in three nearby Sunday Schools.

In 1921 the School Choir won Third Prize in the Mrs Sunderland Music Competition — the prize was two guineas.

On 4" September 1939 the school was closed as WW2 began and on 25" September the children practised using bomb-shelters and by October senior boys were “digging for victory” in an allotment-garden in Larch Road. In May 1944 £28 was raised for the War Effort as a result of children collecting 12,384 jam jars. In August 37 London children (evacuees) came to the school for the first time.

By September 1951 the school was badly overcrowded with 454 on roll — school dinners were eaten off desks in the classrooms.

The article which follows was written as part of a study the year 6 pupils were doing about The Story of Chocolate (Editor)

Page 85

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 83

THE STORY OF CHOCOLATE By Evie Rushworth (aged 11), Millie Gray (aged 10), Hira Mazhar (aged 10) and Erin Taylor (aged 11)

This is Joseph Rowntree, he was the founder of one of the’ biggest chocolate companies ever known...Rowntrees! Rowntrees came up with more than 100 different brands of confectionary and are still going to this day. Nowadays, Rowntrees are more known for sweets/candy for in 1988 Henri Nestle took over the company.

Joseph Rowntree

YORK’S

CHOCOLATE

STORY

To learn more about our new topic of chocolate we visited York’s Chocolate Story and...We each made a chocolate lolly, decorated with all of the chocolate flakes and sprinkles you could ever want! After that, we all went on a tour around the factory. It was all about the history of chocolate and the founders of all the sweet companies...lt was awesome! This is what we learnt: Joseph Rowntree the founder of Rowntrees, chocolate actually starts from some cacao beans from a cocoa pod and there are a few more stages before making the actual chocolate, John Cadbury was the founder of Cadburys, Henri Nestle was the founder of Nestle, who also took

Left to right:- Evie Rushworth, Millie oyer Rowntrees! We also learnt much more. Gray

Hira Mazhar, Erin Taylor

Page 86

Huddersfield Local History Society Journal 84

My name is Hira Mazhar, I am 10 years old. I go to Paddock Junior, Infant and Nursery School. I like reading, watching TV and I

love Lego Friends. I also like Ariana Grande and Netball.

My name is Millie Gray, I am 10 years old. I also go to Paddock Junior, Infant and Nursery. I like reading, drawing and I love acting! I absolutely love Sam Smith,

he’s the best singer ever! I also really like Minions...they’re the best!

My name is Evie Rushworth.| am 11 years old and I also go to Paddock Junior, Infant and Nursery School. I like dancing, football and loads of other sports.

My name is Erin Taylor and lam 11 years of age. I go to Paddock Junior, Infant and Nursery School. I like reading, drawing and I love

Taylor Swift!

Page 87

HUDDERSFIELD LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY

WEBSITE: www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk Email address: huddshistory@gmail.com

SOCIETY OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE

CHAIR: Cyril Pearce Email: chairman@huddersfieldhistory.org.uk

SECRETARY: Hilary Haigh 30, Stonecliffe Drive, Middlestown, Wakefield, WF4 4QD Email: secretary@huddersfieldhistory.org.uk

TREASURER: David Griffiths

Email: treasurer@huddersfieldhistory.org.uk

PUBLICITY: Christine Verguson Email: info@huddersfieldhistory.org.uk

COMMUNICATION WITH MEMBERS

VICE CHAIR: John Rawlinson

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Val Davies 21 Glebe Street, Marsh, Huddersfield, HD1 4NP

Email: membership@huddersfieldhistory.org.uk

PUBLICATIONS SECRETARY & JOURNAL EDITOR:

John Rawlinson Email: editor@huddersfieldhistory.org.uk

COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Keith Brockhill, Frank Grombir, Brian Haigh, Maureen Mitchell, Pauline Rawlinson, Bill Roberts

The Society appreciates that not all members are computer users and will continue

to send full information about Members’ events by post. However we sometimes

receive information which may be of interest to Members electronically, and we are

happy to circulate this by e-mail to any Member who wishes to join a list for this

purpose. If you would like to do so, please e-mail your request to the Membership

Secretary (Email address above). Anybody joining the e-mail list may also leave at

any time.

The Society wishes to pay special thanks to Graeme Poulton and Sarah Kellet, both, at the time,

undergraduates at Huddersfield University who, as part of their work experience, designed the front cover

of this Journal.

Page 88

ISSN 2049-8403 Price £4.00