The distinguished actor Timothy West unveiled the blue plaque at the Ilkley Playhouse building on Sunday October 8 2006.
The Playhouse building has an interesting history. It was originally built as a Working Men’s Hall, before housing the Ilkley Liberal Club who for a while shared the premises with the Ilkley Players until they took over the whole building and now it thrives as the Ilkley Playhouse. An article in the Ilkley Gazette by R. M. Green in December 1975 and Playhouse 50th and 75th anniversary books have contributed much of the following.
In late 1874 it was recognised by a group of gentlemen, Rev’s S. D. Hilman (Congregational), J. Whiteside (Wesleyan), C. R. Green (Curate, Parish Church) and T. Greenbury (Primitive Methodist) along with Mr. E. H. Wade (Sedbergh House, Bradford Mill Owner and Liberal), Mr W. H. Conyers (a Leeds Leather Merchant and staunch Liberal and Congregationalist) and others that with the building boom ongoing in the village many of the work people had to be imported from other towns. These workers were lodging in various houses in the village and had to stand out in the streets or go to their various houses when they were on their own time. There was no very real accommodation for men who did not wish to do this, and it was thought very desirable that there should be put up a building which would enable working men to gather, for a small fee and have use of a reading room enjoy games and recreation and have a room for amusements, instead of resorting to the public house!
By December 1874 a committee chaired by Mr. W. H Conyers submitted plans, prepared by Mr Thomas Clarke an architect of Bradford and Ilkley, to a public meeting held at the Congregational schoolroom. The plans were approved, and resolutions were carried deciding to form a company with a capital of £1,500 to be raised in £1 shares to carry out the project. The plans were gothic (‘freely treated’) containing in the basement a billiard room large enough to hold two tables a kitchen and other offices on the ground floor will be a reading room and library and a coffee and smoke room there will be a lecture hall on the first floor capable of seating 320 persons with retiring rooms and living and bed chambers for the curator. The cost of the building was estimated at £1,700 and the price of the land to be £400. The building to be lighted partly from the roof and partly from the front and will be heated by hot water and ventilated on an approved principle. A curator’s residence will also be erected in connection with the hall. 50 to 60 shares were taken up on the night of approval by working men.
By May 1875 advertisements for tenders to build the hall were being placed in local papers and by September work was underway and a plot of land measuring 1000 square yards conveniently situated at the junction of western road and castle Rd was purchased from Mr Middeleton at 2 shillings and 6d. per yard. However, building was interrupted as during the night of Sunday 26 September into Monday a destructive gale blew through the Bradford region and the under construction Working Men’s Hall (a large portion of the walls having been erected), was blown down except for the gables.
In May 1876 1,280 of the 1500 of shares issued had been taken up. 3/4 of the allotted shares were to persons in receipt of weekly wages. The opening on Friday 26 May was attended by 150 ‘working men, their wives and sweethearts’. Ilkley Brass Band marched in precession down Brook Street and played during the time of tea. Rev. W. Danks of St. Margaret's hoped that ‘some of the worst habits to which men were addicted would receive check’. In connection with the opening of the hall an exhibition of curiosities, scientific instruments etc... was held in the large room in the evening to afford an opportunity to the shareholders to inspect the building.
The first annual meeting of the shareholders of the Ilkley Working Men's Hall Company was held in the lecture hall on the Tuesday 8 of August 1876. The balance sheet showed an expenditure of £2,200 and a debt of £1,019 15s. 3d. owing to the bank, however no profit or loss was presented as the building had only been opened for 10 weeks. Prominent Ilkley folk were associated with the Company for as well as Mr. Conyers and Mr Wade, Mr J. Shuttleworth (Ilkley Gazette), Mr Tillotson (Builder), Mr J. J. Dymond (Secretary of the Friends Provident Institution and influential Ilkley Quaker), Mr T. P. Muff (Brown Muffs Owner) either proposed or seconded motions at the meeting.
Mr Dymond noted ‘one of the rooms tended to be occupied by card players and he was concerned lest gambling occurred. Unless some restrictions were made, he feared the hall might degenerate into a gambling den’.
The number of members was said to be 91 and Mr E. H. Wade considered this was not sufficient and that there should be 250.
The early years of the Hall included the holding of public meetings for example.
March 1877 – A large meeting of the railway passholders from Ilkley to Bradford discussed the inadequacies of the service and framed a proposal to the Midland Railway Company
October 1877 – A meeting of the ratepayers of Ilkley was held that agreed that the Schools Attendance Committee were to be given the power to enact the new Education Act.
There was also a well reported event in May 1878, when the Yorkshire Naturalists Union held a gathering in Ilkley. After their investigations on Rombolds Moor the members came to the Hall to further discuss and debate their findings.
January 1879 – A large and influential meeting of ratepayers met to oppose a recent bill being proposed by the Ilkley Gas Company.
A significant number of the gentlemen involved with the Hall were Liberals. In December 1879 the second annual meeting of the Ilkley Liberal Association was held in the Lecture Hall, now referred to as the Assembly Rooms. In Jan 1880 a large Liberal Demonstration had been held there. The prominent Ilkley men involved with the Association at the time included the initiators of the Working Men’s Hall Mr. Conyers, Mr. Wade, Mr Muff, Mr Dymond and Rev S. D. Hillman but also Mr H J Cook (Bradford Wool Merchant, Summerfield on South Parade), Mr J Rhodes (Bradford Art Dealer, Albert House on Queens Road), Mr J. Barker (Scaitcliff), Mr Chas. Lund (Accountant, Hollybrook), Mr T. Crabtree, Mr Joseph Lund (Bradford Bookseller, Eldermere, Grove Road,), Dr H. Dobson (Craiglands) and Mr Gatecliffe (Manager of Leeds branch of the Yorkshire Banking Company, Queens Road).
By the time of the fifth annual report in 1880 Ilkley’s building boom had collapsed and work had practically ceased. Many workmen had left town to seek employment elsewhere and it was obvious from the amount of use made of it there was little need for the hall. The directors recommended that the entire premises should be let by public tender or otherwise let year by year.
Bradford Observer 26 August 1880
Sheffield Independent 26 August 1880
Although not being used much, on 5 November 1880 a Ball was held in the Hall. Ilkley’s Guy Fawkes celebrations outside were on the whole, quieter than usual, the celebrations inside most of the public houses were fearfully noisy, not to say dangerous. The attendance at the Ball was only limited and consisted chiefly of the working classes. The company, however, were very rudely interrupted by a mischievous specimen of the genus homo who artfully scattered cayenne pepper on the floor, in order to set the devotees of terpsichore sneezing. However, he was caught in the act, and unceremoniously bundled out by the official who had the management of the hall in hand.
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligence 27 December 1880
It is possibly not surprising then, that the only response to hire the premises was from the Ilkley Liberal Association. It was agreed by the time of the sixth annual report to let the premises at £70 per annum on a three-year lease from 1 January 1881 to The Liberal Club. In December 1880 the Liberals of Ilkley had formed a Liberal Club.
The Association and Club continued separately with the Association being for those seeking the advancement of the cause and the other being a “Club”. However, by 1886 the Club realised that it included the bulk if not all those in the association and it was agreed to amalgamate and become the Ilkley Liberal Club and Association.
The leasing arrangement continued until 1892, although the rent had been reduced to £60, when a special meeting of the original Ilkley Working Men’s Hall Company was called to put the company into liquidation. Over the years company meetings had been called but none of the shareholders attended as it seemed there was very little to attend for. There was still a £1,200 mortgage on the property and the person who had granted the mortgage had died and the executors required the money to be paid in. At this time the economy meant that it would not be possible to raise a similar mortgage at a suitable interest rate that the letting income would cover and hence it was proposed to sell the building. It was known that £1,300 had been raised from the sale of a building on the east side of Weston Road (previously Hydropathic Establishment and then an Orphanage) and hence there was optimism that the Hall and associated land which could have a house built on it would sell for the right amount. Mr Conyers was appointed Liquidator and agreed to consult with Mr E. H. Wade and Mr. T. P. Muff who were the two principal shareholders, all three having been instigators of the original venture.
The property was put up for auction in 1892 by Mr. Dacre however the optimism was mis-placed and there was no sale. Subsequently it was sold by the mortgagees to the Liberal Club, the cost being £850 with an extra £10 for expenses. Mr Joseph Wood, president, commented that the premises costs between £2,500 and £2,600 that they had ground which would allow for three houses to be built upon it and the accommodation available at the hall they could reckon they had premises which a successful club required.
The Liberal Club continued at Weston Road although as politics changed during the first few decades of the twentieth century and Liberal influence faded other uses for the premises were required. For a while the top floor of the building was used as a furniture store.
The Ilkley Players had started life in 1928, with their first two productions in St Margaret’s Hall (Blue Plaque No. 7), before transferring to the King’s Hall (Blue Plaque No. 1). By 1937 the relationships with the King’s Hall were strained. The production of Toad of Toad Hall planned for 1936 had crippling strings attached - The council to have free use of the scenery at all times when not in use by the Society and to be at liberty to hire all or any of the scenery at a fee to be fixed by the Society. Such hiring fees to be apportioned as to 40% to the council and 60% to the SoC.
In 1937 the cost of renting the King’s Hall was £15 15s per performance and it was becoming impossible to make a profit on the plays presented and the decision was taken to explore all avenues to establish a permanent Little Theatre in the town. Under the energetic leadership of president James W Sutcliffe, the players found new premises in a matter of months hiring the upstairs furniture store of the Liberal Club in the summer of 1938 on a six year lease.
Although the space had previously been used for plays and concerts, the application for a public performance licence was held up as the there was no practical fire escape. The Players proposed to erect an external iron staircase on the Western Road side of the building, but even this did not satisfy the council, since the audience would have to climb five stairs to reach the door to the new fire escape. Despite this, plans were drawn up to build a stage and dressing
rooms at the south end of the hall and a local builder offered to provide the necessary labour at a price they could afford and work began to transform the furniture store into Ilkley 's very own “Little Theatre”. It was funded by many building appeals. As they still had no licence, public performances could not be given. So for the next two years until the issue of the fire escape was finally resolved the Playhouse was run as a private members club with admission by invitation only. The ever practical Players issued tickets to their guests in the form of envelopes to be filled, sealed and handed to the box office on arrival. The invitation contained the following hint: ‘while the amount of contribution is naturally voluntary, we respectively point out the cost of maintaining the playhouse is approximately 2/6 per seat.
In the spring of 1939, the theatre closed and in July the building was placed at the disposal of the Women's Voluntary Service for possible employment as an evacuee hostel. However, it was never called upon for war use and the following year the players moved back in. In April 1940 the members, who had not been called up or volunteered, staged Private Lives for three nights followed by The Mollusk, both plays requiring only four actors to perform. Attendance at these productions convinced the players that there was still a lively demand for theatre in the Dales.
In 1942, a committee was formed to establish the Ilkley players concert club which performed Sunday concerts of high-class music in the new “Little Theatre” until audience demand was so high that they had to move to the Winter Gardens in August 1943. The spinoff from the Players later became the Ilkley concert club which is still thriving today at the King's Hall.
The Liberals and the Ilkley Players continued to share the premises until 1960. The liberal club decided to sell the building and the players took the plunge and bought it for the sum of £1,750. This momentous transaction seems to have gone through remarkably smoothly, despite the increased financial pressure on the players who now had a whole building to run, and to make fit for the public and members to use. Tantalising hints in the players minute book for the period, however, suggests that relations between the players and the Liberal Club had not been entirely easy prior to the sale. One agenda item deals with an occasion on which the cast gathered for a rehearsal of the Diary of Anne Frank to find that the club steward had arrived first, barricaded the door and refused them admittance. An acrimonious exchange followed resulting in an acerbic correspondence with the Club and the threat of an injunction against the offending steward!
Over the next 40 years David Wildman was to be significantly influential for the Players and in 1974 he launched the first extension to the building. This built out onto the back of the existing building creating a storage and workshop space and easing the cramped back state facilities of the theatre together with a new stage door office and wardrobe space on the ground floor.
In 1990 the Playhouse saw yet another transformation with the building of the Sheridan suite comprising a new entrance box office and coffee bar vastly improving the facilities the theatre could offer its patrons however the steep Victorian staircase and multiple levels within the building barred the disabled from access to the auditorium or stage.
The players put together an ambitious building project which under the leadership of David Wildman David Higgins and Barry Strong they were awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in 1997. They were awarded £544,611 by the HLF for the £750,000 project. The rest of the finances are raised through donations loans and a grant from the foundation for sports and arts and from the playhouses reserves the building works took six months and the and was reopened in December 1998. That rusty old fire escape over which there had been so much controversy in the 30s was no more. Most importantly there was for the first time a custom built 100 seat studio theatre at the south end of the building. Fittingly the players decided to name the new studio the Wildman and was officially opened on the 14th of March 1999 by Alan Titchmarsh.
The Plaque was sponsored by Ilkley Parish Council, Ilkley Civic Society, and the Ilkley Players.
Ilkley Local History Hub would like to hear from people with pictures or information about the Working Men’s Club, The Liberal Club and The Playhouse – localhistory@civicsociety.ilkley.org
Written by Ilkley Civic Society Local History Hub.