1900: Pubs and Pews [1]

A year or two ago, in Kirkstall Matters, partly in response to a letter from me, there was a brief flurry of correspondence about the pubs that had once existed in Commercial Road and their landlords. I had referred to a ‘PH’ in Commercial Road, shown on the 1890 edition of the Ordnance survey map. (KM Issue 109). Then ‘Yorky, A Kirkstall Stray’ (Issue 110) referred to the   Inn where John Cockill one of his ancestors had died in 1863. In Issue 111, John Appleyard referred to three pubs in Commercial Road when he was a youngster: ‘the Sovereign run by the Freeman family, the George at the bottom of Beecroft Street and further up was the George Hotel, long since demolished…’  where his mother was a cleaner…and the landlady’s name was Janet.’ Finally,  there is Jack Toulson (Kirkstall Online, 23 January 2013), referring to the George Hotel where he had started drinking in 1957; and going on to say ‘and the ‘Woodman Inn owned by the Melbourn Brewery, but taken over by Tetleys Brewery in the late 1950s and was demolished in the 1960s …the fourth pub in Commercial road. I remember Janet and her husband Norris when they came to the pub and also Mrs Appleyard vividly. I lived in the same street as her and I had my 21^st birthday in the George Hotel.’

Thus, within the living memory of such as ‘Yorky’, John Appleyard and Jack Toulson, there were the four pubs or beer houses in Commercial Road, in Kirkstall: the Woodman; the Sovereign, the George and the George Hotel. I will call them watering holes for the moment, not to have to distinguish between, for example, pubs, beer houses, beer retailers, inns and hotels.  But I want in this article to focus on Kirkstall’s Commercial Road and its watering holes in a somewhat earlier period, that before the First World War, the early years of the twentieth century.

Before then, for many years, indeed centuries, Kirkstall had been part of the huge landed estates of the Brudenells, the Earls of Cardigan (the 7^th and last Earl being famous for the notorious Charge of the Light Brigade immortalised by Tennyson).  The Cardigan estate in Headingley-cum-Burley (which included Kirkstall) and Bramley had passed to the Cardigan famiIy from the Savile family on the marriage of Frances Savile to Francis Brudenell in 1668. In general, the wealth of the landed gentry and aristocracy of which these families were part, came not from their working the land themselves. It came from the rents paid for use of the land by the farmers (and thus of course indirectly by the labour of the farm workers employed by the farmers); later on paid by the entrepreneurs of the expanding industrial revolution who needed land on which to build their factories, houses for their workers and to extract the coal and iron.  But by the end of the nineteenth century times were getting hard (or, one should say, harder) for this landed class. Within a short period at the end of the nineteenth century, the land in Kirkstall was sold off by  Adeline (the widow of the 7^th and last Earl of Cardigan,  he  having killed himself falling off his horse in 1868, and she having married in 1873 Don Antonio Manuelo, Count de Lancastre, a member of the Portuguese nobility). Thus, in the early part of the twentieth century, directly or indirectly, large parts of the land in Kirkstall were acquired by individual and partnerships of entrepreneurial builders and developers. And thus, in early years of the twentieth century, before the Second World War, the red brick of the back-to-back and through terraces of such streets as the Normans spread over what had been farmland. Kirkstall was gradually and conspicuously being suburbanised, from a village becoming and to become a residential suburb of Leeds. Kirkstall Station had opened in 1846, Headingly in 1849 both giving access to the centre of Leeds.

The advent of trams from the city along Kirkstall Road and Commercial Road and out to Kirkstall Abbey was crucial in the suburbanisation of outlying villages such as Kirkstall. A huge amount of the detail of this story can be read in Leeds Transport: Volume One 1830-1902 by J Soper (Leeds Transport Historical Society, 1985) (copies available in Leeds Central Library). On 18^th May 1872 opened the extension of horse-drawn Kirkstall tramway from the Cardigan Arms, along Commercial road and out to Kirkstall Village. The terminus was near the Star and Garter Hotel. And note that, at this time, between the Cardigan Arms and Kirkstall Village was countryside. Mechanical traction in the form of the steam tram appeared in Leeds in 1877. ‘By 1884 steam trams were reported to be running to Kirkstall in conjunction with the horse cars.’     Acquisition of the electric tramway system by the city corporation in 1894 led to cheaper fares and more services into the city.

And then, on 29^th July, 1897, the line [that is the electric tram line] was officially opened by the Lord Mayor, Sir James Kitson, Bart, M.P [whose Hunslet firm built the trams] ‘….Those in the official party were driven in carriages to Kirkstall road near the viaduct, where three cars awaited them. They went first to Kirkstall Abbey then back to Roundhay and the Town Hall for lunch.’ This tram, passing down Commercial road, could perhaps be described as the first herald of the suburbanisation of Kirkstall and the first shadow of death for all those small businesses and the pubs in Commercial road which I am describing in this article. (Soper, pp 43, 54, 62 and 127).  The whole city (and beyond) was being opened up to the inhabitants of Kirkstall’s new and growing, red brick community to seek work and amusement. That is what it was built for, not just for Kirkstall.

But we can say that still, during the early part of the twentieth century perhaps (social change is rarely abrupt) until the Second World War, Kirkstall whether dominated by the landed gentry or the new class of industrial employers, such as the Kitsons, the Butlers and the Beestons, still remained still very much a self-contained industrial village. Still largely, its houses were occupied by local workers, working quite possibly at the Forge or in the local mills stretched out along the Aire Valley. In 1913 it had acquired its own local cinema, a village cinema you could say. And, what I am concerned with, in this period Commercial Road was the main, shopping street, the busy, commercial hub of this village. In general local people did their daily shopping there or, at farthest, a tram ride down Kirkstall Road. And after work and shopping, the local people did their drinking not in the city centre, not at home out of supermarket cans and bottles, but a walk away in their own local pubs and beer houses.

And so, in this article I shall be looking at Commercial Road around the turn of the century, around 1900. I have already mentioned four watering holes which already existed at this time in Commercial Road. In fact there was a fifth, the Shades at no 5. And just round the corner, in Kirkstall Lane, was the Abbey Inn (not to be confused with the Abbey Inn at Newlay which is still open).

And these were not the only watering holes in Kirkstall in this pre-First World War period. Most famously was the Star and Garter in Bridge Road where Sarah Siddons the famous actress stayed there in 1807; and, according to one legend, after her performance announced to her Leeds audience: ‘Farewell ye brutes, and forever, I trust; ye shall never torture me again!; and where, undoubtedly, ‘the better-off of Bramley and Headingley did  dine on special occasions’. There was the Kirkstall Bridge, until the mid-eighteenth century known as the Horse and Jockey. And there was the Station Inn (for which I have written separate piece). And there were the Vesper Gate and the West End; possibly other small ale or beer houses.

To put matters very briefly into what some would see as a more respectable perspective, and show that Kirkstall was not at that time a desert of godless drinkers, there was a similar flourishing of churches and chapels in Kirkstall. There was the Church of England church, dating from 1829. In addition there was the Wesleyan Chapel in Commercial Road, established in 1834; with, as rather quaintly put in Kelly’s Directory for Leeds, 1910, ‘500 sittings’;  the building now existing as a residence(s). There was the Congregational Chapel at the other side of Commercial Road, established in 1878, whose only ghost now rests in the remains of its stone entrance gate in Commercial Road; with seats for 450 worshippers.    There was the Baptist Chapel in Beecroft Street, established 1849, now disappeared, with seats for 200 persons. And there were by this time two churches in Victoria Road:

1. The Zion Methodist Church in the building which is now Chantry House. Leodis Image for Church Place (ID 20031223_75225467) 1959, shows the view from 1 Church Place and on the right ‘the side of the Zion Methodist Church. This tallies exactly with my photos of Chantry House today. Thus, this is the Kirkstall Zion Methodist Church 1867-1067 dealt with in the centenary pamphlet published in aid of its centenary fund (See in Leeds Public Library. P LK 636 (287)). This Church was created by dissenters from the Wesleyan Chapel  on the day ‘…when the dissenting party marched from the Wesleyan Chapel at one end of the village to, of all places, the Star and Garter, a hostelry at the junction of four roads.’ (see above article, p 3). This article records that the foundation stone for this, the church in Victoria Road was laid in 1866; and the new church opened in 1867.

   This identification is confirmed by the 1954 OS map which shows ‘Zion  Methodist Church. The writer of the article referred to describes the church as being in the ‘Italianate’ style.

2. The other church is the one on the corner of Victoria road and Kirkstall Lane – the one which I had been mistakenly thinking to be the Zion church. This is the one with the tablet in the gable ‘Primitive Methodist Chapel 1874’. (For both see my computer files Kirkstall churches and chapels.)

And finally there was also St Stephen’s Mission Room in Sandford Road; adjunct of the Parish Church:

‘St Stephens church had a “MissionRoom – right at the end of Sandford Road. I learned later that “Mission Rooms” were built to hold meetings for the poor who might be deterred from the more formal religious services at the church. It was certainly well placed as the houses around Beecroft St. were not for the better off, but by the time I lived there the Mission Room was the place where Scouts, Guides and Cubs and Brownies meetings were held, equipment was stored and camping trips started from.’.

A Kirkstall Childhood Hazel M Poulter, 2002, p 5.

 And so, between them, and not counting the Church of England offering, the churches and chapels provided seating for over 2,000 persons. In 1901 the population of Kirkstall was recorded as 4,623.
Whether the drinkers were also Kirkstall’s godly ones or its ungodly, I cannot say.
During and between the two World Wars, there was no need to go short of a drink – so long as you had some money and were not lying dead on some battlefield.
Today, there is one church in Kirkstall, the Church of England Parish Church.

Today there is one pub in Commercial Road, the George IV; and that is empty and shut down; has been since before 2010; with the ubiquitous buddleia  rampant in its cracks; unlikely to open again as a pub. Today in the whole of Kirkstall there are just four working pubs: the West End and the Vesper Gate; and the Bridge; and of much younger vintage, the Merry Monk; whose continued existence may be tenuous.

For now, across the road is a large Morrison’s Supermarket, shelves laden with cans and bottles of cheap (not so very cheap) wine, beer cider, spirits (‘And don’t you go forgetting the dog food  Jack!’). As far as I am aware, Morrisons has not seen the loss of churches as providing a gap in its market! Unless the supermarket owners see themselves as the new gods!!

The Lost Pubs Project reported in 2015 (‘Archiving The Decline Of The English Pub’  <http://www.closedpubs.co.uk> ) that,  ‘Although there are 60,000 pubs still in existence in the UK today, two are closing every day of the week. This is the highest rate of closure since the 1904….  These pubs rarely reopen as nowadays most are converted to residential or retail use.’

The pub today, (if it has not been closed down) is likely to be as much gastro as pub; a place for a drink with a meal rather than just a drink and a packet of crisps (or the thick, ham-off-the-bone on a sandwich of real bread that lives on in my fond memory); or maybe, like the Kirkstall Bridge today, a rather more sophisticated, politer version of the earlier pub, providing an outlet for real ale and the micro brewers. Indeed there may I think be evidence that, no doubt in these two directions, the rate of closures has been slowed down if not reversed.

This is not the place to talk about these social changes which are taking place. But allow me one brief, personal, nostalgic regret, shared no doubt by many other hikers and cyclists. The 2½ inch (1:25000) Ordnance Survey maps use a symbol, a blue tankard, to indicate the location of a pub; the beckoning of a well earned pint along the way. Now, increasingly the sign is likely to be a symbol of what has been, not what is; history not a promise; no fault of course of the map makers.

And so to the five watering holes of Commercial road, circa 1900.

The location of these five watering holes in Commercial Road is best identified using the Ordnance survey map published in 1954. I have attached the copy of an extract to this piece. (Illustration 1) This large scale map was drawn in the original at a scale of 1:1250; that is about 50 inches to the mile. Commercial Road stretched and stretches from the junction with Bridge Road, Kirkstall Lane and Abbey Road to about (very roughly) 150 yards past the present entrance leading down to St Ann’s Mill; and was, again very roughly, about a third of a mile long. The start (or end, depending on which way you are going!!), where Commercial Road becomes Kirkstall Road, is today identified  by a street sign. Thus in 1900 a drink could be had on average perhaps every 120 yards.

I will start with Kelly’s Directory for Leeds for 1901. Commercial Road was then one of the older, commercial parts of Kirkstall, A look at this Directory’s entries for Commercial Road gives a flavour of this long established, commercial part of   Kirkstall in 1901, in the Edwardian Age, and in turn something of the nature of this village society. In order of appearance, starting from Kirkstall Lane and on the left side going towards Leeds (that is the east side): at no 1, a branch of the London City and Midland Bank, the only bank at the time in Kirkstall (which later became the Midland Bank and just before the Second World War moved to no 71); next is Pratt’s Row dividing the bank from the succeeding row of shops [2]; next, a drapers.

 

Number 5, Commercial Road. Shades Inn.

Next, after the draper’s, at no 5 was the Shades Inn; identified by this name in Robinson’s Street Directory for Leeds, 1903-4. . The publican there was Harriet Turner, a 58-year old widow. In 1901, at the census (FMP records), she was there with her grown up son, Joseph, an organist and music teacher; and a domestic servant. I have not researched it but have the impression that it was not uncommon at this period to find a woman, perhaps a widow running a pub. Such a character always puts me in mind of the ‘plump woman’, mine hostess of the Potwell Inn, in The History of Mr Polly by H G Wells, who towards the end of the story became content and the ‘fat woman’. By 1910 the place (the Shades, that is) had been taken over by John Wormald and his family, described in Kelly’s Directory for 1910 as wine and beer retailer; in the 1911 census as ‘beer house keeper’ In 1922 (Kelly’s Directory for Leeds) it was still selling beer; with now Mrs Clara Barton (another widow?) in charge. But, by 1932 number 5 had become a butcher’s shop, with Bert Walker the butcher. And it seems that Clara ceased to be a beer retailer there between 1927 and 1929.  .So, we are then left at that point with the four watering holes in Commercial Road.

To return to the Directory for 1901.

Next after Shades Inn was a tinner at no 7; then a hairdresser and a boot maker at no 9; nos 11 & 13 were occupied by a tailor. Number 15 was occupied by a family grocer and then came the  Post Office; and then, as shown on the 1954 map, came Hudson’s Square; adjoined by a draper’s. Next, again to be seen on the 1954 map, was Sovereign Yard, the yard of the Royal Sovereign, the second of our Commercial Road watering holes.

 

The Royal Sovereign.

In 1901, at no 19 Commercial Road, the Royal Sovereign was occupied by Emma Reyner with a full licence. She, it would seem from the census returns, was in 1901 aged about 41 and from Horsforth; running the pub with her husband, Alfred; and living at the Royal Sovereign with their 10-month old, twin sons. In 1910 and 1922 they were still there (Kelly’s Directories for Leeds for those years). But by 1932 the pub was being run by Harry Tyler, the Reyners presumably having died or retired. Harry was still there in 1940 and until 1947 at least. [3]

To continue along Commercial Road: number 23 was a butcher’s. Number 25 was a draper’s, Totty’s:

‘Roland Totty was my father who ran the shop with my mother, Florence until they retired in the late 1970’s when that part of Commercial Road was demolished for redevelopment. It was very pleasing to read the previous comments by Jean Milburn about Dad!’

‘I used to love going in to Tottys and look at the displays and dream of what I would wear when I was older I was about 11 or12 yrs at the time I bought my first pair of seamed stockings at about 1/11d a pr I was the bees knees.’

My Mother and I went in Totty’s almost every week for socks and hair ribbon for myself and my two sisters. Mr Totty was such a pleasant man. The assistants were so very helpful, but did not use the till, I remember Mr Totty’s Mother working the old till. In the 1960s I bought my own children school clothes and shoes.’ [4]

Next along Commercial road in 1901: nos 23, 25, 27 and 29 provided a butcher’s, a greengrocer’s, a shopkeeper’s and another butcher’s (George Baxter, the butcher may also have sold beer. Next are Club Row and Temperance Street, both shown on the 1954 map; then, at nos 33-39, a draper and clothier, a greengrocer, a saddler and a tripe dealer, adjoining Club Terrace (again shown on the 1954 map).  Between Club Terrace and Beecroft Street (the latter still there today) we have nos 41 to 55, a grocer’s, a butcher’s, a branch of Taylor’s Drug Company, a confectioner’s a chinaware dealer, a painter and paper hanger, the Kirkstall Conservative Association and a watchmaker-cum-confectioner. Immediately after Beecroft Street was no 57, Miss Clara Hepworth, fancy draper, otherwise identified as a milliner.

To return, for a moment to the present: Today, no 41 (the building) is still there, probably now incorporating one or more of the then adjoining properties, and now offering itself as ‘Gallery 41. Mediterranean Bistro,’ And today a continuation of these old buildings now houses a take-away pizza business and a gents’ hairdresser. Between this hairdresser and Beecroft Street today there is now an unbuilt-on empty grass space. And today, immediately after Beecroft Street is no 57 until quite recently, and rather aptly, occupied by a small clothing repair and alteration business (not still using Miss Clara Hepworth’s sewing machines, one hopes!!). Just to complete here the commercial picture of this side of Commercial Road as it is today:    Today, no 57 is empty as is the George IV next to it (which I look at next) awaiting I imagine some enterprise or developer to hoping to put these buildings to some profitable use.  And finally, the only other commercial property on this side of Commercial Road is a furniture retailer, then as now numbered 71. Apart from no 75, known as Kirkstall House, and, the other big house in the road, no 77,  both of which are still there and inhabited, that is the end of what still remains from 1901 of the buildings  on this side of Commercial Road (see below).

The George IV

Next to no 57, (at no 59 or 61 depending on the Directory consulted) in 1901, was our third watering hole, the George IV now shut, and shuttered,  as I have said, and presumably to be sold.

The 1901 census (FMP) shows that in 1901 the publican at the George IV was Edward Perigo, aged 45 and born in Pool, near Otley. His wife and the two daughters then with them are seen as Kirkstall born. In the census the George IV is described as an ‘inn’; but Kelly’s 1901 Directory and Robinson’s for 1903-4 show it to be only a beer house, and Edward to be described as a beer retailer. He is still there with his wife in 1911, still a beer retailer.

But the 1922 Kelly’s Directory for Leeds shows that in 1922 the beer was being sold by George William Cook; and he was still there in 1932. By 1938 it was Wilfred Godley; and in 1947 it was Albert Edward Norris.

Between the George IV and no 71 Commercial Road, in 1901 were a fishmonger’s, Cannon Place and a milliner’s at no 65 run by the Misses Bray. Then no 71, next to Hutchinson’s Place, was occupied by a branch of the Colonial Trading Association, grocers. Hutchinson’s Place is still there today. So, as I have said, is no 71. At some time before the Second World War the London Joint City and Midland Bank (then having become the Midland Bank) moved to no 71 from no1 and is shown there on the 1954 map. No 73, no longer there today, was in 1901 occupied by   William Roebuck a blanket finisher, still working it seems at the age of 61; and his wife Margaret. And in 1932 no   73 was occupied by Harry Jordan, tram driver.

The presence of its own branch of a national bank, the viability of such a bank, perhaps epitomises the Kirkstall of that age, of 1900, what must have been a thriving industrial, village. Today, Kirkstall can, I think, only properly be described as a suburb of Leeds; although its Abbey gives it a distinct, and distinctly welcome, flavour; and the presence of an expanding, out-of-town shopping centred on Morrisons, perhaps invites a new social study of the area.

And it was a prince next door to a ‘prentice as Shakespeare might have seen it; or rather, middle class doctors next to manual workers; for next door to William Roebuck, the blanket finisher at no 73 was, at no 75 was what I imagine had come to be known locally as ‘the Doctor’s house’ or by some such tag, presumably the home of the local medical practice serving the local community; a very substantial, building.

Kirkstall must have enjoyed quite a social mix in those days: home to professionals, doctors and clergymen  (I have not found any lawyers!); home to wealthy industrialists, like the Butlers (at Kirkstall Forge, Abbey House and Kepstorn) and William Henry Kitson at Crooked Acres; home to industrial workers, mill workers, and forge workers; and there were still some farms in the vicinity, such as Hollybush Farm and Bailey’s off  Kirkstall Hill (see A Kirkstall Childhood by Hazel Poulter, 2002, a copy of which there is in Leeds Central Library.

In 1891 no 75, Kirkstall House, was occupied by a John Seaman, the manager for an Indian Rubber Manufactory (who, by 1901 had moved with his family to Guiseley).  .But by 1901 it was occupied by a Scotsman from Aberdeenshire, Charles Lyall, M.B., C.M., surgeon. In fact he had already established himself as a medical practitioner in Commercial Road, at no 56; and had been there (presumably running his practice there) since at least 1891; when the census return (FMP) shows him at no 56, then aged 30 and still single, with only a 43-year old general domestic servant, perhaps brought with him from Scotland, sharing the address. Presumably he moved to no 75 when it was vacated by Seaman. No 75 seems to have been the (or one of the) local doctor’s practice,  at least until 1947, first run by Lyall; then at least from 1922 by Augustus Roberts, M.B.,Ch.B.,B.S.S., physician and surgeon. By 1932 it seems that the practice was held in the names of Gorstige & Brookes, physicians and surgeons. In Kelly’s Directories for 1938 through to 1947 it is Philip Brookes, B.A. Camb., L.M.S.S.A Lond., physician and surgeon with his name on the brass plate.  No 75, Kirkstall House, had been occupied by medical practitioners before the time of John Seaman. McCorquodale’s Directory for Leeds, 1876, shows it occupied by another Scottish educated surgeon, George Goldie, who was also Leeds’ Medical Officer of Health at some time.

Today, no 75 has been divided into four flats: 73, 73A, 75 and 75A.

No 77 Commercial Road, the last building before the Methodist Church was also a substantial dwelling; in 1901 occupied by George Whitton, then aged 60,  He was there and, as it is nicely/delicately put in the census for 1891, ‘living on own means’ with his Irish wife; although the 1901 census return describes him as ‘engine fitter’. Presumably, whether by work or private income, he could afford the large house next to the doctor’s.  Next door to no 77 was the Manse providing a home for the Methodist Minister in charge of the next-door Methodist Church, occupied at the time of the 1901 census by, it seems, the Rev. Frederick Green, and, his sister and her two young children, presumably on a visit. As part of this complex was the caretaker’s house.

We are coming now towards the end of this side of Commercial Road. After the church was Watson’s Place and the George Hotel at no 91.

 

The George Hotel.

In 1901 the George Hotel (referred to in the census return as the George Inn; but in Kelly’s Directory for 1901 as a hotel) was run by Henry William Brooke, licensed victualler with a full licence (fl). What is perhaps interesting is that earlier, in 1891, the innkeeper was Emily Catlow, another instance offered in this piece of the widow innkeeper (though not of course proving the generalisation!). She was, it seems left a young widow on the death of her husband William, a hatter by trade, in (probably) 1885 when she was only about thirty and with at least four young children. She was (in 1891) running the hotel with the help, it seems, of two young, girl servants. In passing, I note that it may well have been his trade which killed her husband. The phrase “mad as a hatter” was in use 30 years prior to the publication of Carroll’s novel, Alice in Wonderland and is associated with industrial felt hat workers in 19^th-century England. Mercury was used to help separate the fur from the skin of the animal in the felt making process. Mercurial disease was common among hatters and included such symptoms as tremors, irritability, and mental instability. A document published in 1860 focuses on mercurial disease among hatters and the occupational hazards of mercury (see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_hatter >After 1901 the George was run, so far as I have ascertained, by David Fernie (who was there in 1910); Kingston Percival (there in 1922); Walter South (there in 1932); and William Paul who was there at least between 1940 and 1947. There may have been others.

 

The Woodman  and John Cockill

There is one more watering hole to visit in the Commercial Road of 1901: the Woodman. Squeezed in between the George Hotel and Rawson St was Charles Firth, the painter. And then, between Rawson Street and Woodgrove Street was the Woodman, at no 95 Commercial Road. Although sometimes referred to as ‘the Woodsman’, ‘the Woodman’ is probably correct. And, not to be forgotten, it seems that the Woodman was home to the Kirkstall Brass Band; and the band has not been entirely forgotten   See <http://brassbandresults.co.uk/bands/kirkstall-brass> (downloaded 8-6-2013) for a list of the competition results for Kirkstall Brass Band (‘previously known as Kirkstall Amateur, Kirkstall Brass Band, Kirkstall Prize Band, Kirkstall Sax-Horn Band’) for the years 1858 to 1900. It may not have been the Grimethorpe Colliery Band; but it came first on six occasions; the last being, I should in fairness say, in the Guiseley contest of 1866!

In 1901 the proprietor of the Woodman Inn (described in Robinson’s Leeds Directory for 1903-4 as a beer house) was George Hudson (listed in Kelly for 1901 as beer & wine retailer)

For a short while in the period 1903-04 there is an interesting interlude. There is a Leodis photo of ‘Mrs Emma Stanway, nee Munns, former Leeds publican’ (See Illustration 3, to this piece). Mrs Stanway’s  time at the Woodman was brief; but her life makes it, I think, worth including here the description which accompanies the Leodis image (see Leodis ID: 2012103_174075

‘13th November 1919. Studio portrait taken in Wakefield, of Mrs. Emma Stanway, nee Munns, a former Leeds publican, on the occasion of her 70th birthday. Although the period of the photograph is later (1919) she is dressed in Edwardian style finery with a large plumed hat, fur stole and fur handwarmer or muff. She also appears to be wearing a pendant watch on a necklace and rings on her fingers. Emma had been the publican of several well-known establishments in the Leeds area including the Angel Inn in Briggate. She was married four times and had 10 children, some of whom did not survive to adulthood. She was born Emma Munns on the 13th November 1849 in Northamptonshire. By 1874 she had moved to Leeds and was living with her second husband, Robert John Fuller, and children. He died in 1894 and from the 15th June 1894 until 20th October 1903 she was the publican of the Angel Inn in Briggate and resided in Angel Inn Yard. She remarried on 27th March 1895 to another resident of the yard, Henry Payler, who became her 3rd husband. In 1896 it is known that Emma applied to the Stage, Plays and Music Licences Committee to obtain a music licence for the Angel Inn but her application was refused. Emma’s 4th marriage was to Thomas Stanway of 1 North Hall Terrace, which took place on the 24th October 1904. From the 26th April 1906 until the 26th July 1907 she was the publican of the Britannia Hotel in Belinda Street, Hunslet. She moved from there to take over the Mexborough Arms in Low Road, Hunslet (26th July 1907 – 24th January 1908.) By 1911 Emma had moved to Wakefield to become a Boarding House Keeper. She died in Wakefield in her 79th year and was interred in Hunslet Cemetery on 5th October 1929.’ Although not mentioned here, a comment added by David Burdekin says that ‘…She then moves to the Woodman Inn (Beerhouse) Commercial Road Kirkstall on 30/10/1903 & stays there until 28/10/1904 before moving to the Sussex Tavern….’

In 1910 John Whitaker Roundell, beer and wine retailer, was in occupation of the Woodman.  In 1922 it was George Benson Lillie. In 1932 it was Arthur E Bell, again identified as a beer and wine retailer. By 1938 (described as the Woodman Inn) it was John Edward Milner.  And he was still there in 1940 and 1947 in both cases it being described as the Woodman Inn.

Going back for the moment to the Woodman in earlier years. The letter quoted above at the start of this piece, from Yorky, a Kirkstall Stray, says that:

‘The Cockills are another branch of my family and for some time now I have been trying to find out about the Woodman Inn in Kirkstall, where John Cockill died in 1863.’

In deference to Yorky, I have tried to add a little more detail about John Cockill (or sometimes ‘Cockhill). There is no doubt that for many years he ran a beer house in Kirkstall. What is not clear is whether he was throughout at the Woodman; or indeed whether the Woodman existed before about 1863.

The 1841 census shows John Cockill, with his family, at Providence Place, Kirkstall, an innkeeper.

The 1842 White’s Directory for Leeds and the West Riding Clothing District, lists under Kirkstall, four ‘Inns & Taverns’: The George Inn, the Horse & Jockey (which later in the nineteenth century became, as it is today, the Bridge [5]; the Royal Sovereign; and the Star & Garter Hotel. And also for Kirkstall it lists five beer houses, but giving just the names of the keepers, with no property or address:

Cockill John (and hackney coach keeper); Dickinson Joseph; Dixon William; Lowe Ed; Pullan Moses.

The 1847 White’s Directory for the Leeds and District Clothing District, nearly the same,  lists, for Kirkstall, four ‘Inns and taverns’: the George Inn; The Bridge Inn; the Royal Sovereign; and the Star and Garter Hotel. It then lists five beer houses, but again gives only the names of the keepers: John Cockill (& coach proprietor); Joseph Dickinson; William Dixon; Edward Lowe; William Nixon (not the same as William Dixon).

The 1849-50 Charlton & Archdeacon Directory for Leeds, lists (again without addresses) as beer sellers in Kirkstall: John Cockill, William Dixon, Edward Lowe, Edward Lea, William Thorpe (beer seller and grocer).

This change of beer sellers over just about 8 years suggests that beer selling was often not a person’s long term occupation practised at an established venue. After the Beerhouse Act of 1830 and until the 1869 Act a person having obtained a licence for 2 guineas could sell beer; with some 40,000 beer shops in the country by 1835 (see below??).

The 1851 (FMP) census shows John (as ‘Cockhill’ in the FMP index) still at 11 Providence Place, Kirkstall, beer seller. With him are his wife, Christiana; his daughter, Jane, a dressmaker; another daughter, Ellen, a milliner (and fancy bonnets?) maker. Also with them, interestingly, is John’s widowed brother, Joseph, aged 31 (occupation?).  In the 1841 census Joseph was 20, a coach driver, living with his wife, Alice, at Club Row, East Side. Club Row is identified on the 1954 map, leading off Commercial Road.

The 1861 census shows John, now aged 55 and a widower; his address being given, in the transcript, as Eddison’s Buildings (not Prospect Place as given in the transcript. With him at the time are his daughter, Jane Fox, born in Kirkstall in 1831 and a dressmaker; and his grandsons, William Fox, b 1852; and Jon Fox, b 1854. According to Yorky (above), in 1871 she was living in Watson’s buildings with her second husband, John Lodge, the two boys and her son John Lodge.

Again, according to Yorky, and this is the only definite link I have linking John to the Woodman, he died at the Woodman in 1863.

The 1871 census (FMP) does identify the Woodman Inn in Commercial Road; the ‘Innkeeper’ (so described there) being Benjamin Rawson. (Note that in 1861 census, Benjamin Rawson was living with the family in Club Row and a white smith (? Meaning I think a tinner); and his wife a confectioner – further suggesting that Woodman Inn did not exist before 1863.)

So far I have no evidence at all that Cockill was at the Woodman or indeed that Woodman existed before 1863. The clear evidence is that Cockill was until 1861 at least at Providence Place and then Eddison’s Buildings. And nothing to suggest that these referred to the Woodman by a different name.

 

And so to reach Kirkstall Road  

Next to the Woodman was Woodgrove Street. There were then two adjoining properties – nos 97 & 99, both it seems occupied in 1901 (Kelly’s Directory for Leeds, 1901) by Miss Jane Ann Durno, grocer and confectioner. Then came Durno Street; and finally, in 1901, before the start of Kirkstall Road, in addition to a ‘wall letter box’ were the premises of the Eddison Brothers, builders and joiners, their property being numbered 111.

 

The west side of Commercial Road.

The other side, the West side, the valley side of Commercial Road, was not without shops and industry. I will, to complete the picture, just list the trades and businesses listed for this other side, as from Kelly’s Directory for Leeds of 1900, starting at the Bridge Road end:

Plumber; tobacconist; stationer; boot & shoe dealer; fried fish dealer – Peel Square (which is still there) – confectioner; woollen manufacturer (at Savins mills); Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society (butchers); chemists; Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society (branch); Congregational Church – Airedale Terrace –  householder; surgeon;  four without any designation; St Ann’s Mills (occupied by a firm of dyers & finishers –  a Branch of the Leeds Worsted Dyers & Finishers’ Association Limited; a woollen manufacturer; and another woollen manufacturer’); engineman; cartman; block cutter; designer; dentist; a householder; and finally another undesignated person. Some of these may have lived in Commercial Road, but worked elsewhere.

 

A thought to think about.

I will not attempt a tally of the number of people employed in Commercial Road around 1900; and for many years afterwards. The reader can count for herself; and I suppose one can think of an average of two persons working in each shop or trade outlet. And the reader can walk along and count the number of businesses in the road today. And I will not here attempt big conclusions; but when any planning application is made for a new supermarket, and supermarkets are increasingly becoming (or at least were until recently) super-sell-everything-markets , one invariably reads that the applicant, Tesco, Morrison, Asda, etc, etc (though perhaps a decreasing number of etcs) is claiming that if allowed the supermarket will create x number (a big number) of jobs. All I say here is that in such a context thought needs to be given to the number of jobs that must be lost when a supermarket opens; and of course to the social effect on such a street as Commercial Road.

 

What it was like in those days?

We are looking at Commercial Road in 1901, in the late Victorian-early Edwardian period of its life.  To offer a more animated picture of what it was like in this period:

‘Grandfather was the manager of the Co-op grocery store on Commercial Road and because of this I had a close acquaintance with the building. On occasions I could go behind the counter into Grand-dad’s small mahogany office cubby-hole which was at the top end of the counter nearest the door on the “sugar” side. This side had wooden counters, solid and heavy with panels. The other side the “butter” side had marble counters. Grand-dad was diabetic and my grandmother made him- special food. Often the “flour-lad” would come on a heavy delivery bike and take Grand-dad’s lunch in a basket to him, but sometimes Grand-ma and I would carry it on to the store and when the shop closed for lunch the three of us would go down to the cellar via the steps from the flour room at the back and Grand-ma and I would wait until Grand-dad ate his lunch and had a nap. The cellar was full o£ old advertising material, cut-outs and posters which I could play with as long as I was quiet. Next to the grocery store was the Co-op shoe shop. Most of my shoes came from there. The manageress was a Miss Mallinson who would fit my shoes sitting on a stool and using a long shoe horn. On the other side of the grocery store was Frank A. A. Jones Chemist, nothing to do with the Co-op. The next shop was the Co-op butchers. Kirkstall “village” on Commercial Road was full of shops, in fact there was not much that couldn’t be bought there. Two green-grocers one ‘Charlie Garners” or C.W.Garner to give it its proper name and Dobsons both on the other side to the Co-op; another butchers near the traffic lights, a tripe shop at the bottom of Club Row; a chemists; Charles Atwell’s  where Mrs. Atwell ran a hairdressing business was where Temple Gallery was until very recently [Now, in 2015, it is Gallery 41 Mediterranean Bistro].. Clothes and shoes packed into two floors at Totties; and Brockill’s was also a drapers. Ruones was a paper and sweet shop on Commercial Rd. who also had the shop, still a newsagents, at the traffic lights at Morris Lane. At least three bakeries, one was Cryers at the bottom of Beecroft St. Another on the other corner was Ackroyd’s, and a third near the traffic lights just before Kirkstall Lane. As well as all these shops there were a lot on Kirkstall Road a short tram ride away. Some on the ends of the terraces but also in a long   uninterrupted row with the Embassy Cinema in the middle. All sorts of goods could be bought, memorable among them “Holly-wood Hats”(hats with film stars names on them) and Dirty Dicks (who sold soap and soap powder, scrubbing brushes etc.) and the “Murder Shop”. We murder the prices’ was its slogan. Occasionally my mother and I would have a tram ride and shop in Kirkstall Road.’

 

From A Kirkstall Childhood Hazel M Poulter, 2002 (copy in Leeds Central Library.

And again:

‘The main shopping area in Kirkstall was Commercial Road from Kirkstall Lane to just beyond Beecroft Street. There were other shops at street corners, but that was where a lot of people did their main shopping. We used to refer to it as “on the bottom” or “on the Village”. There were all kinds of shops….If you went down Commercial road you were going “on the bottom”; if you went down Kirkstall Road you were going “down the road.”

Tea was about 8d or 9d a quarter. A large cut loaf was 4d halfpenny. Stewing meat was 6d a pound. Sausages for 4d a pound. If you bought a joint at the weekend  you could get a pound of sausages for 2d. Bacon was about 1/2d a pound.

A lot of goods were weighed out and put in bags – nothing was pre-packed. Blue bags for sugar. One shop, the Home and Colonial Store, would weigh everything, parcel it up and tie it with string. If you came for a quarter of tea they would put it in a bag and tie it with string.

Butter buying was a work of art.  They had wooden paddles which they would pat and shape the butter with and it came out at the right weight, with a pattern on it. .

The Co-op had flour boys who would shovel up the flour and they always wore a flour bag on their head.

The Co-op managers walked round with a bowler hat on, all dressed up. The Co-op manager was paid £3 a week. They were respected members of the area.

I used to go to the corner shop for my Dad’s “packing up” and get a quarter of corned beef for 4d.’

From: Spanish Wine: Kirkstall Vintage: Memories of Kirkstall, Kirkstall Oral History Group. ‘A book of reminiscences and photographs about growing up, living and working in Kirkstall from the 1920s to the 1950s (Copy in Leeds Central Library).

 

What’s in a watering hole? Licences and language

So far I have used the generic term ‘watering hole’ for the place to get an alcoholic drink (a decent one I hope!) in Commercial Road in around 1900. Quite a range of different more specific terms have been used in the Directories and the census returns; often for the same place. .The George Hotel (in Kelly’s Directory for 1901) was the George Inn in the census of that year. The initials and terms, lv (licensed victualler) and bh (beer house) or beer house keeper are found; also beer retailer; beer and wine retailer; full licence (fl) and so on.

In essence, although there was a broadly recognised and used designation for these places, important for the guidance of the traveller and the drinker, it was not sacrosanct; had no (at least in this age) legally binding significance. What did matter, from a legal point of view (and I am a lawyer), and what determined what refreshment the drinker could hope for, was the type of licence that the proprietor held. I will return to this in a minute.

‘Before we can begin to understand the complex development of the alehouse (the book is specifically about the history of the alehouse between 1200 and 1830; see below) as a popular institution we need to see it in the broad context of drinking establishments in pre-industrial England. For most of this period there were basically three types of victualling house in the kingdom: in declining order of size and status, the inn, the tavern and the alehouse.

‘Difficulties abound when we try and draw hard and fast distinctions. Not infrequently we find people at the time were rather vague and haphazard in their use of victualling terms, with alehouses called inns and inns alehouses. This was particularly the case in country districts where the differences between kinds of premises were less marked than in towns. Terminological confusion may also have been caused by the way that a few houses straddled the categor­ies – too large to be true alehouses but lacking formal, legal recognition as inns or taverns. There were also regional variations of nomenclature. In parts of the North and West most victualling houses, whether large or small, might be called inns and their landlords  innholders or innkeepers. The Crown added its own ha’p’orth of uncertainty during the early seventeenth century by attempting for a few years to sell the status of inns to erstwhile alehouses. One bemused magistrate complained: ‘I do not know which must be inns and which must be alehouses’. To complicate matters more, alehouses them­selves had a variety of synonyms in the Tudor and Stuart period – tippling houses, boozing kens, and the more local tup-houses and beer houses.

‘In the latter part of the period two new difficulties arise. After the Restora­tion the term alehouse slowly but steadily gave way to that of public house, but this might extend to some taverns and smaller inns as well. Secondly, during the late eighteenth century, when taverns and small inns were often in decline, larger alehouses began to affect the old elite names, although as the parson of Barming in Kent insisted sharply, about 1800, the village’s self-styled Bull Inn was just an ‘alehouse – it cannot be called an inn.”

‘Yet despite these problems, for much of our period we can distinguish with reasonable confidence between inns, usually large, fashionable establishments offering wine, ale and beer, together with quite elaborate food and lodging to well-heeled travellers; taverns, selling wine to the more prosperous, but with­out the extensive accommodation of inns; and alehouses, normally smaller pre­mises serving ale or beer (and later spirits) and providing rather basic food and accommodation for the lower orders. This three-fold categorisation was recog­nised in statute and common law from the sixteenth century in the way that premises were licensed and the legal obligations of their landlords defined.’

P. Clark, The English Alehouse: A Social History 1200- 1830 (1983. Longman, New York), p 5. (Footnotes omitted)

By the twentieth century the term ‘hotel’ was in also use. Thus, as noted earlier, the George was recorded in Kelly’s 1901 directory as the ‘George Hotel’; although as an inn in the census of that year. The hotel came to mean (in the English as opposed to French usage) ‘an inn; especially one of a superior kind’. (OED, 1972).

What did matter legally to the proprietor (and so naturally to the drinker) in 1900 was the type of licence which the proprietor held, determining what type of alcohol (wine/spirits/beer – the latter term including ale and porter) he could sell. In general, in our period, the important distinction was between, on the one hand the establishment with a licence only to sell beer (and possibly also wine); on the other hand examination of an establishment with any other name would be likely to reveal a full licence,  that is to sell wines and spirits as well as beer. Illustration 4 with this piece of the now shut down George IV today shows that Ian Wilby was, ‘licensed to sell by retail beer and porter to be consumed on or off the premises. Also dealer in tobacco and cigars.’  It was then (or had been – I imagine that it must have acquired a full licence well before it closed down) a beer house; as it was in 1901,  (And if you were to ask in a pub today for a porter the barman would I guess think you were asking him to carry your luggage somewhere!!)

In general, from early times the control of the sale of any type of liquor, wine, beer (including ale and porter) and spirits had been in part the domain of the excise authorities  in relation to the collection of excise duties (inspiring of course all the tales of derring-do, battles between the smugglers and the Crown’s excise men. See for example the Dr Syn stories by Russell Thorndyke: ‘The first book, Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh (where I am happy to say I lived for some years) was published in 1915. The story idea came from smuggling in the 18th century Romney Marsh, where brandy and tobacco were brought in at night by boat from France to avoid high tax. Minor battles were fought, sometimes at night, between gangs of smugglers, such as the Hawkshurst Gang and the Revenue, supported by the army and local militias in the South, Kent and the West Sussex.’< Taken from Wikpedia, June 8 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Syn> footnotes omitted). On the other hand, the licensing system used to control drinking was firmly in the hands of the local justices (the magistrates) in their Petty, Quarter and Special Sessions.

This distinction and the term ‘beer house’ as a common term stems I think essentially from the Beerhouse Act of 1830. The Act loosened, for a time, the grip of the justices (magistrates) on the control of licensing. It liberalised the sale of beer; one of the arguments made in its favour being that by increasing competition in the brewing and sale of beer it would reduce the price of beer and so in consequence the consumption of gin which was, or had been in earlier years, a serious problem for the working class and those who wanted the working class to work for them. It enabled anyone to brew and sell beer on payment of a licence costing two guineas (£2.10 in today’s currency  – though a good deal more in today’s equivalent values.).

‘And be it further Enacted, That it shall be lawful for every and any person (other than and except such persons as are hereafter spe­cially excepted) who shall be desirous of selling Beer, Ale and Porter by retail under the provisions of this Act, to apply for and to obtain an Excise license for that purpose; and in every such license there shall be specified set forth and inserted the Christian name and sur­name of the party licensed, and a description of the house or premises in which Beer, Ale and Porter may be sold by retail by such person… and any and every such licence which shall be taken out in any part of England not within the said limits, shall be granted under the respective hands and seals of the several collectors and supervisors of Excise….

…And be it further Enacted, That every person who shall be licensed to sell Beer, Ale and Porter by retail under the provisions of this Act, shall cause to be painted in letters three inches at least in length, in white upon a black ground or in black upon a white ground, publicly visible and legible upon a board, to be placed over the door of the house or premises in which such person shall be licensed to sell Beer by retail, the Christian and surname of the persons mentioned in such license, at full length, together with the words ” Licensed to sell Beer by Retail;” and every such person shall preserve and keep up such name and words so painted as aforesaid during all the time that such person shall continue so licensed, upon pain that every person in any respect making default herein shall forfeit and pay for every such offence the sum of Ten pounds….

… or if any such person so licensed shall deal in, or retail any Wine or Spirits, every such person so offend­ing shall for every such offence forfeit and lose the sum of Twenty pounds.’

This quote is taken from the Bill before it became an Act of Parliament; but does I think correctly reflect the final Act.

Similar statutory provisions put wine in the same category, to be controlled by the Excise rather than the justices (see the 1860 Refreshment Houses Act).

‘Over 24,000 beer-shops opened their doors in 1830 and 5 years later the figure approached 40,000….Beer-shop premises were often poky, located in courts or down lanes, not infrequently kept in back rooms. The customers were generally the poor who could not afford the higher prices of the publican’s taproom.’

P Clark (as above) p 337; footnotes omitted.

The sway of the Beerhouse Act was not an immensely long one.

The Wine and Beerhouse Act 1869 reintroduced the stricter controls of the previous century. The sale of beers, wines or spirits required a licence for the premises from the local magistrates. Further provisions regulated gaming, drunkenness, prostitution and undesirable conduct on licensed premises, enforceable by prosecution or more effectively by the landlord under threat of forfeiting his licence. Licences were only granted, transferred or renewed at special Licensing Sessions courts, and were limited to respectable individuals. Often these were ex-servicemen or ex-policemen; retiring to run a pub was popular amongst military officers at the end of their service’

Wikipedia; downloaded 12-6-2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub

But, as the picture of Commercial Road in around 1900 shows, the beerhouse, even then, had not disappeared. I surmise (little more than that) that what, in very general terms, was  happening was that the alehouse of old was being gradually transformed into the public house as we would recognise it today. This left the humble beerhouse, cheaper than other establishments, to satisfy the needs of the ordinary working man. And it has to be remembered that   whilst such as the Star and Garter in Kirkstall were developing to satisfy the more diverse and expensive needs of the passing traveller and the local business and commercial community, Kirkstall was still in 1900, before sub-urbanisation had taken place, what might be called an industrial, working class village with its Forge and the mills along the Aire.

‘Kirkstall- literally church-station—is a Village and Chapelry in the Borough, Parish, Union, County Court District, and Petty Sessional Division of Leeds, Township of Headingley-cum-Burley,…about 3 miles N.W. of Leeds. It had a population in 1871 of 3,113, living in 608 houses. It has a station on the Leeds and Bradford line of the Midland Railway Company; also one on the North Eastern, Leeds and Harrogate line, and tramway cars run to and. from Leeds and Kirkstall every twenty minutes…. Woollen manufacturing and tanning are carried on, the former somewhat extensively, but the village is perhaps best known commercially as the place wherein the Kirkstall Brewery and Kirkstall Forge are situate. The brewery is on the south side of the river, near the Midland Railway Station; the forge is about a mile west of the village, but there is a railway station (Kirkstall Forge) close to the works, at which several trains stop daily. This establishment has gained a world-wide reputation for its productions, and is stated to be the oldest of its class in England; some of the largest forgings and castings in the world have been’ made here. …. A school, under the Leeds School Board, was opened in August, 1872,’

From McCorquodale’s Directory for Leeds, 1876

I cannot believe that there was much demand from such a working community for gin shops. And for those who did want some sort of excitement, Leeds itself was only a tram ride away.

‘From the 1810s and 1820s purpose-built public houses began to appear in growing numbers in London and other major centres: quite often the core of the building survives today. Hitherto alehouses had been ordinary dwelling houses adapted for the drink trade with a limited number of alterations. Now brewers, landowners, builders and publicans started to construct premises with ground-plans, fixtures, furnishings and facades designed for licensed victuall­ing. During the 1830s architectural publications offered a choice of building plans for public houses – from large, main road establishments in debased Tudor style, to village premises in Italian—Gothic, to a castellated ‘hedge ale­house of the smallest size’.

P Clark, as above, p 273 in the Chapter entitled: ‘Alehouse into Public House: The Popular Drink Trade 1750 to 1830’. Footnotes omitted

‘Beer-shop premises were often small and poky, located in courts or down lanes, not infrequently kept in back rooms. The customers were generally the poor who could not afford the higher prices of the publican’s taproom. In addition, the beer-shop offered some basic services for the labourer which the respectable public house had come to neglect. …. Overall, the beer-shop seems to have occupied part of the social territory which the alehouse had vacated when it became more respectable and commercialised in the eight­eenth and early nineteenth centuries. Francis Place, indeed, made a direct com­parison between the new establishment and the early tippling house, recalling how “as the common people emancipated themselves from their state of vasselage they made themselves obnoxious to their superiors by their independent conduct. . . [and]  congregated in alehouses, as our farm labourers are now doing in beer-shops”.

P Clark, as above, p 336/337. Footnotes omitted.

And:

Bibliography

John Louis Cruickshank, Headingley-cum-Burley, c 1540- c 1784( The Thoresby Society, Leeds, 2012) (‘Cruickshank’)

A Everitt The English Urban Inn in A. Everitt, ed., Perspectives in English Urban History (1973), reprinted in A. Everitt, Landscape and Community in England (Hambledon, 1985).

P. Clark, The English Alehouse: A Social History 1200- 1830 (1983. Longman, New York).

 

Mike Harwood
July 2015
Third edition