It isn’t known who exactly made this marvellous film from the 1920s, or indeed in what year. All we have to go by is that it was, as the title states: ‘Presented exclusively by the Picture Palace’. The Picture Palace was next door to the club on Sheffield Road, opening in 1912 and closing in 1958. The film looks quite professional  and may have been made by one of the well-known filmmakers in Sheffield at that time, such as Frank Mottershaw’s Sheffield Photo Company – see the Context for An...

It isn’t known who exactly made this marvellous film from the 1920s, or indeed in what year. All we have to go by is that it was, as the title states: ‘Presented exclusively by the Picture Palace’. The Picture Palace was next door to the club on Sheffield Road, opening in 1912 and closing in 1958. The film looks quite professional  and may have been made by one of the well-known filmmakers in Sheffield at that time, such as Frank Mottershaw’s Sheffield Photo Company – see the Context for An Eccentric Burglary (1905) and Drive with Clare (1963-68). The club was originally owned by a doctor – who donated to it a bowling green – and was bought through a loan by the brewers Sam Smith, who loaned money to most such clubs in the region. The money would eventually be paid back and, of course, Sam Smiths would benefit from the trade! The club closed in 1991, and all that remains is the bowling club. A road now runs through where the club and cinema previously stood.  

 

The obvious highlight of the film is clearly the people in it, often posing for the camera. Apart from the cinema, the other notable feature of the film are the buses and trams – on the latter see the Context for Horse Drawn Tram And Ibberson Family (1946). The buses look remarkably modern for 1919: not unlike the Bedford OBs from the late 1940s. Hopefully, someone will be able to identify some of the vintage buses that stretch down the road packed with children.

 

The major local employer at the time would have been the various iron and steel works, in particular the large Hadfields Steel Works, off Vulcan Road, a huge site which is now Meadowhall. As the only place in the UK where 18 inch armour piercing shells were made this was targeted by the December 1940 air raids,   codenamed Operation Crucible – see Sheffield at War (1941). The huge railway marshalling yard wasn’t built until the 1960s – opened by, of all people, Dr Beeching in October 1965. This too went into a quick decline from the early 1980s as nearby industries and railway lines closed, and has been replaced by the Sheffield International Rail Freight Terminal.   Tinsley is now dominated by the great viaduct which was begun in 1965 and completed in 1968, built to extend the M1 towards Leeds; and which has been plagued with structural problems. The two cooling towers that used to loom large over the skyline were blown up in August 2008.   For an alternative view of Tinsley from the late 1950s see Is Rotherham A Seaport Town?, which takes a trip along the canal that runs through Tinsley.  

 

Throughout the last century Sheffield was dotted with working men’s clubs: in fact just about every area of Sheffield had its own working men's club.   Many of these are still going strong – as is the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union (The WMCIU) which has 3000 associate clubs (of which around 2,400 are affiliated to the CIU) and 6 million members. Unfortunately the Tinsley club has not survived ( apparently, the only place to go out for a drink now in Tinsley is the Fox and Duck).   One posting on the Sheffield History website relates how it was, “A great club sadly now demolished and gone, lounge area, large concert room and the best working men's club snooker room in the area with 6 full size tables.”   There is a photo of Tinsley and District Working Men's Club and Institute Ltd, on Sheffield Road on the Picture Sheffield website, but this is from 1950, and may not be the same one.

 

In the days before any state welfare, other than the workhouse, working class people had to organise for themselves any protection against loss of job. The first line of defence would be a trade union relief fund, for those in trade unions. But many other kinds of self-help schemes were set up during the Victorian era: such as friendly societies, penny banks and building societies, Hospital Sunday funds, and co-operative clubs – see also the Context for Service To The Public - Barnsley British Co-Operative Society (1951). Working men’s clubs would also fit into this category.   The Liberal Government had begun instituting welfare reforms just before the First World War, and this was followed up after the war:  1919 was the year that a Ministry of Health and a Ministry of Pensions was set up. The chief motivation for much of the new legislation was the concern over the poor health of the workforce.   Needless to say, there never was any state provision for enabling working class children to have an outing – nor has there been any since.

 

One important self-help society founded prior to the war was the Bradford Guild of Help, formed in 1904, and setting up branches across Yorkshire. Among the provisions that they helped with was school meals, but this organisation didn’t survive the war years.   Working men’s clubs weren’t set up principally as welfare organisations, but more as leisure centres, albeit with a moral concern. In fact the sponsorship of a brewery for working men’s clubs is somewhat ironic in that it was the clergy and temperance societies that were often instrumental in setting them up in opposition to the public house. It was the temperance advocate Henry Solly who founded the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union, around the time that he gave up being a Unitarian minister in 1862. His idea was for the network of clubs to be both for recreation and education. 

 

According to Mark Smith, “Henry Solly claimed that recreation, temperance and education were like a three-legged stool – remove one and the enterprise would collapse.” He goes on to quote Solly on his so-called ‘theory of the inclined plane’: “Begin by meeting the workingmen’s humblest social wants for relaxation and amusement, and you may lift our hard-worked brethren by degrees up to very respectable heights of knowledge and education… You fail if you present the thick end of the plane first.”  (References). This was all part of what has come to be called the ‘rational recreation’ movement, of enlightened philanthropists, often church based, trying to steer the working class, through various recreational activities, onto, in their eyes, the right moral course and away from outright rebellion – see Peter Bailey, References.

 

As well as meeting places, the working men’s clubs would also serve ‘for mutual helpfulness in various ways’. In the words of the prospectus for the Union, ‘The aim… in all cases would be to help Working Men to help themselves, rather than to establish or manage Institutions – this being as essential for the moral usefulness as for the permanent success of our endeavours.’ (Smith) However, without any beer on sale the clubs did not prosper, and so rather than face a complete failure, the Union relented and in 1866 the restriction on the sale of beer in clubs was lifted – a move that was to make them increasingly dependent on the breweries. By the time of Solly's death in 1903 there were 992 clubs with 380,000 members.

 

The clubs were often the central focus for a working class community, even though they were male dominated, with the bars invariably male preserves. Often they were initially based on specific occupations, such as the Miners’ Welfare Clubs, the Railwaymen's Clubs or, even more specifically, wheeltappers and shunters clubs. They became centres for local entertainment – famously providing a circuit for comedians of the old style who knew that common prejudices were always a good basis to get a laugh – as depicted in Phoenix Nights (although some claim that this is not entirely authentic). But despite still having a large membership, there is evidence that the clubs are struggling to keep going with changes in leisure patterns – see the ongoing work of Ruth Cherrington at Club History (References).

 

References

 

Peter Bailey, Leisure and class in Victorian England: Rational recreation and the contest for control 1830-1885,  2nd edition, Methuen, London, 1987.

John Benson, The working class in Britain, 1850-1939, Rev. ed., IB Tauris, 2003.

Edward Royle, Modern Britain: A Social History 1750-1997, 2nd edition, Arnold, London, 1997.

Smith, M. k. (2001) 'Henry Solly and the Working Men's Club and Institute Union', the encyclopaedia of informal education. [www.infed.org/thinkers/solly.htm. Last update: September 03, 2009]

Picture Sheffield website

The Club and Institute Union (CIU), Historians

Sheffield History