KNOTTINGLEY TOWN HALL
by TERRY SPENCER B.A. (Hons), Ph D.
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Within a year of the opening it was
found that the entrance to the hall was constrained by lack of space and
would be better served if the Company held claim to the immediate frontage
of the building. It was therefore proposed by Sydney Woolf and seconded
by Nathaniel Dickinson at a subsequent Select Vestry meeting that the
Company be granted a few yards of land to the front of the Town Hall at
the rate of five shillings per square yard. The proposal was objected to
by John Senior of Leys Farm, Darrington Leys, who suggested an informal
agreement ‘on the give and take principle’ would be better and the Vestry
therefore left the issue to be decided by John Carter and Senior who were
‘to act as they think best’ in the matter. Being of an informal nature
the settlement is unrecorded and we may only assume some compromise was
reached.
Following its opening the Town Hall
quickly became the focal point for social activities within the town with
frequent concerts, lectures, exhibitions and balls supplementing the regular
facilities such as the library, baths, reading rooms and the classes held
under the auspices of the Mechanics’ Institute, and thus setting a pattern of
local usage which continues to this day. Notwithstanding its popularity,
however, the Company always operated on a financial shoestring and in March
1867, the directors mortgaged the premises and site in the sum of £800 at 5%
per annum interest to William Roberts of Cleckheaton, lime merchant. It is
interesting to note that of the original directors the names of Rev. Gatley,
Edward Moorhouse and John Copley had disappeared, being replaced by those of
Joseph Whitteron and Robert Cawthorn, shipowners, and William Simpson
Hepworth, bookseller, and Thomas Edwards Gaggs Bywater, surgeon. On 13th
December 1869, the mortgage was transferred to Harriet Hemsworth of Fryston
Lodge, Monk Fryston, by the directors of whom the name of James Burston,
shipowner, was included whilst those of Howard, Greenhow and Bywater were
extinct. In February 1880, the mortgage was again transferred, this time to
Andrew Mooney of Pontefract, proprietor of the Round House (later Hope)
Glassworks, Fernley Green. Nine years later the mortgage was held by a trio
of businessmen, John William Gaunt of Farsley, William Banks of Pudsey and
George Henry Lawrence of Leeds, who surrendered the possession to J. G. Lyon
in December 1901. The balance sheet of the Company for 1869 provides a
glimpse of how tight were the finances of the organisation.
Following the establishment of the
Pontefract Poor Law Union in 1862 and the eventual transfer of the Knottingley
Workhouse inmates to the newly constructed Union workhouse at Pontefract in
1865, steps were taken to dispose of the old parish workhouse. The vestrymen
were therefore deprived of the use of the committee room and sought a new
venue for their meetings. Accordingly, in May 1868, they undertook an
inspection of the ground floor rooms of the Town Hall to ascertain if any were
suitable for their use. The following month an agreement was reached with the
Town Hall Committee whereby the latter offered the room selected at an annual
rent of £11 per annum inclusive of fuel and gaslight. At the final meeting
held in the workhouse it was decided that subject to the approval of the local
Poor Law Board the towns Overseers of the poor should be empowered by the
Select Vestry ‘to rent or hire a room in the Town Hall to be used as a Public
Office for the Township.’ Following the signing of a formal agreement between
the contracting parties the room was suitably furnished and the Overseers
entered their new office on Saturday 5th September 1868. Thus the Town Hall
became the centre for civic administration as well as the social life of the
town.
The management of the Town Hall appears
to have been less than ideal and despite the popularity of the hall as a
social venue, the Committee quickly experienced financial difficulties.
Indeed, the £1000 estimated cost of building the hall was exceeded by £1400 so
the company started with a deficit, hence the necessity for the mortgage,
supplemented by the fees charged for the use of the hall. The charge of
£1-5s per evening (with
ten shillings extra for use of the piano) was, however, economically unviable
and most public events were loss making. It was not long, therefore, before
recriminations began, even amongst the directors themselves. Matters reached
a head in November 1869, when William Worfolk issued a libel writ against
Robert Hirst and Daniel Haigh over the content of an article entitled ‘The
Unveiling of the Town Hall’ which appeared in a local free sheet newspaper
– the ‘Business Currier’ of 23rd October 1869. The article, presumably based
upon the personal knowledge of Haigh, an original director of the Town Hall
Company, impugned the directors of the Company in general and Worfolk as a
director of the Company and the Mechanics’ Institute in particular. The
article referred to ‘dodgery’ and ‘cheap and dirty tricks ably
performed’ and drew the parallel between overspending in the construction
of the building and the (implied) graft in the supply of materials used. As
Worfolk had been deputised to supervise the choice of the materials and
payment of wages and expenses he was the obvious (albeit un-named) target of
the article, particularly as he, in his business capacity of brickmaker, had
supplied the contractor, John Stanhope, with bricks to the value of £70.
At the
subsequent court hearing Worfolk called fellow directors Sydney Woolf and John
Bentley to support his contention that he was the libel target and to give
evidence to show that all transactions he had undertaken were subjected to
cross checking and approval by a number of other parties.
Owing to the good offices of one of the
magistrates, Rev. J. A. Rhodes, the issue was settled in camera. With his
tongue so firmly in his cheek that it is scarcely credible he could speak, the
solicitor for the defendants stated that his clients ‘…….did not for a
moment wish to impugn the complainant nor reflect anything privately on him or
the Directors and would not publish anything of the kind again.’ With an
apology and payment of costs by the defendants the case was therefore
terminated.
The parlous financial state of the Town
Hall Company is also reflected in its dealings with the Select Vestry. The
latter body found difficulty in obtaining desired improvements, and by
January, 1870, were threatening to discontinue using the premises. Undaunted,
the Town Hall Company sought to obtain an increase in the rent from the autumn
of 1871 and by May, 1874, notified the tenants that as from the following
September, the rent would be increased to £14 per annum. Despite resistance
and negotiation the Select Vestry had to capitulate and pay the sum demanded.
A degree of dissatisfaction resulted and in March, 1879, the Select Vestry
decided to seek alternative accommodation, and by November of that year had
relocated in premises in Chapel Street belonging to the local School Board.
Ten years after the establishment of the
Knottingley Urban District Council in 1894, the Town Hall once again became
the administrative centre of the town. Rooms once comprising part of the now
defunct Mechanics’ Institute were adapted as the Council Chamber and offices,
and continued in this capacity until the late 1960’s when the Council and its
staff transferred to ‘The Close’ at Hill Top.
Meanwhile, the Town Hall continued under
the control of the original company which despite popular patronage, struggled
financially. The sale of the hall was increasingly suggested and by the late
1890’s its failure as a commercial venture was clearly evident with talk of
its possible transfer to the Council as public representative increasingly
mooted and finding general approval amongst the Committee as well as the
public.
The general desire was furthered by the
munificence of a local industrialist, J. G. Lyon of the Aire Tar Works,
Knottingley, who donated the sum of £500 to the K.U.D.C. to be spent as they
thought best for the good of the residents of the town. The Council nominated
the Town Hall and set up a sub committee under Councillor John Harker with a
view to obtaining the property.
On Monday 20th March, 1901, the Town
Hall was offered for sale at auction by Messrs Bentley & Sons. The sale
included furniture, fixtures and fittings, and carried a reserve price of
£1200. It was stated that the original cost represented about £4000 in terms
of 1901 values.
It was claimed afterwards by some of the
large crowd in attendance at the sale, that the outcome was pre-arranged, a
claim which may have been lent substance by public knowledge of a close
friendship and business relationship between Lyon and Harker. In the event,
Mr J. Whitteron and Cr. Harker competed with bids by ten stages before the
property was finally knocked down to the latter for the sum of £1365.
Following the sale Mr. Lyon extended his
original offer to cover the full cost of the purchase price and for reasons of
legal technicality, the building was transferred to his name before eventually
being bestowed upon the township.
Some indication of the Town Hall
Company’s affairs was provided by the Company Secretary, Mr. Thomas Worfolk,
prior to the commencement of the auction sale. In response to a question
concerning takings during the two previous years, Worfolk stated that the
income was £80-£100 gross out of which £14-£15 was paid in rates, the rateable
value of the building being £36. With additional costs for lighting and
heating and mortgage interest payments of £40 per year, it is unsurprising
that the premises were badly in need of renovation.
On the Monday following the sale, a
specially convened meeting of the Council passed a resolution on behalf of the
K.U.D.C. and the townspeople expressing ‘high appreciation of the gift’ and
resolved that a sealed copy of the resolution be sent to Mr. Lyon. Meanwhile,
the Town Hall Company had gone into voluntary liquidation.
At a celebratory dinner given by the
Council in Lyon’s honour at the Railway Hotel, Knottingley, in January, 1902,
Lyon revealed that he had originally considered presenting the township with a
steam fire engine before deciding to donate the Town Hall. Following the
dinner, the guests joined members of the public at the Town Hall where a
cinematographic show was produced by Messrs Brook and Burland and this was
followed by a grand concert. The evening was punctuated with the inevitable
speeches of the local dignitaries during which Rev. F. E. Egerton remarked
that the gathering was the largest he had ever addressed in that hall.
Following a vote of thanks, the public responded by singing ‘For He’s a Jolly
Good Fellow’ and giving Lyon a standing ovation.
Lyon in reply, expressed the hope that
the Council would use the hall for more educational purposes than had formerly
been the case, and suggested that the profits should be used on immediate
decorations and improvements to generate more income. Lyon also urged the
public to take local elections more seriously, stating that there had been too
much joking in the past.
An ongoing protracted legal dispute
between the K.U.D.C. and the contractors involved in constructing the town’s
new sewerage scheme not only engendered a financial crisis but also led to the
issue of a writ of Fi Fa against the Council, the implementation of which
involved the potential seizure of all the Council’s possessions, including the
newly acquired Town Hall. It was to prevent such loss that following the
purchase of the hall, the titular possession was retained pro tem by Mr Lyon.
Terry Spencer
To be continued....
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