Crosland Moor and Brierley Wood Liberal Club

Crosland Lodge, final location of the Liberal Club. 

The club was inaugurated in January 1878 under the name of Crosland Moor and Brierley Wood Liberal Club.  A public tea and meeting was held in the United Methodist Free Church Schoolroom to celebrate the event.  It was reported that around 300 people sat down for a “knife and fork” tea and that the subsequent meeting was “crammed.”   Alfred Crowther, JP, presided at the event supported by the MP for Huddersfield Edward Aldam Leatham.

The club had a total of 110 members at its inauguration and was based at Park Road West, Crosland Moor. Thomas Carter, secretary of the club reported the history of the club to date.  It had been formed 18 months earlier in 1876.  They had struggled for 12 months of that time in cramped conditions 

“having only a room for reading, another for game and a large attic”.  

Their accommodation had been changed and they had secured a house to use as a Liberal Club.  The club now had a conversation and smoke room, discussion room, reading room and games room.   The rooms were supplied with games and newspapers, and lectures and entertainments were planned to be given. Huddersfield Chronicle 14 January 1878

When William Gladstone visited Leeds in 1881 the club sent a delegation which gave an address at the meeting. Liverpool Daily Post 8 October 1881.  In 1882 the Club sent a resolution to Edward Aldam Leatham MP for Huddersfield requesting that he support Gladstone and the government.  Yorkshire Post 3 March 1882

In February 1889 a meeting was held in the Free Methodist Schoolroom at Crosland Moor under the auspices of Crosland Moor and Brierley Wood Liberal Club. It was presided over by Joseph Woodhead, MP also in attendance was William Summers, MP.  However the meeting was reported as being “only moderately attended”. Huddersfield Chronicle 9 February 1889

The clubs fortunes and popularity appears to have change as in August 1898 the foundation stones for a new Liberal Club at Crosland Moor were laid.  The cost of the new building was estimated to be in the region of £650. The club had rented a building for 25 years but this had become so dilapidated and needed so much expenditure on it that they had decided to erect a building that they could call their own. They had bought a couple of 

“nearly new” 

cottages and an adjoining plot of land at the junction of Nabcroft Lane and Thomas Street in Crosland Moor.  They had got a loan on “easy terms” which had been acquired by some of the members of the club.  An architect from Milnsbridge, J. E. Lunn had been engaged to draw up plans for the building which would be suitable to the needs of a Liberal Club.   It was planned that one of the cottages would be the caretaker’s house.  The new building would house an entrance lobby, reading, conversation and games rooms plus billiard rooms.  The conversation and games rooms were to have a partition which could be removed to form a large room for meetings and social events. The staircase at the rear of the building was to have a painted window which would have a portrait of W. E Gladstone. The President of the club R. Armitage, led the formal stone laying ceremony where the foundation stones were laid by George Henry Shires and Joe Sykes, the latter being the founder of the club. They were presented with silver and ivory trowels and ebony and ivory mallets to mark the occasion.  Other stones were laid by Mrs William Jepson of Lockwood, Mrs J. G. Hayley, who was one of the Guardians of the Huddersfield Union, Mrs Mark Shaw, Mrs B. A. Pogson and Mrs J Wood.  Each of the women received a memento in the shape of a mallet of lignum vitae with a silver inscription plate.  Afterwards a tea was held in the United Methodist Free Church School which was well attended.  There then followed a public meeting with addresses being given by well-known local Liberals.  The day raised £42 towards the building fund.  Leeds Mercury 13 August 1898.

In 1900 the club held a series of meetings in the club rooms in support of Sir James Woodhouse’ candidature including one at Crosland Liberal Club.  Huddersfield Chronicle 28 September 1900

In the same year a celebratory tea was held in the large room in the club on the occasion of the Golden Wedding of Mr and Mrs James Quarmby.  It was reported that an 

“excellent tea was given” 

followed by congratulatory addresses.  Entertainments included recitations, songs and dances.   The couple were given “several useful presents!”  Huddersfield Chronicle 22 September 1900

George Henry Beaumont of Rockfield, Park Road West, Crosland Moor was the club President and a local Liberal Councillor since 1905.  He died suddenly in October 1909. Leeds Mercury 20 October 1909

A number of events at the club are recorded in 1914.  In January the club held a social evening in order to make a presentation to club member, Mr Friend Hirst who was leaving the district to move to Southport.  There was a large gathering for the event which was presided over by Mrs W. H. Haigh.  An inkstand was present to Friend Hirst by J. H. Peters on behalf of the club members.  Mrs Haigh together with the President of the Women’s Liberal Association, Mrs William Boothroyd expressed their good wishes for Friend’s future on behalf of the members. Entertainment was given in the form of songs by Misses Hill, Ida Balmforth, Edith Shaw and Harry Clayton, with accompaniment by Mr Clark.  The evening was concluded by dancing which was reported to have gone on 

“until a late hour.”  

Huddersfield Daily Examiner 27 January 1914

In April Mrs Studdard gave a lecture to the members of the Women’s Liberal Association at the Club on 

“The Present Position of Women’s Suffrage.” 

A discussion followed the address and literature was distributed amongst the members. Common Cause 24 April 1914

A “large and enthusiastic gathering” 

was reportedly held in July to discuss the Liberal candidature for the November election. William Boothroyd was nominated to contest the seat as the Liberal candidate.  Huddersfield Daily Examiner 17 July 1914

The address given for the club in the 1927 Kelly’s Directory is Blackmoorfoot Road with Ben Thewlis and C. H. Hinchliff as secretaries.

There is some confusion as to the location of the Liberal Club as addresses vary Nabcroft and Thomas was the location of the aforementioned new premises, but then there is reference to the club being on Blackmoorfoot Road and another stating that they took over Crosland Lodge, former home of Conservative Sir Joseph Crosland sometime after 1917.  

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Crosland Lodge was built by George Crosland, a local woollen manufacturer, it then passed to his youngest son Charles who died in 1870 he had paid the estate £4000 for it. His widow, Eliza (nee Thornton) continued to live there with her children until she died in 1917. Most of the estate was purchased by the council and houses were built on it. It was the birthplace and for many years the home of Joseph (later Sir Joseph) Crosland, businessman, newspaper proprietor and prominent Conservative, who stood for Parliament in 1885, 1886 and 1892. (Information provided by Peter Crosland) 

Each time he was defeated by a Liberal candidate but his persistence was rewarded in 1893 when, at the age of sixty-six, he was elected M.P. for Huddersfield at a by-election caused by the death of the sitting Member. His majority was thirty-five. Sir Joseph was Huddersfield's first Conservative M.P. and his feat in winning the seat for the party was not to be repeated until 1979. His spell in the House of Commons was to be brief as in the General Election of 1895 his slender majority did not carry and he was again defeated by a Liberal. In view of his political record it is something of an irony that the one time home of this arch-Conservative has for many years been a Liberal Club.

There seems to be no record of the exact date of the club's move to this grand house but all evidence points to the fact that they were based there in the early twentieth century.

In the 1950s the club sold land to the Crosland Moor Scout group on Moorside Avenue which is the site of the former grounds of Crosland Lodge.   The club completed the negotiations with the scouts in March 1952 and the Scout group had plans drawn up and passed to build their new HQ on the land.

Bowling green at the front of the club building on the site of the former lawn.

There are a number of reports of bowling matches for the club from early 1900s to 1950s.  The club had its own green which was placed on the site of the front lawn of Crosland Lodge and dates back to 1924.  The green has been home to some of the country’s top bowling matches. It had been known as one of the most challenging greens to compete on and is still regarded as one of the  premier greens in Yorkshire.  In 1950 the club were competitors in Yorkshire County Championship bowls, with half the contest being at the club bowling green and the other half at club half in Frenchwood Social Club, Preston.  Yorkshire Post 13 June 1950.  When the site went into administration in 2013 a fight began to save it.

The Crosland Moor Liberal Club closed in 1999 and became a pub named The Manor, which itself closed some years later and the building, which is listed, was then transformed into apartments.  https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/bowlers-fight-save-crosland-moor-5003537