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The Commissioners at
Work
THE
Commissioners were business-like in their attack on the problems of
town government. They at once adopted the practice of setting up
committees to deal with their main activities. They had one for the
Wells and others for the Police, for the regulating of Hackney
Carriages, for the inspection of Nuisances, and for the provision of
Public Seats. At times, they appointed committees to deal with
temporary problems, such as each of their building schemes. In 1847,
the influx of workers on the new railway-line led to a decline in
public morale, and a committee was set up to consider the
desirability of a "night force for protecting from felonious
depredations the Inhabitants."
In
1845 the Commissioners seriously considered obtaining an Act of
Parliament to enable them to light the town with gas, but next year
they allowed a private company to secure one instead, with the
proviso that the Commissioners had the option to purchase the
undertaking at the end of fifteen years. Again, a committee was
appointed to choose the sites for the street-lamps (which proved to
be all in Low Harrogate). With what appears an excessive attention
to propriety, no Commissioner who had shares in the Gas Company was
allowed to serve on this committee.
Another committee was set up in connection with the Commissioners'
laudable attempts to maintain all the old footpaths and
rights-of-way. One such path led to the Bogs across glebe-land
belonging to the Vicar of Pannal. He fought a delaying action for
some years, offering objections at first and then putting off the
Commissioners with promises. The committee won a Court action and,
accompanied by the Commissioners' police, enforced the right-of-way
in person.
The
first policeman was appointed in 1841. Besides his wages, he
received half the fines he collected - a sort of payment by results.
A townsman was fined 6d for "leaving cart unprotected "; and another
the same figure for "removing night-soil during day-time." To ensure
respect for the new force he was made to pay an additional 5s for
"using abusive language." In 1846 a "lock-up " was rented for
"vagrants and other disorderly persons." One of the police duties
was to see that none of the donkeys and mules, used for riding or
drawing carriages, were ill-treated. The Commissioners in 1846
strongly objected to the incursion into their territory of an
officer of the A.P.C.A. (the precursor of the R.S.P:C.A.); saying
that they were themselves competent to deal with such offences.
When railway-construction began in 1847, the two Companies concerned
each sent two policemen to act under the orders of the Harrogate
policeman. As this officer had in the meantime been given a local
assistant, he became quite an important person: he was appointed
Superintendent and supplied with the correct uniform - which
included a frock-coat. He needed, however, an expert assistant,
"particularly in the neighbourhood of the Brunswick corner," as the
Commissioners recorded, and they asked the Superintendent of the
London Police - the oldest and most highly trained force - to send
down one of his own men.
The
coming of the railway was essential for Harrogate, for the coach
services on the roads had steeply declined even before 1841. The
Leeds and Thirsk Railway Company offered to bring their line (a main
one) through Harrogate itself, but a town's meeting decided by a
very small majority that it should approach no nearer than Starbeck.
Many other country towns, about the same time, made the same unwise
decision, being afraid of the smoke and noise. Harrogate, however,
quickly modified its decision: before the Starbeck line was
constructed, it agreed to the proposal of the York and North Midland
Railway Company to end its branch line from Church Fenton much
nearer the Spa. The wooden Brunswick Station, close -by the
Brunswick (Prince of Wales), was finished about the same time as the
Starbeck station on the Leeds-Thirsk line. This Church
Fenton-Harrogate line had on it what contemporaries described as the
Stupendous Viaduct over the Crimple. Also, approaching the town, was
a short tunnel, later abandoned though still remaining under the
whole length of Langcliffe Avenue.
The
Commissioners imposed on the York and North Midland Company the
condition that it would find and equip another well if the digging
of the line should harm the Tewit Well. The Company was not, of
course, called upon to do this, for the Well was not affected, even
by the construction of the new line of 1862 that runs within a
stone's-throw of it.. The plea to the Leeds and, Thirsk Company to
provide a road bridge near Starbeck Station was, unfortunately, not
granted, perhaps because the Station was outside the Commissioners'
area and. Harrogate people were not sufficiently interested. They
seem to have been satisfied with the convenience of having a
main-line station so close and to have been actually glad that all
the goods-trains went by Starbeck, leaving their own sleep at night
quite undisturbed.
In
the next decade, however, came a demand for still better railway
communications. The North Eastern Company having absorbed the two
Companies concerned, it was possible in 1861-2 to construct the
Harrogate loop line. This connected up with the main line, north and
south, at Bilton and the Crimple Viaduct, and also joined a York
line at Star-beck. The present Harrogate Station was made on the new
line, and the Brunswick Station dismantled. Its site, in part
recompense for the new railway-cutting across the Stray, was handed
over by the North Eastern Company and added to the Two Hundred
Acres.
During the building of the railways, the Companies paid for damage
done to the roads by cartage. They kept open footpaths as far as
possible and built an appropriate number of bridges. The valuation
of the new lines for Rating purposes certainly did no injustice to
the town. The Commissioners and the township authority were alert
enough in defending local interests.
Of
the regular Committees of the Commissioners, that dealing with
Nuisances was among the busiest. At this period when much of the
town was in process of building, contractors had to be checked from
leaving their materials on footpaths. Householders were told to see
that roof-water did not fall on the footpaths and wash them away.
Owners were ordered, from time to time, to remove obstructions and
cleanse the streets. The Committee was particularly keen on noting
any window or shop-sign that projected into the street. But, like
wise rulers, they often compromised. Christopher Triffit, of the
Railway Tavern, was allowed to retain his swing-sign on payment of
ld. a year, and a man who had built a coach-house on public land
near the New Inn (Dragon), after being ordered again and again to
pull it down, was in the end obliged merely to pay half-a-crown a
year as recognition of his tenancy. The Committee kept an eye on
shops, particularly butchers, and in 1847 appointed an Inspector of
Nuisances.
Paths on the Stray and those by the side of streets - now pavements
- appear to have been sanded. As early as 1843, the Commissioners
proposed. a 6d rate to meet the cost of flagging them, but flagging
and asphalting were done on a large scale only in the 1860's.
Until 1860, there was a water-filled and unsanitary dip at the lower
end of Baker's Lane (Walker's Lane, Pound Lane - now King's Road).
Its filling-in appears to be a tribute to the Commissioners'
diplomacy. They themselves voted £50; they obtained a gift of spoil
and rubble from the Victoria Park Company, and tactfully approached
the owner, who "in a spirit of liberality" (as they record in their
minutes) offered' no objection to the improvement of his property.
The remainder of the cost was met out of the Highways Rate.
The
Public Seats Committee provided a number of seats in. Low and High
Harrogate and on the footpaths connecting the two. They had them
painted white, perhaps the most useful colour in those days of
imperfect lighting.
The
Hackney Carriages Committee issued licences to "mule-carriages,
donkey-carriages, horse-carriages, saddle-ponies and saddle-horses."
Each licence cost half-a-crown, a fee that the Commissioners' Clerk
considered should be his perquisite. This claim outraged the
Commissioners, but with their usual genius for compromise they
eventually allowed him to retain half. In 1847 a progressive
licence-holder asked permission to put a "box or booth" on the Stray
to serve as a Coach-office, but his request was refused. The
Commissioners showed their care for animals by ordering that
donkey-carriages should cease their practice of carrying more than
two adults and two children under 10. The carriages for hire had to
be on stands, between which and the roadway there must always be a
clearance of at least five yards.
In
1843 it was ordered that carriages must not be on the stands, or ply
for hire, on Sundays, but later - compromise again! - they might
drive on Sundays, except during Divine Service, if they had an
actual contract. The proverbial coach-and-horses might have been
driven through the amended regulation. In the interests of the
home-producer, all hackney carriages coming into Harrogate from
other places must be left "in the inn-yard where they arrived " and
had no permission to ply for hire in the town.
Apart from the Baths and 'Wells, the Commissioners' building
activities were limited to the Market. They had tried to acquire a
site for it as early as 1843, but building did not begin until 1874.
This Market served the public for over sixty years, and was on the
site of the present one. In 1884, the town, from its experimental
supply, installed electric light there.
The
building of the new parts of the town - with their broad streets and
substantial houses (present-day Harrogate is essentially Victorian
in its layout) was left to private builders or, in the more
ambitious projects, to companies. There were numerous quarries
providing excellent building-stone in the immediate neighbourhood,
making possible sound construction with the minimum of transport
costs. Several brick-works were set up on the outskirts, south and
east of the town
Early in Victoria's reign, the Victoria Park Company began the
development of the district that had previously been farming land,
between the two Harrogates. The building of "lodging houses"
(private hotels), usually in terraces, that had been started
energetically in the 1820's, was continued. Prospect Crescent, for
example (now in the business quarter and transformed into shops),
was built in the 1850's. On the removal of the stretch of railway
line in 1862, the district to the south-west of the Stray - an area
almost completely devoid of houses before - was covered with small
mansions and provided with its two attractive miniature parks (the
ovals) by the West End Park Company. The Duchy of Lancaster, with
its large holdings of suitable building-land, supplied the Dragon
and Lancaster Park Estates. By 1880, building had begun in the New
Park area.
Some streets were already named though, curiously enough, few of the
very old names survive. World's End Road is now Skipton Road; Robin
Hood Lane, Cold Bath Road; and Chapel Street has become Oxford
Street. But the laying-out of new property had become so rapid that
in 1847 the Commissioners submitted a list of proposed street-names
to the inhabitants for their approval. Terraces, Places and Courts
were fashionable, as Avenues, Groves and Crescents became a little
later.
The
Commissioners, no doubt realising that they were dependent on public
favour for their re-election, seem to have welcomed publicity. The
town had now two weekly papers, the older Harrogate Advertiser,
moderately Conservative, and its new rival, of rather. Radical
tendencies, the Harrogate Herald. From 1847, the reporters of both
these newspapers were admitted to all meetings of the
Commissioners.
The
more crowded buildings naturally increased the dangers from fire,
and it might be considered, at least the moral duty of a local
authority to deal with outbreaks. But in the eighteenth century this
was left to the Fire Insurance Companies and, sometimes, voluntary
associations. In Harrogate, some five years before the Commissioners
took over (i.e. in 1836), a town's meeting had voted £50 towards the
purchase of a fire-engine and the provision of a fire-station, the
Insurance Companies interested being expected to add their
contribution. A fire-engine was certainly in use here at this time,
but unfortunately no record survives that might identify it as town
property.
About 1866 the Commissioners bought a farm of over 300 acres to
serve for its main sewerage scheme. This Jenny Plain (or Irrigation)
Farm lay partly in Bilton-with-Harrogate and partly in Killinghall.
It was already obvious that the Commissioners' area was no longer
large enough to serve the interests of the Harrogate community. This
fact was made still clearer when the question of a water-supply
became a matter of urgency.
Before 1841, the villages had managed somehow to satisfy their need
of water from local sources. At that time, drinking water and water
for washing clothes were almost the only requirement, for baths were
still the occasional luxury of the well-to-do and water was little
used in sanitation.
By
the Award of 1778, two drinking places had been assured to the
people for ever; one in High Harrogate "near the World's End Inn"
(Grove House); the other, called variously the Cold Well, Bath or
Spring, in Low Harrogate. The Cold Well water was so popular that
guests at the Crown demanded it, and it appeared on the tables (we
are told) in black bottles. The Commissioners in 1844 introduced a
"pump and trough" at the Grove House well, but a second source at
High Harrogate was by then more largely used. This was the Black
Spring, at that time within the Stray, between Gascoigne's (County)
and the Granby.
In
the 1840's, however, these supplies, even for drinking purposes,
were no longer adequate, but the Commissioners hesitated to
undertake themselves a necessarily expensive scheme, evidently
fearing public reaction to any increase in the Rates. They allowed
the privately-owned Harrogate Waterworks Company to get its
Parliamentary Act and find other supplies in 1846. The first
appeared in 1852. In the interval, the Commissioners made tentative
but inadequate efforts to obtain temporary supplies by constructing
reservoirs at the Black Spring and, apparently, at the Cold Bath.
The
Company built its reservoirs - all except about half of one were
outside the Commissioners area - on Harlow Moor and on the Irongate
Bridge Road (Cornwall Road). From 1858, it began to construct the
reservoirs in Haverah Park. It completed the Ten Acres; but the
Beaverdyke (1888) and the Scargill (1896) belong to the period of
the Borough which, by the Harrogate Corporation Water Transfer Act
of 1898, was to take over the property of the Company for the sum of
£187,000. |
