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Austin in August

This month’s History Society meeting is on Wednesday 13th August, upstairs in the Civic Centre on North Street at 7.15pm. The subject of the talk is ‘Austin Lee: Man of Mystery’. Austin Lee was born in Cowling and attended Keighley Boys’ Grammar School, and went on to have multiple careers including being an outspoken vicar, a barman, a teacher and the author of a series of cosy-crime novels featuring amateur sleuth Miss Flora Hogg. It’s a bit of team effort this time, with speakers Sharon Wright, Ann Dinsdale and Tim Neal, all of whom are keen to resurrect the profile of this most astonishing Keighley man.

Doors open at 7.15pm at the Civic Centre. All are welcome. Entry is free for History Society members and £3.50 for anyone else. Keighley Local Studies Library have copies of many of Austin’s books if anyone fancies reading them.

Summer reading…

August’s History Society meeting (on 13th August 2025) explores the life and works of vicar and crime novelist Austin Lee. If you fancy any summer reading in advance of the meeting, plenty of Austin’s books are available in Keighley Local Studies Library (just ask at the desk) – including some he wrote under his pen names of Julian Callender or John Austwick. We recommend ‘Murder in the Borough Library’ – set in a library inspired by Keighley’s own library (which is where Austin wrote it!).

A selection of books by Austin Lee, available to read in Keighley Local Studies Library. Photos: Tim Neal.

Roman Army Life Talk

A big thank you to John and Mary Hindle from the Roman reenactment group The Tungrians, who spoke to the History Society last night. They also brought examples of costume and armour along. They have their own website and Facebook page if you want the chance to see more of them and their reenactments. And a thank you to the society members and guests who joined us in the Civic Centre or on Zoom. Photographs by Tim Neal and Anne-Marie Dewhirst.

John and Mary of the Tungrians talk to the History Society in July 2025.

August’s talk will be a bit of a team effort, as we look back at the work and life of whodunnit author and vicar, the Reverend Austin Lee. Born in Keighley, with his murder-mystery novels often set in recognisable locations, Lee was a popular writer in the 1950s, and whose own story is full of twists and turns.

Asa Briggs Exhibition at Library

A small exhibition on Keighley-born historian Asa Briggs (1921-2016) is available to view in Keighley Local Studies Library for the next few months. He was educated at Keighley Boys’ Grammar School then at Cambridge. His main areas of interest were the social and cultural histories of the past two hundred years, resulting in books ranging from the Victorians to a comprehensive history of the BBC. He also wrote about his time working at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.

Asa Briggs exhibition at Keighley Local Studies Library, July 2025. Photographed by Tim Neal.

A short leaflet on Asa Briggs is available at the library, and in August a new biography is to be published by Harper Collins. The author is Adam Sisman and he visited Keighley Local Studies Library last year to research his subject’s links with the town.

Look out for in July…

There are several local history events and opportunities to keep an eye out for in July 2025…

Wednesday 9th July – this months History Society meeting in Keighley Civic Centre at 7.15pm. Featuring a talk by John Hindle from the Tungrians (a reenactment group who recreate Roman life in Britannia in the Second Century).

Friday 11th July – Community Curator Heather Millard will be giving her talk on the Butterfield Women of Cliffe Castle, at the Bradford Mechanics’ Institute at 10.30 am. Book a free place via Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/…/butterfield-ladies-of…)

Thursday 17th July – this will be the next Thursday Talk organised by the Bronte Society, held in the Old School Rooms in Haworth. More information is available on the Bronte Parsonage Museum website, but tickets are free to residents from postcodes BD20, BD21 and BD22.

And all through July the ‘Ice Age Art Now’ is running at Cliffe Castle Museum, admission is free. The museum is open Tuesdays to Sundays (i.e. is closed on Mondays).

July’s History Society Meeting

A reminder that July’s History Society meeting (on Wednesday 9th July) features a presentation from John Hindle on the Tungrians (a living history group portraying Roman soldiers and civilians of the second century in Britannia). John’s presentation will be in costume and will include various reproduction tools and weapons for people to look at.

The meeting will be held upstairs in the Civic Centre on North Street in Keighley, from 7.15pm on Wednesday 9th July. Anyone is welcome to come along. Admission is £3.50 (free to History Society members). Society members can choose to join in via Zoom if they wish (but if you can make it along then we recommend doing so).

Bronte Parsonage Visit

We’d like to say a massive thank you to Ann Dinsdale and the team at the Bronte Parsonage Museum for making us feel so welcome during our exclusive visit last Friday (20th June 2025). Nineteen members of the society went on the visit, and we were given free rein to explore the museum (with the incredibly knowledgeable and friendly staff on hand to answer all sorts of questions), look around the temporary exhibition ‘From Haworth to Eternity’, and we got to see some rare, moving, exciting and recently acquired items in the collection that don’t often see the light of day, brought out by Ann in the museum’s collections library. All that and a glass of bubbly too!

Stained Glass Talk

A massive thank you to Heather Millard, Community Curator for Bradford and District Museums and Galleries, who addressed the History Society’s monthly meeting on Wednesday 11th June 2025. The meeting took place in the Main Hall of Keighley Civic Centre and the subject was “The Stained Glass Windows of Cliffe Castle”.

Heather gave some background on how the Butterfield family created Cliffe Castle on the bones of what had been Cliffe Hall, with showy highlights like the “Butterfield Window”, an enormous stained glass artwork at the top of the main stairs, plus the examples held in the stained glass gallery in the museum. A big thank you too to the dozens of people who came along, in person or on Zoom, to enjoy the fascinating talk.

Our next meeting is Wednesday 9th July when the guest speaker will be John Hindle, talking about “Roman Army Life in West Yorkshire”.

Library Archive Session

Be like Princess Anne, and check out the stereoscopic (3D) images of Keighley from over 120 years ago as part of the members-only session at Keighley Local Studies Library next Saturday (31st May 2025 10am-1pm). [We don’t actually know if HRH is looking at pictures of Keighley – but you could be if you come along!] £2 per person. Please let Tim know if you are thinking of coming.

(Photo (c) Press Association/Aaron Chown)

Remembering George Demaine

A huge thank you to Colin Neville, curator of the Not Just Hockney website, for his talk last night on local painter and sculptor George Demaine. It was fascinating and thought-provoking, and the perfect opportunity to appreciate the work of this artist. Over thirty society members and guests enjoyed the talk, in person at the Civic Centre and over Zoom.

Next month’s talk is Heather Millard on the stained-glass of Cliffe Castle, upstairs in the Civic Centre on Wednesday 11th June 2025.