Honley Feast (1883)
The 1883 Honley Feast began on Sunday 23 September.
As in previous years, the of whether or not to close the local schools during the feast proved contentious. At a Huddersfield School Board meeting, Owen Balmforth reported that attendance at local schools in the two days before the 1882 feast began was 2,150 but that it dropped to 1,121 during the Monday and Tuesday of the feast. Balmforth also presented a petition signed by 208 residents of the Primrose Hill area asking that children be given a week off during the feast and that the school's Christmas holidays be reduced by a week. The following proposal was put forth and accepted:[1]
That the Berry Brow, Mount Pleasant, Crosland Moor, and Stile Common Schools should be closed on Monday, September 24th, and Tuesday, 25th September, in the Honley Feast week, with the hope that the holidays will be confined to these two days, and that the parents will take care the children make full attendances for the remainder of the week.
The Chronicle noted that many of the visitors to the Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition in Huddersfield had also travelled on to the feast, although the Monday morning was spoilt by a "continuous downpour of rain". Although the weather cleared for the afternoon, the fairground at Lockwood was left in a "very dirty and miry condition" which "rendered locomotion very difficult." The local Salvation Army also held "special services during the feast."[2]
The Primrose Hill Baptist Chapel had debts outstanding from the erecting of the chapel and held their own exhibition during the feast, which was opened on the Monday afternoon by Ernest Woodhead.[3]