The Holbeck (formerly the Holbeck Working Men's Club or Holbeck WMC) in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

is one of the United Kingdom's oldest

working men's clubs Working men's clubs are British private social clubs first created in the 19th century in industrial areas, particularly the North of England, Midlands, Scotland and South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class me ...

, and is thought to be the UK's oldest surviving working men's club.

History

The Club was originally founded in 1871 at '5 Ebenezer-place, Mint, Holbeck' in 1871. By 1876 it boasted 83 members, assets of £81, and receipts of £155. In 1877, the club moved to its present premises, whose address was then 'Low Moorside, Holbeck, Leeds' (now Jenkinson Lawn, Leeds LS11 9QX). By 1907, the club had 501 members, and funds of £1956. In 1913 it recorded 426 members, with funds of £1,758, rising in 1928 to 718 members and funds of £4,918. Among the people who frequented the Club in the post-war years was the local Labour politician

Hugh Gaitskell Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant, h ...

, and the Club was 'one of the most important venues' for early performances by

Ernie Wise Ernest Wiseman, (27 November 1925 – 21 March 1999), known by his stage name Ernie Wise, was an English comedian, best known as one half of the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, who became a national institution on British television, especially ...

alongside his father Harry. On 2 March 1959, the club voted to permit members' wives to become 'lady members', and elected its first female president, Caroline Turner, in 2021. The club has long hosted sports teams, including

bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

, snooker, and football, winning the

West Yorkshire Association Football League The West Yorkshire Association Football League is a football competition based in Yorkshire, England. It was previously known as the Leeds League until the name change in 1939. Although it is named the ''West Yorkshire'' League, clubs from the H ...

in 1989-90. It has also undertaken collections for charity. On 12 September 2019, a

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...

was unveiled to celebrate the fact that The Holbeck is the longest continuously running working men's club in the UK.

Decline and recovery

In the early twenty-first century, the Club faced a downturn associated with the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

, compounded by delays in replacing demolished housing around the Club. The Club's membership base was also affected by the rise of bars in Leeds city centre; destabilisation of traditional pub culture by the 2007

smoking ban in England A smoking ban in England, making it illegal to smoke in all enclosed work places in England, came into force on 1 July 2007 as a consequence of the Health Act 2006. Similar bans had already been introduced by the rest of the United Kingdom: in Sc ...

; local demographic shifts to ethnic groups with less of a tradition of drinking in pubs; and a national shift towards drinking supermarket-bought alcohol at home. The same forces led to the closure of at least four nearby pubs, as well as Holbeck's library, sports centre, and many other amenities, and by April 2013, as the Holbeck WMC's debts rose, it was feared that it too would fail. However, local activists, putting in volunteer labour, succeeded in turning the Club around, partly by appealing to new audiences by providing space for community meetings and other events. By 2018 the volunteer-run club was thriving. Its recovery was cemented in that year when the Holbeck-based theatre company Slung Low moved all their operations from their premises under the arches of a nearby railway viaduct, which were threatened by rising prices, to the Holbeck, clearing the Club's debts. In April 2022, Slung Low announced that they would move their base to a new venue that year, handing management of The Holbeck back to its committee.Jeremy Morton,
Slung Low set to move on from The Holbeck club
, ''South Leeds Life'' (4 April 2022).

References

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History

Decline and recovery

See also

References