125 Years Ago – 1893

Lectures are being given in various parts of this country, for the purpose of benefitting the funds of the society for helping the waifs and strays of our large towns. One of these lectures was given in St Margaret’s Hall, Ilkley, when Miss Hill described the work that was being done. The number of views shown by means of a lantern were very good, most of these being descriptive of the life of the outcast children of our great cities and towns.

Yesterday morning Mr. Alex Dobson, a gardener at Craiglands , left his home in Nelson road, and was crossing the railway drops when by some means or other fell through one of them. Unfortunately he fell on his head, and so injured his skull as to become unconscious. In that condition he was picked up and moved to his home. Drs. Carter, Bampton and Dobson have attended the sufferer, who, we regret to say, was, at the time of writing, still in an unconscious state.

100 Years Ago – 1918

National committee for relief in Belgium – As a result of the Donation Day held in Ilkley and Ben Rhydding on November 22nd , and of subsequent gifts, £49 13s 9d has been received by the organisers. This sum has been spent on blankets as well as gifts of shawls, shoes and stockings.

It does not appear to be generally understood that a man may, in addition to his vote for his residential qualification, record one other vote. This must be for a Parliamentary constituency in which he is registered as an elector for a business qualification provided it is not in the constituency in which he has his residential vote.

75 years Ago- 1943

We have received an airgraph from L/Cpl. A. S. Rhodes, serving with the Middle East Forces, in which he expresses appreciation for the way in which the “Wharfedale” has helped to keep up the morale of “at least one member of H. M. Forces during an enforced absence of over three years from home.” Since going to the Middle East in the summer of 1940 he has received regularly the local paper. “You have no idea,” he says, “how eagerly the local papers from home are awaited by the lads here; they come from all over the British Isles, all kinds of queer titles, but what a grand link with home.”

Corporal Jack Crossley, M. M. , of Otley, who serves with the Long Range Desert Group with the Middle East Forces, is reported missing as from November 22. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. E. Crossley, live at 57, The Crossways. Volunteering for the Coldstream Guards in June, 1940, Cpl. Crossley, who is is 23, has had many exciting experiences, and in January this year he was awarded the Military medal for a “job”during the North African fighting. He was the first Otley man to receive the medal in the present war.

50 Years Ago - 1968

A large number of greetings telegrams will be transmitted by the Post Office over the Christmas period again this year. Last year the number of telegrams sent by people to addresses in this country and overseas during the Christmas period was 433,600.

No action is to be taken by Ilkley Urban Council to preserve the residents of the Menston district from noise when jet aircraft are introduced at Leeds-Bradford Airport at Yeadon. The Council considers that “the benefit to the district by the development of the airport outweighs the disadvantages likely to be occasioned by the noise of aircraft.”

25 Years Ago – 1993

Christopher Timothy said he would prefer not to star in new episodes of television series All Creatures Great and Small when he visited Ilkley yesterday. The actor, who played real-life Yorkshire Dales vet James Herriot, was speaking at The Grove Bookshop.

A health watchdog is to fight moves to introduce car parking charges at Airedale General Hospital. Airedale Community Health Council chairman John Godward said: “People do not go to hospitals for pleasure but because they need to for the sake of their health. It would be wrong to incur charges for that.”