125 years ago

At a meeting of the Ilkley Primitive Methodist Church, Mr Jas Rhodes referred to a visit which had been made to him by two members respecting the purchase of an organ he had for sale. His object in mentioning this was to say that, providing the members would contribute or collect the sum of £150 towards clearing off the "monkey" or debt on the building, he would make them a present of the organ. (Cheers).

The secretary of the Ilkley Conservative Association has received a letter from the Right Hon W E Forster acknowledging the resolution passed at the annual meeting of the association congratulating the Honorable. Member on the failure of the late attempt to commit a dastardly outrage upon him.

Joseph Woodhead, 17, of Ben Rhydding, Ilkley was summoned to the Otley Police Court for firing off a pistol in Wheatley Lane. PC Green said he was on duty in Wheatley and saw the defendant fire off a pistol three times. He went to him and the defendant gave him the pistol. He was ordered to pay 8s. costs.

100 years ago

Mr Raphael Brogden, son of Mr Robert Brogden, Ilkley, who has been about a year in Jamaica has written about the terrible earthquake. "It was an awful shock and quite unexpected. We were lucky to escape with our lives. We felt the thing roll from side to side. The stones on the road actually rolling about with the oscillation. It was awful, and when we saw the house we knew we had come face to face with death and by a miracle had escaped."

There are few men who have had a more varied or interesting experience than Mr John Renton, of Ilkley, who has been in South Africa and traversed a very large part of that land. He went out to Johannesburg in 1892 and when the Matabele rising took place in Mashonaland he joined Commander Ralph's company with the intent of taking part in the campaign.

A severe storm of wind and rain was experienced at Ilkley during Saturday night, the rain and the melting snow causing the river and streams to be very much swollen and in several places in the district some of the adjoining fields were flooded.

75 years ago

Coming at a time when unemployment is at its most distressing stage, the news that work has been started at Addingham on the building of a shed for a new subsidiary company formed by Lister & Co, Ltd, Bradford and the Gebruder Peltzer AC, of Crefeld, Germany, which will find employment for 200 operatives drawn almost entirely from the surrounding district, is most particularly welcome.

If there is any satisfactory feature to be found in the progressive desecration of trees which has scarred The Grove and Bolling Road during the past week or two it is only that Ilkley Urban District Council must be acquitted of the blame. Pruning of the trees is undoubtedly of value. Further, since The Grove and Bolling Road became motor bus routes there is no doubt that some of the trees have been occasionally a source of trouble, but even making allowance for all this the treatment which has been meted out, to use the mildest language, can only be described as ruthless.

An Ilkley bus driver, John Alfred Stephenson, of Maycroft, Mayfield Road, was exonerated from blame by a Keighley jury yesterday in connection with a fatal accident which took place at Keighley on Wednesday. About 6.30pm Edith Mawer, 27, of 1 Lund Street, Keighley was knocked down by a West Yorkshire Road Car Co's bus and suffered such grave injuries that she died the same evening in Keighley Victoria Hospital. Miss Mawer was crossing Skipton Road and stepped out from behind a double-deck bus into the path of another bus coming in the opposite direction. The driver said he did not see Miss Mawer until the bus was almost on top of her.

50 years ago

Thirteen organ pipes were bent or wrenched from their settings at Burley Salem Congregational Church by an intruder who was forcing a way from the organ loft into the church. The caretaker, Arthur Tetley, found the organ console had been opened and some of the stops pulled out. "It looked as though someone had been trying to play it," said Mr Tetley.

In May a group of 14 to 20 qualified and experienced teachers will begin a year's special course at Ilkley College of Housecraft. The post-war increase in the birth rate is now beginning to affect the secondary schools, and it will soon be difficult to find enough teachers to cope with the great increase in numbers. There is already a great shortage of housecraft teachers in some parts of the Riding. During their year in Ilkley, the teachers will have a mainly practical course in housecraft, cookery and some needlework.

Ilkley firemen had to rip tiles from the roof of a boiler house in the grounds of Denton Hall on Monday morning to tackle a fire. Garden canes stored near the boiler are believed to have caused the outbreak, which was discovered by a gardener employed at the hall. He and other gardeners used hosepipes and buckets of water to try to extinguish the blaze, but it was not under control until 25 minutes after the arrival of the firemen.

25 years ago

Ilkley's Victorian shelter on the edge of the tarn on Ilkley Moor is showing signs of its age. Bradford Metropolitan Council is keen to restore the building which has given sanctuary to many walking on the moors, unprepared for the occasional shower. The council is having a problem locating a supplier of shingles for the roof of the building, and knows of only one supplier who is too far away in Denmark.

Plans for tipping building waste at Gildersber, Addingham, have been bitterly attacked by the chairman of the village's parish council, who said it was outrageous that anyone could contemplate such desecration of the natural beauty of the countryside.

The former cabman's shelter which stood for many years at the foreground of Ilkley Railway Station and is now part of the Yorkshire Dales Museum Trust, is 100 years old next week. The ornate Victorian shelter, which was transferred from Ilkley to Embsay Railway Station near Skipton in 1973, was welcomed as a very useful and fascinating acquisition.