This newspaper clipping is from an edition of Sunday Illustrated, published on the 3rd of September 1922. The headline and caption reads: “Children strike to retain teacher: Some of the 240 girls of Eastwood Council School, Keighley, Yorkshire, who are on strike against the dismissal of Mrs Belfield, their headmistress. Mrs Belfield was discharged because she is a married woman.”
Sunday Illustrated was a short-lived national newspaper that ran from July 1921 to November 1923. As the name implies, its content relied heavily on photographs over text.
Cutting from a scrapbook of clippings kept by George Crowther of photographs he took and articles he wrote for various publications. Crowther (d: 1960) spent 50 years with the Bradford and District Newspaper Company until his retirement in 1956. He started out as a press photographer in the 1920s and ended with six years as editor of the Keighley News (1950-1956). He was active in the St. John Ambulance Brigade and served on the Council of the Bronte Society.
The Penguin Players’ production of ‘Little Women’, by Marian De Forest (from the novel by Louisa M. Alcott), opened at the Hippodrome and Queen’s Theatre in Keighley for one week only from Monday 1st September 1952.
Amongst the cast were Monty Vane-Tempest and Louise Ralston as Mr and Mrs March. The play was produced by Peter Davey and the manager of the players was Kathleen Willis. Linda Dale accompanied proceedings on the piano.
The programme also included adverts for the Regal Milk Bar (proprietor J. W. Dutton) on North Street; H. Wilkinson (television dealer) in The Arcade on North Street; Shackleton and Sagar’s Minerals from Spring Bank in Ingrow; the cocktail bar of the Victoria Hotel on Cavendish Street; J. Scheerer & Sons (sound firm) of Leeds; C. Holmes (plumber and sanitary engineer) of Sandywood Street; A. Lord & Co. (modern furnishers) with showrooms on High Street; Jack Hey (joiner and undertaker) of Albert Yard off Bridge Street; Katheena (prize-winning ladies’ hair stylist) on Fell Lane; John W. Laycock Ltd. (fireplace specialists) of North Street; Timothy Taylor’s Prize Ales (“for men of the North”); Rightway School of Motoring on Lawkholme Crescent; Harry Stowell (plumber and sanitary engineer) of Bradford Road, Riddlesden; Renee Coats, Gowns and Knitwear of Church Street; and Windser Pottery (H. Brearley and Sons) of North Street.
The 1950s was a turbulent decade in the history of the Hippodrome and Queen’s Theatre in Keighley. Long-time Managing Director Francis Laidler (who also owned the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford) died in 1955 and was succeeded by his widow Gwladys. Television was providing a significant challenge to theatre-going by the middle of the decade, and the Hippodrome had to try more extreme forms of entertainment to draw in the crowds. But to no avail, and the theatre finally closed its doors in 1956, before being demolished in 1961 to make way for the new town centre’s multi-storey car park.
The programme was donated to Keighley and District Local History Society by Tim Neal in 2022. It is held in the History Society’s physical archive.
Trackless trolleybuses ran for the last time in Keighley on Wednesday 31st August 1932. From the following day motorised buses provided all the public transport around the town.
Trolleybuses travelled on wheels with tyres but drew their power from overhead power cables. They succeeded the electrified trams that ran along tracks laid on the main roads in and out of the town up until 1924, when the tracks were taken up but the overhead power cables were kept in place.
The colour photograph was taken in the College car park during the Keighley Transport Festival held in June 2022, and shows the restored Keighley No. 5, the Straker-Clough trolleybus that came into service in 1924.
These three gentlemen were all prize-winners at the 63rd annual show of the Haworth, Cross Roads, Lees and Oxenhope Gardeners and Allotment Holders Association, held on Saturday 29th August 1981. All three winners had the surname Shackleton (although only two were related) and between them they took home four out of the eight cups awarded. The story was covered in the 4th September edition of the Keighley News.
In 2021, Keighley and District Local History Society acquired an extensive collection of photograph negatives taken by the Keighley News. Groups of negatives were held in small wallets with the date and basic labelling written on the wallet. The photographs are from this set. The colour photograph of Haworth Village Hall was taken by Tim Neal in 2020.
William Anderton Brigg was born on 27th August 1862. He was the second son of Sir John Brigg, who became the second MP for Keighley (1895-1911, Liberal), and Mary Brigg. William was second son only by a matter of moments as he was one of twins and was just the junior to John Jeremy Brigg (1862-1945). He and his twin brother lived at Kildwick Hall between Keighley and Skipton from around 1875 to 1945. They lived there with their younger brother, and later were joined by their sister Mary following the death of her husband.
William became Mayor of Keighley in 1912, following in the footsteps of his own uncle, Benjamin Septimus Brigg, who had been Keighley’s first mayor in 1882/83. William became the longest serving Mayor, being in post for four years (1912-16). As William was a bachelor, his sister, Mary Sharpe of Darley Dale, undertook the role of mayoress. He also served as a magistrate and the Police and court report columns of local newspapers of the time are full of his deeds in dealing with the strikes and riots of 1914. He was Mayor at the start of the First World War and was very active raising funds for war bonds, aeroplanes and recruitment, and the extension buildings at the Morton Banks War Hospital.
His time as Mayor is recorded in the Keighley News Borough Jubilee supplement of 10th September 1932: “The distinction of having been Mayor of Keighley longer than anyone else belongs to Alderman William Anderton Brigg, who filled the position with great credit for four successive terms. There is practically no phase of Keighley’s public and social life in which his name does not figure. (He) entered the Town Council in 1912, and he has remained a member down to the present time. As Deputy Town Clerk for the late Mr George Burr and as Clerk to the Denholme District Council he had already had much experience of local government work. On the retirement of his uncle, Mr B. S. Brigg, Alderman Brigg was appointed his successor as chairman of the Waterworks Committee, and it was under him that the great Sladen Valley waterworks project finally grew to fruition, though, because of the war, at a cost undreamed of when the venture was first begun. He was Mayor when the Great War broke out, and two of the most difficult years in Keighley’s history passed with him at the head. His generosity for war relief objects was outstanding. Time, energy, and money were freely spent. He took a leading share in the formation of Keighley’s War Hospital; he opened war funds, and, indeed, when he retired from the Mayoralty a sum of something like £39,000 had been raised in the borough and surrounding efforts in war funds.”
Along with his twin brother, William bought East Riddlesden Hall in 1913. The hall was in a pretty poor state, having been largely refashioned in the 19th century when it was divided up to house tenant farmers. They sought, unsuccessfully, to raise funds to preserve the house, and the house ended up for sale in an auction in 1921. Finally, in 1933, it was sold to a builder with plans to redevelop the whole site, but the Briggs brothers stepped in again. The Hall and estate were handed over to the National Trust on 31st May 1934 on the understanding that it would be looked after for ever and that the land surrounding it would be used for recreation by the local communities.
William served as honorary secretary of the Keighley and District Victoria Hospital and was a staunch supporter of the Y.M.C.A. He stood for election as a Liberal MP in Skipton in 1918 and in Keighley in 1922. He was unsuccessful on both occasions, losing in Keighley to H. B. Lees-Smith who was elected as the town’s first Labour MP (by a majority of over 4000). In 1925, William became the thirteenth Honorary Freeman of Keighley, following in his father’s footsteps who was the fifth person to have the honour bestowed upon them.
He was chairman of the Board of Governors of Drake and Tonson’s School in Strawberry Street, Keighley, and in 1931 he laid a foundation stone for what would become the Keighley Girls’ Grammar School in Stoneycroft Lane, Utley. The school was officially opened in 1934 by the Right Honourable Viscount Halifax, president of the Board of Education.
William died on the 4th January 1938, aged 75. He is buried in the Quaker cemetery established by Thomas Brigg in the 17th century, located between Lustre Street and North Dean Road in the Guardhouse area of Keighley.
The portrait of William is taken from the Keighley News Borough Jubilee Supplement of 10th September 1932; the Borough Council photograph with William is his Mayoral chain is a Hill and Siggers portrait; the postcard of East Riddlesden Hall is a Walter Scott postcard; and the newspaper cutting is from the The Yorkshire Observer of 16th November 1922, photograph by George Crowther.
This is a quotation from Hird Bros. & Co. Ltd. (builders, joiners and contractors) of King Street and Otley Street, Keighley, dated 27th August 1959. It was for William Normington who lived at 118 Wheathead Lane who wanted some kitchen work done.
We know Hird Bros. & Co. Ltd. operated in the 1950s and 1960s because we have these two adverts from (top) a 1953 coronation newsletter from Keighley Parish Church and (bottom) a 1961 Keighley Amateurs’ programme.
The quotation paperwork includes the logos for the National Federation of Building Trades Employers, and the National Scheme for Disabled Men. The inclusion of the logo for the National Scheme for Disabled Men indicated the firm had undertaken to employ an approved percentage of disabled ex-servicemen, following the end of the First World War. In September 1919, King George V issued a proclamation charging employers to engage disabled sailors and soldiers, and ordering the names of employers who do so to be inscribed on the King’s National Roll. It was expected that one place in twenty in any establishment should be reserved for a disabled man, and that employers fulfilling the condition would be permitted to use a special-design, with the words “National Scheme for Disabled Men”, on their business notepaper. It was thus easy for the public to distinguish the patriotic from the unpatriotic employer.
The main picture shows Wheathead Lane taken from number 118 by John Normington in the 1950s.
The quotation and photograph is part of the John Normington Collection, donated to Keighley and District Local History Society by John’s daughter Liz Hornby in 2021.
The letter shown here is from James Wharton (Building Contractor to H.M. Office of Works) of Ingrow, for the work rebuilding the gable end wall of the Brown Cow Inn, Leeds Street, Keighley. The estimate is £400 and the letter is dated 24th August 1945.
The Brown Cow was originally four back-to-back houses, at the bottom of Leeds Street and Turkey Street, built sometime in the 1820s. When exactly it became a pub is hard to determine although there is evidence that this could be as early as the 1870s. Timothy Taylor’s Brewery bought the pub in 1901. There was extensive work carried out on the building in the late 1940s when the original walls showed signs of bulging outwards. The history and documentation was researched by Carol and Barry Taylor when they took over the pub in November 2003.
The inset picture shows landlord John Robinson and children stood outside the Brown Cow Inn, at the junction of Cross Street with Leeds Street and Turkey Street, circa 1900. The picture came to light after a newspaper appeal from Carol and Barry. The main picture was taken by Tim Neal in 2018.
Keighley News press photographs from the Worth Village Flower and Vegetable Show, held on Saturday 22nd August 1981.
In July 2021, Keighley and District Local History Society acquired an extensive collection of photograph negatives taken by the Keighley News. Groups of negatives were held in small wallets with the date and basic labelling written on the wallet.
Ever spotted the squirrel-adorned weathervane on the dome of the former Temperance Hall in Keighley? The building is now The Livery Rooms, a Wetherspoon’s pub.
This black-and-white photograph was taken on 20th August 1981 by a Keighley News photographer. The reason for taking the photograph is unknown as it does not appear to have featured in a subsequent copy of the paper. Perhaps it was just the photographer practicing with their telephoto lens.
In 2021, Keighley and District Local History Society acquired an extensive collection of photograph negatives taken by the Keighley News. Groups of negatives were held in small wallets with the date and basic labelling written on the wallet. This image is developed from one of those negatives. The main photograph was taken by Tim Neal in 2022.
Children and mothers assembled on the steps of Lund Park Methodist Chapel Sunday School on Malsis Road. The occasion was a Victory Party following the end of war in Europe, held on 18th August 1945. The photograph was one of many taken by local photographer George Shore (the postcard-sized photograph is stamped on the back). Shore went around recording the many street parties that took place and then made the photographs available for people to buy as a record of the occasion.
George A. Shore was a popular Keighley-based freelance photographer who simultaneously ran his photography business alongside running a carpet and linoleum store in Keighley market. Examples of his work exist from the 1930s and 1940s, and included outdoor events such as Keighley Gala, the coronation of King George VI, Victory street parties at the end of the Second World War, theatre productions, weddings, and landscapes. Many of his photographs were commissioned by and printed in the Keighley News. His original prints could be embossed “G. A. Shore” or stamped on the back in a circle “Geo. A. Shore”. In his other lines of business, Shore was an early member of Keighley Road Club and used to deliver rolls of carpet and linoleum via his motorbike and sidecar, aided by assistant Sam Scaife. Shore died in 1946.
The Lund Park Wesleyan Chapel (next door to the Sunday School) was opened in 1895 but closed in April 1970 and was subsequently demolished. It was located between Upper Hird Street and Upper Calton Street.
The photograph was loaned to Keighley and District Local History Society for scanning by Janet Bastow (nee Pickles) in 2022.
