Luton Town Hall is a building at the junction between Manchester Street, Upper George Street and George Street,

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...

, England; the current building was completed in 1936 on the site of the older Town Hall, which was burnt down 19 July 1919, following the Peace Day Riots. The current hall, which is the headquarters of

Luton Borough Council Luton Borough Council (also known as LBC, or Luton Council) is the local authority of Luton, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It is a member of the East of England ...

, is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

First town hall

The original Town Hall was built in the classical style with

Doric columns The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

supporting a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

designed by Luton architects John Williams and Sons in 1846 and was built for a total cost excluding the purchasing of the land for £2,200. In 1856 a small tower and clock was added in commemoration of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

. It was built by the Town Hall Company to hold public meetings and entertainment in the town and was only brought into public ownership by the Luton Local Board of Health in 1874. The building became the headquarters of Luton Borough Council after it succeeded the Local Board of Health in 1876. On Peace Day, 19 July 1919, a crowd of ex-servicemen unhappy with unemployment and other grievances assembled. The

riot A riot is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The property targete ...

started after members of the council arrived to read out the proclamation of peace and many in the crowd expressed their disapproval. Tension boiled over into violence and a number of protesters broke through the police line and forcibly entered the town hall. Shortly after a number of violent clashes took place, with the town hall being stormed by the crowd and eventually set on fire. Order was eventually restored to the town by midnight on 19 July, but the fire brigade were unable to extinguish the fire and by the next morning the town hall was little more than ruins. The remains of the building were demolished in August 1919 and the statue "Peace", which was designed by Sir

Reginald Blomfield Sir Reginald Theodore Blomfield (20 December 1856 – 27 December 1942) was a prolific British architect, garden designer and author of the Victorian and Edwardian period. Early life and career Blomfield was born at Bow rectory in Devon, w ...

and inscribed with the names of dead servicemen from

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, was unveiled in 1922. Following the destruction of the building the town's administration was carried out from the Carnegie library.

Second town hall

It was determined the original site offered the best location in the town for a replacement town hall and, in 1930, a competition was held for designs for the new town hall: there were 86 entries to the competition. The competition was won by

Bradshaw Gass & Hope Bradshaw Gass & Hope is an English architectural practice founded in 1862 by Jonas James Bradshaw (–1912). The style "Bradshaw Gass & Hope" was adopted after his death referring to the remaining partners John Bradshaw Gass and Arthur John Hope ...

from

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...

with a

neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The pr ...

design incorporating

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

features. It was built with a

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The developm ...

and clad in grey

Portland Stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...

and was officially opened by

The Duke of Kent Duke of Kent is a title that has been created several times in the peerages of peerage of Great Britain, Great Britain and the peerage of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom, most recently as a Royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom, royal dukedom ...

on 28 October 1936. Many of the interior features were designed to recall images from the town's coat of arms, which was carved in stone above the main entrance: the bee, the wheatsheaf, the rose and the thistle. The bell installed was the heaviest in the county, weighing approximately two tonnes. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the clock tower was camouflaged to protect it during air raids as the bright white stonework would have been highly visible from the air. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the borough council for much of the 20th century and remained a meeting place for the enlarged

which was formed in 1974. During the 1980s a modern extension was built on Manchester Street to provide additional office space.

References

External links

2019 events to commemorate the centenary of the Peace Day riots
{{Luton Government buildings completed in 1846 Government buildings completed in 1936 Listed buildings in Luton City and town halls in Bedfordshire Grade II listed buildings in Bedfordshire 1919 riots in the United Kingdom Bradshaw, Gass & Hope buildings 1846 establishments in England

History

First town hall

Second town hall

References

Further reading

External links