LIBERAL ROOTS: ThE LIBEral ParTY IN A WEST YORKShirE CONSTITUENCY, 1920S – 1970s From 1966 to 1971, as a teenager, Jaime Reynolds lived in Morley, West Yorkshire, now part of south Leeds. During that time he was an active member of the Liberals, who were enjoying something of a renaissance in the Batley & Morley constituency. In 1969 Batley borough council was briefly the only local authority in England and Wales where the Liberals were the largest party. Jaime’s desire was to chart the story of Liberal fortunes in these Yorkshire mill towns and pay tribute to the efforts of the pioneers who led the revival there. Thanks to the Liberal Democrat History Group, a few years ago he reestablished contact with Peter Wrigley. 26 Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 LIBERAL ROOTS: ThE LIBEral ParTY IN A WEST YORKShirE CONSTITUENCY, 1920S – 1970s eter was one of those pio- in Morley in 1852. He moved away the prosperity and civic spirit it neers, parliamentary candi- as a child and though he was said to enjoyed at the end of the nine- Pdate in 1970 and February have few sentimental attachments teenth century. 1974 and still today an active Lib- to his birthplace, he returned in Morley and Batley, and neigh- eral Democrat in the Batley & Spen 1895 to open the town hall and in bouring Dewsbury, were at the constituency. Peter’s recollections, 1913 to be invested as a freeman of centre of the ‘shoddy trade’ – the local research, and the memories he the borough. He was treated as a recycling of woollen rags to make has gathered from others involved local hero. new cloth. This industry had have greatly enriched this joint It was also the home of Theo- boomed in the second half of the portrait of the decline of a Liberal dore Cooke Taylor,2 a legendary nineteenth century and at its peak stronghold and its revival in the figure in Yorkshire Liberalism, an there were thirty mills in Mor- 1960s. ‘advanced Radical’ MP, a tireless ley and the same number in Bat- The Batley & Morley constitu- campaigner for free trade and an ley. Production flourished well ency1 was one of the band of West ‘out-and-out Batley-ite’.3 He was an into the twentieth century, and Yorkshire Liberal strongholds in archetypal patriarchal millowner demand was particularly high dur- the area of Huddersfield, Halifax who pioneered profit-sharing in his ing wartime. However from the Bradford and Leeds where a dis- textile mill. In his lifetime, over 1960s, competition from man-made tinctive current of Radical, Non- 75 per cent of the firm’s capital was fibres and foreign producers, fash- conformist, free trade Liberalism passed into the ownership of its ion changes, reliance on small-scale persisted until 1945 and in some two thousand workers. For many manufacture and private capital, cases later. This Northern Radi- years he personified Liberalism in and labour shortages, all combined cal tradition stretched across the Batley.4 to undermine the trade. The wool- Pennines into Colne Valley and Another notable Yorkshire len mills with their tall chimneys the Lancashire cotton belt where mill-owning family, the Walkers closed down and within a decade towns such as Rochdale, Bolton, of Mirfield and Dewsbury,5 also or two the industry had virtually Darwen, Mossley and Rossendale played an important part in Batley disappeared.7 were notable Liberal redoubts. It & Morley Liberalism. The other foundation of the was closely linked with the social local economy was coal mining, and political culture that arose situated in a number of pits on the around the textile industry and ‘Shoddyopolis’ outskirts of Morley and also in mirrored that industry’s rise and In the 1960s both Batley and Mor- Batley and pits around Batley. This was also a decline. ley still retained much of the Morley and declining industry – the last Batley Batley and Morley have particu- character and fierce local pride surrounding pit closed in 1973. lar claims to fame in Liberal his- of old woollen mill towns.6 Mor- district: By the 1960s the physical tory. Herbert Asquith, the future ley’s magnificent Victorian town constituencies appearance of both towns was Liberal Prime Minister, was born hall (built in 1895) proclaimed 1918–50 changing. In Morley, sweeping Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 27 liBEral ROOTS: THE liBEral parTY IN A WEST YORKShirE CONSTITUENCY, 1920s–1970s slum-clearance programmes had support of a subtantial proportion Theodore Cooke Four generations of the Barkers redeveloped some three thousand of their operatives. In Batley, mill Taylor, circa 1906; served as councillors and aldermen houses up to 1968 and a further owners such as Theodore Taylor, Brian Bradley on Morley council over a period of 1,250 were demolished between Frederick Auty,10 Charles Sped- Barker, Mayor of more than eighty years and several 1968 and 1975. We can recall can- ding,11 and Edmund Bruce12 led the Morley of them were mayor. The Rho- vassing not far from Morley town Liberals while Thomas Western13 des clan served some ten mayoral hall in streets of blackened back- was a Tory. Clement Fernsides,14 terms. The Liberal Association to-back terraces which disappeared founder and proprietor of the Batley seems to have been constituted to soon after. In the early 1960s, only News, was another prominent Lib- a considerable extent by these pil- Liverpool had more inhabited back- eral. In Morley, millowners such as lars of the community and their to-back houses than Batley. By 1972 the Barkers,15 the Rhodes/Watson/ entourages. only a couple of streets survived.8 Marshall clan,16 Joseph Kirk,17 and Naturally there were strong David Dickinson18 were among the Liberal–Nonconformist links. leading Liberals, while the Hep- The Taylors, Stubleys and Fearn- The years of decline worths19 were Tories. In some cases sides were Congregationalists and In the 1920s much of the old Radi- these clans extended widely and Crothers’s father was a Method- cal political culture remained over several generations. Taylor’s ist New Connexion Minister. The intact. At parliamentary elections brother-in-law John Stubley20 (and Barkers were Primitive Method- Batley & Morley was a Liberal– his half-brother David Stubley21), ists. The Rhodes family were also Labour battleground, with the his half-sister, Gertrude Elsie Tay- Dissenters. Ben Turner, the leading Conservatives generally backing lor,22 his business and political right Labour figure in the constituency, the Liberals.9 In the town halls a arm, Hamilton Crothers,23 and recalled cases of ministers and lay similar Lib–Con alliance domi- deputy managing director, Ernest preachers urging congregations nated the scene, opposing the Kirk24 were also councillors and the to vote against him in Batley & Labour Party, which at that time first four served as mayor of Bat- Morley.27 was under the charismatic textile ley. Frederick Auty, also a mayor In many cases the outlook trade unionist leader, Ben Turner, of Batley, was brother of Marga- of these practical businessmen who served as both MP and as a ret Grace Auty25 who became Mrs Radicals was sharply ideological. member of Batley council. Herbert North.26 She was active Some years later Theodore Taylor The local power structure rested in the local Liberal Party and the explained his continuing commit- on business dynasties that ran the Yorkshire Women’s Liberal Federa- ment, despite many disappoint- Liberal and Conservative parties tion and mayoress to her husband ments, to the Liberal Party and his and still, evidently, enjoyed the when he was mayor in 1919–20. attitude to the other parties: 28 Journal of Liberal History 80 Autumn 2013 liBEral ROOTS: THE liBEral parTY IN A WEST YORKShirE CONSTITUENCY, 1920s–1970s I am a lifelong Liberal and Raymond Stone temptation to gain popularity events of 1931 and the split in the … don’t want to have to (photo provided by applying wrong views … I party between the Samuelite Free change my party. I have by Sheila Stone); think I can be at present most Traders and the pro-Tory Liberal never, however, seen party Batley’s Liberal useful as an inside Liberal, doing Nationals under Sir John Simon, as a primary consideration, Mayor, Vera Ball, my best to keep the Party as who was MP for the neighbouring but only as a means to ends in 1969 (Batley sound as one can …28 constituency of Spen Valley. The which can be summed up in News) split threw the Batley & Morley this case as maintaining and By the mid-1920s, party distinc- Liberals into turmoil. On the one extending human freedom. It tions between Liberals and Con- hand there was considerable respect has always been threatened and servatives at local government level for Simon and a shared anti-Social- I suppose it always will be, by had become somewhat obscured as ist outlook and readiness to work ambitious men. At present in they increasingly adopted the label with the Conservatives. On the Britain, we are threatened by of ‘Independent’. However it seems other hand compromising the par- three sets of folk, the cartelites to have been well known which of ty’s independence was anathema for (with Protection as one of their the parties most individuals sup- the Radical Free Traders who made instruments), the trade unions, ported. In the interwar period, The up the local Liberal elite. and the ‘intelligentsia’ socialists. Times published lists of new may- The Batley & Morley Tories The latter two parties seem ors by party each year and the vast clamoured for their own candidate pretty well combined at present majority were classified as either committed to ‘safeguarding’ of in the ‘Labour Party’.