125 Years Ago – 1887

A second pigeon shooting competition took place at Addingham on Saturday last, in a field near Southfield. The competitors were seven in number, with four birds each, and the prize was 10s added to the entrance money. Messr W Benson, J Holmes, and J Emmott shot two birds each and the prize was therefore divided between them.

A feeling of consternation ran through Ilkley on Monday evening on it becoming known that Mr John Fawcett, of Fern Mount, Crossbeck Road, had died suddenly at his residence. Mr Fawcett was apparently in his usual health, having been to the Parish Church on Sunday, and on Monday morning was preparing to go in his accustomed manner to his business at Otley. At mid-day he was seized with a stroke, from which he never recovered. He was secretary and solicitor to the Otley and Wharfedale Benefit Building Society, and solicitor to the Burley Local Board.

100 Years Ago – 1912

At the meeting of the West Riding Education Committee, at Wakefield, it was reported by the Higher Education Committee that the Governors of the Ilkley Grammar School had applied for a grant towards the cost of the provision of a swimming bath, the estimated cost of which was £1,200, towards which £760 has been raised locally. A grant of £200 was passed “subject to the usual conditions”.

Since Sunday skaters, both local and visitors, have had fine opportunities of indulging in the exhilerating sport on Yeadon Dam, which has been (and still is) coated with a very smooth glass-like surface of ice. Hundreds have visited the dam daily and there is a prospect of a capital weekend.

75 Years Ago – 1937

A Royal Air Force light bombing aeroplane crashed in a field on the farm of Mr Stanley Stephenson, at Riffa, near Pool, in passing over Wharfedale shortly after noon on Tuesday. The pilot and observer escaped injury but the machine was practically wrecked. The bomber was one of a squadron of five or six machines on their way from the South of England to a new aerodrome at Dishforth, their ultimate destination being Scotland. Conditions over Wharfedale were bad, due to low lying mist, and in passing over the high ridge on the Pool-Harrogate road, the pilot suddenly found himself only about 30 or 40 feet above the ground. He circled and intended to land in a field at the top of the ridge. He saw the field contained cows and made a landing in the next field.

Following the gift of £1,000 by Mr H P Price for the laying out of the land along the riverside, two further important gifts to Ilkley to mark the Coronation Year were announced at the meeting of the Ilkley Urban District Council on Wednesday evening. One was a gift by Mr Arthur Hentzen, of Gilstead, Middleton, of woodlands which are marked on the ordnance map as Coppy Wood and Stubbing Wood, and which lie to the north of what was formerly known as Lionel Crescent and is now Curly Hill. The other gift is from Mr and Mrs Fred Sugden, of Westbrook, Ilkley. They have given £2,000 for the provision of four houses, which are to be erected on the land near the corner of Bridge Lane and the main road.

50 Years Ago – 1962

For the first time in the history of the Wharfedale Rural District Council, the rateable value of the council’s area has passed the £150,000 mark, with the product of a penny rate rising correspondingly to £620. These figures were given in the report on rate collections for the half-year ended September 30, 1961, presented at the monthly meeting of the council on Friday afternoon. The report stated that the rateable value of the area was now £150,669, being an increse during the half-year of £939.

Local engineering firms will be affected by the national one-day strike on Monday called by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and and Engineering Unions as a protest that the employers have rejected an application for an increase in wages and a reduction in hours. It is anticipated that there will be a complete stoppage of work at the Otley engineering workshops. Over 1,000 workers are expected to stay away from work that day.

25 Years Ago – 1987

Judy Thomas, Labour’s prospective Parliamentary candidate for North West Leeds, has spoken out about her fears for health provision in Wharfedale and the implications for health care throughout the district. Commenting on the recent discussion by the District health Authority to make a severe cute in the service offered by the Children’s Ward at Otley Hospital, Judy Thomas said: “It is hardly surprising that people in Wharfedale feel under threat from the Health Authorioties in this area. In the same week the Regional Health Authority confirmed its determination to close the maternity unit at the hospital.”

The Arctic weather which swept across the country at the weekend took a firm grip on Wharfedale and Airedale, leaving on its wake a legacy of frozen waterpipes and a host of casualties — both human and mechanical — that had come to grief on icy roads and footpaths. The Wharfe at Otley was frozen from bank to bank.