Tag: Civic Centre

Next week’s History Society meeting (Wednesday 11th February) is committee member Tim Neal with his talk “Keighley: Through the Lens of Hall & Siggers”. The talk tells the history of the photography studio on Cavendish Street from the early years of the 20th century through to the mid-1950s when it closed, and uses dozens of examples of their photographs to illustrate what life was like in the town in the first half of the last century.

The meeting will take place upstairs in the Civic Centre, on North Street. Doors open at 7.15pm and the meeting will start just before 7.30pm. Entry is free to History Society members, or £3.50 for anyone else who wants to just come along (booking is not required). Members can also choose to join the meeting via Zoom if they wish.

If you are a member and haven’t had the chance to pay your 2026 subs yet, or if you want to join the History Society, membership for the rest of 2026 costs £15 (or £20 for two people at the same address). Please pay in cash on the night. As well as free entry to our monthly meetings, membership also gets you invited to members-only events and you will receive the quarterly newsletter via email.

Great coverage in this week’s Keighley News of next week’s History Society meeting (on Wednesday 8th October). The meeting will feature a talk by textile experts Pam Brook and Helen Farrar on the work of various local firms who specialised in silk and artificial silk weaving, and how the output of these firms contributed to the war effort during the Second World War.

The meeting starts at 7.15pm in the Civic Centre on North Street (and will finish around 8.45pm). Anyone is welcome to attend. Entry is £3.50 (free to History Society members – History Society members can also join via Zoom). The meeting is in the main hall on the first floor and there is a lift for those who need it.

If you wish to join the History Society, membership costs £15 for the calendar year, and taking out membership this month gets you the rest of 2025 plus all of 2026.

October’s History Society meeting is on Wednesday 8th October 2025 and will include the talk “Parachutes, Escape Maps, and Wedding Dresses: Keighley Weavers’ Contribution to the War Effort”.

Silsden was recognised as a major contributor to the silk and artificial silk industry through companies such as Driver Brothers, John Knox and others. In Keighley, Driver, Hartley & Co. Ltd. were also at the front of experimental weaving with silk and artificial silk. In 1937 they started manufacturing fabrics for parachutes and later, escape maps for commandos. Textile experts Pam Brook and Helen Farrar will discuss the areas’ expertise in the manufacture of silk, in particular artificial silk, and its contribution to the war effort.

The meeting will be held in the Main Hall, upstairs in Keighley Civic Centre. Doors open at 7.15pm. There is a lift to access the first floor. Entry is free to History Society members and is £3.50 to anyone else (pay on the door – cash only) – all are welcome to attend. The meeting is scheduled to finish around 8.45pm. Members of the History Society also have the option of joining the meeting online via Zoom.

Membership of the History Society costs £15 for the calendar year. You can join at any of our meetings in the Library (cash only please) or online via the society’s website. If you join at this meeting you get membership for the remainder of 2025 plus all of 2026.

A massive thank you to Philippa McHugh who delivered an engaging and informative talk last night on how the glaciers, lakes and rivers affected, and were affected by, the local landscape during the last ice age 18,000 years ago. Thanks also to Alan Pearson who pulled most of the imagery and information together and was in the audience. Huge thanks too to the record number of society members and visitors who attended in person or on Zoom.

The talk was part of the History Society’s monthly meeting, in the Civic Centre on North Street, held on Wednesday 10th September 2025. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 8th October and will include a talk by Pam Brook and Helen Farrar on “Parachutes, Escape Maps and Wedding Dresses: Keighley Silk and Artificial Silk Weavers’ Contribution to the War Effort”.

Great coverage for Wednesday’s History Society meeting in this week’s Keighley News. The talk is about how the Ice Age influenced, and was influenced by, the local landscape, to be given by Philippa McHugh and Alan Pearson. The meeting is on Wednesday 10th September 2025 at 7.15pm in the Civic Centre on North Street. All welcome.

This month’s History Society meeting includes a talk by History Society members Philippa McHugh and Alan Pearson, who take us on a journey through the local area during the most recent ice age. Discover which areas the ice covered, where the lakes formed and the rivers flowed, and the evidence it has left behind.

And why not go see the ‘Ice Age Art Now’ exhibition at Cliffe Castle Museum (on until 14th September) as a “warm up” for this talk?

The History Society meeting is on Wednesday 10th September 2025 and will be held in the Main Hall, upstairs in Keighley Civic Centre. Doors open at 7.15pm. There is a lift to access the first floor. Entry is free to History Society members and is £3.50 to anyone else (pay on the door – cash only) – all are welcome to attend. The meeting is scheduled to finish around 8.45pm. Members of the History Society also have the option of joining the meeting online via Zoom.

Membership of the History Society costs £15 for the calendar year. If you join at this meeting you will get membership for the rest of this year and all of 2026 (cash only please).

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.

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.

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.