pl
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Post by pl on May 3, 2020 14:32:09 GMT
This is bound to be a question that has been asked before, but I have a fairly large collection of Liberal Party literature from around the country dating from the 1970s. Is there anywhere this could usefully be sent, or should I bin it before my partner and daughters do when I am no longer around? I know lot of university libraries have special collections of political materials. I remember being asked to donate material to Bristol at one point. www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/november/election-archive-appeal.html
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on May 3, 2020 15:09:37 GMT
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Post by tonyhill on May 3, 2020 17:43:11 GMT
Thank you David - when things get back to normal I will contact them.
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on May 4, 2020 3:56:19 GMT
Reading the constituency profiles, "Council House" seems to come up a lot for town Hall or civic centre. Is this a peculiarly Midlands usage of the term?
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Post by yellowperil on May 4, 2020 5:58:10 GMT
Reading the constituency profiles, "Council House" seems to come up a lot for town Hall or civic centre. Is this a peculiarly Midlands usage of the term? Not unless you extend midlands as far as Bristol. Looking back over the last question or two, the answer always seems to be Bristol. Thinking about the Council House in Bristol , and College Green in front of it and the Cathedral to one side, this is always a special place for me. I can remember the Council House when it housed a British Restaurant (maybe at the end of the war or just after it- a good week to be remembering that, I guess 1945). Also the Cathedral was the site for my Dad's big send off -a cathedral packed to its limits for a very grand memorial service (1973). But most of all , it was on a bench on College Green looking at the Cathedral and the Council House that I proposed to Eileen (1959). Thinking about it, do you guys know what a British Restaurant was?
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Post by finsobruce on May 4, 2020 6:03:41 GMT
Reading the constituency profiles, "Council House" seems to come up a lot for town Hall or civic centre. Is this a peculiarly Midlands usage of the term? A good question.
The earliest usage I can find is in Bristol and Dunbar around 1800, but plenty of others (Shrewsbury, Perth etc) in the 1820s and 1830s. There was also a "Council House Street" in Calcutta in 1800.
Although the usage isn't one hundred per cent clear, the ones for Bristol in particular do tend to indicate that this was the address given for the centre of local government activities. It refers to both the city and the corporation of Bristol.
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Post by finsobruce on May 4, 2020 6:36:00 GMT
Reading the constituency profiles, "Council House" seems to come up a lot for town Hall or civic centre. Is this a peculiarly Midlands usage of the term? Not unless you extend midlands as far as Bristol. Looking back over the last question or two, the answer always seems to be Bristol. Thinking about the Council House in Bristol , and College Green in front of it and the Cathedral to one side, this is always a special place for me. I can remember the Council House when it housed a British Restaurant (maybe at the end of the war or just after it- a good week to be remembering that, I guess 1945). Also the Cathedral was the site for my Dad's big send off -a cathedral packed to its limits for a very grand memorial service (1973). But most of all , it was on a bench on College Green looking at the Cathedral and the Council House that I proposed to Eileen (1959). Thinking about it, do you guys know what a British Restaurant was?having parents who grew up during the war and having done an 'A' level project on evacuation, I can say yes! . They ceased to be in 1947, but councils were allowed to convert them to 'community restaurants' - it would be interesting to know when the last one ceased operations.
Lest anyone start going on about how corporatist they sound, the name, as with so many other things from this time, is credited to Churchill.
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Post by yellowperil on May 4, 2020 6:57:08 GMT
Further thoughts on Bristol Council House. I see they now refer to it as City Hall, but it was always the Council House when I knew it.I have now found a reference that it was re-named in 2012. I tried googling Bristol Council House and unsurprisingly I suppose got something quite different, but was made a lot of offers.I see it was built in 1938 but didn't become the Council offices until 1950, which is how I come to remember it housing the British Restaurant in what I remember as a half built structure, but in 1945 there were a lot of buildings half up and half down.. It is of course one of the principal works of Vincent Harris in similar style to the Exeter University buildings of the same era (The Washington Singer and Hatherley Labs,Mardon Hall, the Mary Harris Chapel and the Roborough building which in my day housed the Library) so wherever I went I was beset by the works of that pale shade of Lutyens.
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Post by finsobruce on May 4, 2020 7:13:43 GMT
Further thoughts on Bristol Council House. I see they now refer to it as City Hall, but it was always the Council House when I knew it.I have now found a reference that it was re-named in 2012. I tried googling Bristol Council House and unsurprisingly I suppose got something quite different, but was made a lot of offers.I see it was built in 1938 but didn't become the Council offices until 1950, which is how I come to remember it housing the British Restaurant in what I remember as a half built structure, but in 1945 there were a lot of buildings half up and half down.. It is of course one of the principal works of Vincent Harris in similar style to the Exeter University buildings of the same era (The Washington Singer and Hatherley Labs,Mardon Hall, the Mary Harris Chapel and the Roborough building which in my day housed the Library) so wherever I went I was beset by the works of that pale shade of Lutyens. Doing a bit of further digging the earliest reference to the Bristol Council House I can find is in an advert for a local stationers in 1764, but the site has been used for 'governance' since the Middle Ages. It certainly had one of many re-buildings in the early 1700s.
The earliest reference to a 'council house' elsewhere I've dug up is in Edinburgh circa 1728, so it must go back much further than that.
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Post by tonyhill on May 4, 2020 7:21:10 GMT
When I went for my interview at Cambridge in 1966 there was still a British Restaurant operating somewhere near the Market Square, and if my memory serves me correctly I had a cup of tea and a bun there on that occasion. By the time I went up to the university the following year I think it had gone.
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Post by tonyhill on May 4, 2020 7:26:57 GMT
I've just checked on Wikipedia and they say they were disbanded in 1947 so either they are wrong, or my memory is wrong, or it had been taken over by the Council and continued to operate in a similar guise. I'm not sure there's anyone on this forum who is older than me and knew Cambridge in those days who might remember, and I don't have any old Cambridge Directories in my collection which might help.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on May 4, 2020 8:15:18 GMT
When the current Westminster City Council was created in 1965 from three predecessor authorities, each of them had their own Town Hall. Paddington Town Hall was likely to be demolished in the immediate future to make way for an urban motorway (and it was). Old Westminster City Hall on Charing Cross Road became City Hall for the new council, and Marylebone Town Hall on Marylebone Road - which was grand at the front but most of the rear had been demolished by enemy bombing - became 'the Council House'. A new council chamber was built at Marylebone and a new high-rise City Hall inserted into the late 1960s redevelopment of Victoria Street.
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Post by finsobruce on May 4, 2020 8:26:48 GMT
I've just checked on Wikipedia and they say they were disbanded in 1947 so either they are wrong, or my memory is wrong, or it had been taken over by the Council and continued to operate in a similar guise. I'm not sure there's anyone on this forum who is older than me and knew Cambridge in those days who might remember, and I don't have any old Cambridge Directories in my collection which might help. They were re-branded as 'Civic restaurants' - Birmingham still had a civic restaurants dept in 1970 as far as I can see, but the premises was sold in 1963. Otherwise Gateshead actually refurbished theirs in 1962 and Tamworth was thinking about getting rid of the "Mercia Civic restaurant" in 1967. Walsall also had some still operating in the late 60s.
Forum members will be delighted to know that in the 1950s West Hartlepool's catering committee was chaired by Cllr Curry.
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Post by hullenedge on May 4, 2020 8:36:04 GMT
Not unless you extend midlands as far as Bristol. Looking back over the last question or two, the answer always seems to be Bristol. Thinking about the Council House in Bristol , and College Green in front of it and the Cathedral to one side, this is always a special place for me. I can remember the Council House when it housed a British Restaurant (maybe at the end of the war or just after it- a good week to be remembering that, I guess 1945). Also the Cathedral was the site for my Dad's big send off -a cathedral packed to its limits for a very grand memorial service (1973). But most of all , it was on a bench on College Green looking at the Cathedral and the Council House that I proposed to Eileen (1959). Thinking about it, do you guys know what a British Restaurant was?having parents who grew up during the war and having done an 'A' level project on evacuation, I can say yes! . They ceased to be in 1947, but councils were allowed to convert them to 'community restaurants' - it would be interesting to know when the last one ceased operations. Lest anyone start going on about how corporatist they sound, the name, as with so many other things from this time, is credited to Churchill.
Ours closed in 1945 immediately after the war to much disgust of the local population. The council didn't want to carry the cost and no one could raise the capital to keep the venture going. No more public eating places until a little cafe opened five years later. The only complaint with the British Restaurants was being served all courses at once (like a school dinner) and although it was piping hot at the start by the time you reached your pudding it was tepid. One chap got fed up of us so decided to eat his meal backwards because he liked his pudding hot. Bad idea. He retched for Britain! (I've heard that some around here had their pudding, usually rice or sponge, on the same plate on as their main).
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Post by finsobruce on May 4, 2020 8:45:35 GMT
having parents who grew up during the war and having done an 'A' level project on evacuation, I can say yes! . They ceased to be in 1947, but councils were allowed to convert them to 'community restaurants' - it would be interesting to know when the last one ceased operations. Lest anyone start going on about how corporatist they sound, the name, as with so many other things from this time, is credited to Churchill.
Ours closed in 1945 immediately after the war to much disgust of the local population. The council didn't want to carry the cost and no one could raise the capital to keep the venture going. No more public eating places until a little cafe opened five years later. The only complaint with the British Restaurants was being served all courses at once (like a school dinner) and although it was piping hot at the start by the time you reached your pudding it was tepid. One chap got fed up of us so decided to eat his meal backwards because he liked his pudding hot. Bad idea. He retched for Britain! (I've heard that some around here had their pudding, usually rice or sponge, on the same plate on as their main). I've just found someone's thesis on the subject with a very handy table showing how many British restaurants were open in 1941 and 1943 and then how many survived as Civic restaurants in 1948.
There was obviously a large drop in numbers by 1948 but many were still open with the largest concentration outside London (212) being in the Midlands (127).
tonyhill - i've found a pictures of both the interior and the exterior of the Cambridge branch - in one of the pieces someone says it was open until the early 70s.
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Post by tonyhill on May 4, 2020 9:52:12 GMT
OK - thanks for that. I must have been so unimpressed by it that I didn't go back!
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Post by finsobruce on May 4, 2020 9:57:44 GMT
OK - thanks for that. I must have been so unimpressed by it that I didn't go back! It's not clear tbh - but there was major shopping centre re-development at that point , so the implication was that it disappeared as part of that.
And if you want a reminder of what the interior looked like it's at number eight on this list. The photo was taken in 1966, so you might be in it!
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Chris from Brum
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Post by Chris from Brum on May 4, 2020 12:52:07 GMT
Birmingham has both a Council House and a Town Hall - the former being the council HQ, the latter being a concert hall. Actually, Dudley is the same, as is Walsall, in this case with the Town Hall being part of the same complex as the Council House.
Walsall Town Hall is actually rather impressive, with a barrel-roof making for a nice resonant acoustic, and a decent organ. They have a borough organist, a friend of mine, who in normal times would be giving regular recitals on the instrument. The hall also functions as a war memorial, with plaques listing the borough's dead in both world wars on each side of the hall. So it was appropriate that my orchestra performed Laura Rossi's soundtrack to "The Battle of the Somme" film in that hall, live to a screening of that film.
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iang
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Post by iang on May 4, 2020 13:35:38 GMT
Birmingham has both a Council House and a Town Hall - the former being the council HQ, the latter being a concert hall. Actually, Dudley is the same, as is Walsall, in this case with the Town Hall being part of the same complex as the Council House. Walsall Town Hall is actually rather impressive, with a barrel-roof making for a nice resonant acoustic, and a decent organ. They have a borough organist, a friend of mine, who in normal times would be giving regular recitals on the instrument. The hall also functions as a war memorial, with plaques listing the borough's dead in both world wars on each side of the hall. So it was appropriate that my orchestra performed Laura Rossi's soundtrack to "The Battle of the Somme" film in that hall, live to a screening of that film.
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iang
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Post by iang on May 4, 2020 13:42:09 GMT
The Town Hall dates from 1832 (which I think off the top of my head is the same year as the Botanical Gardens). Walsall Town Hall is indeed impressive, the memorial plaques are as you go in rather than in the Council Chamber itself. Sandwell presumably has a Council House rather than a Town Hall (I presume I was one of those Midlands villains alluded to upthread) for much the same reason as Westminster - that it was created from several small authorities who all had their own Town Halls. This became an issue, as the authority was saddled with the upkeep of several white elephant Town Halls that were at best only ever used occasionally - the Mayor's annual Charity concert used to take place in the West Brom one, which also had a large organ. As far as I know, this is still the case. Wonder if the Mayor still does an annual charity concert? I juggled at one, introduced as "the amazing Councillor Garrett and his three balls"
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