Culture of learning Folk House celebrate Es century of enriching Bristolian lives
Born in Christian welfare and forged in post-WW1 determination to make a better world, Bristol’s Folk House adult education centre is a century old this year. Not such a great year to be trying to celebrate anything, but the Folk House has survived much w
IF you’re a longstanding Bristol resident, you’ll know of the Bristol Folk House, whether as an adult education centre or as a venue for music and other live performances. The chances are that you’ve taken a course or two there, or attended a few gigs or been in its café.
It’s not exactly a landmark building. It’s tucked away down a side street, though many people reach it via a narrow little alley running from Park Street that’s easy to miss.
But you shouldn’t miss it. It occupies a unique place in Bristol’s story, an important and muchloved institution which has survived for a century through political hostility, German bombs and numerous financial crises. Covid19 is just the latest challenge, though it has put something of a dampener on planned centenary celebrations.
The Folk House was a product of the determination of many after the First World War to build a better world, though its roots go back to the Christian impulses of well-todo Victorian citizens to improve the lives of all Bristolians.
Tyndale Baptist Church in Clifton, founded in 1869, was one of the most active in the field, and in 1888 it opened its new mission and church on Deanery Road.
The building, where the extension of the Central Library is nowadays, included a hall, but below it were two further floors, with classrooms and smaller halls. One visitor described it as “basement piled on basement.”
Here there was a Sunday School, a scout troop and educational, social and welfare activities for people living in the area, which at the time was quite densely populated. Money was raised and dispensed through its Poor Fund, and the Dorcas Society provided the needy with “warm and useful garments”.
At the end of the First World War, the Tyndale Church came together with the Bristol Branch of the Workers Educational Association and the Adult Schools Union – two organisations devoted to providing education for the working classes – to create a new centre for both social and educational work.
Its full name, adopted by September 1920, would be The Folk House, College Green and it would be “an un-sectarian, all-purpose educational settlement.” It was to be run by a council and an executive on which the Tyndale church and the Bristol Adult Schools Union would provide members.
This would be a completely new institution; not a church mission, and not just a “night school”, but rather a place where people could enjoy a social life and cultural activities which went beyond Bible study or book-keeping classes – though the religious side would continue as before. It would be run in close co-operation with Bristol University and the local Workers Educational Association.
By early October 1920, the Folk House was advertising events in the local press. In the week commencing Monday 11th there were lectures by Prof. G. Currie Martin on ‘Ideal States and their Contribution to Reconstruction’ and Mr Asher Davidson of Bath was giving a course of lectures on ‘Geography, Folklore and Literature of the Old Testament’. There would be a folk dancing class on the Wednesday as well as lectures on ‘Social and Economic Aspects of Education’.
The official opening took place on Wednesday December 8 following some refurbishments. The basement had been converted into a café, while the upstairs halls and rooms were for classes and meetings. The largest room could seat almost 300 people and was to be provided with a stage “and fitted for cinema shows”.
The name ‘Folk House’ came from a movement in Scandinavia, particularly Denmark, in the later 19th century based on the belief that learning should be a lifelong process and that education is a pleasurable and useful end in itself.
The ‘Folk High Schools’ which inspired Bristol offered a range of subjects, had no entrance exams, no final exams and offered no qualifications. As in Bristol, many had strong religious connections and tended to have an element of democracy in their running.
In the 1920s there were limits to democracy, though, and attitudes of social class were alive and well. In a speech at the Folk House in 1921, Lord Haldane, the Chancellor of Bristol University declared: “If a working man used his leisure aright he would be in a condition to produce as great thoughts and great inventions as the members of any other class.”
He doubtless felt he was being encouraging – and not at all patronising.
Political radicalism was hardwired into the Folk House from the beginning, but this was radicalism firmly rooted in Christianity. While its relationship with the Tyndale Baptist Church would last for decades to come, many of its most prominent members and supporters were Quakers - members of the Society of Friends.
These included the wealthy furniture designer and manufacturer Crofton Endres Gane (1877-1967), and Mabel Tothill (1868-1964), who in 1920 also became Bristol’s first female councillor.
Tothill, a wealthy socialist, suffrage campaigner and anti-conscription activist in WW1, had
given financial support to a number of welfare schemes in Bristol, including the University Settlement at Barton Hill.
Tothill was driven by her religious beliefs. At a lecture at the Folk House in 1920 she spoke of the importance of giving working people access to “art and beauty”:
“Musical sound, light, colour, form, all help towards worship … The voice of God is heard in nature and emotions are stirred by the glories of it. But to town dwellers that gateway is closed. The common things of their lives should bear the stamp of beauty, so that they might bear a sacramental value.”
The most important personality in the Folk House’s early years, however, was another Quaker, Paul Sturge, who was appointed its Warden – manager – in 1921.
Paul Dudley Sturge (1891-1974) came from an old Bristol family prominent in property and surveying and equally prominent in Quaker circles. Like Crofton Gane, he had served with distinction in WW1 in the Friends Ambulance Unit, a mostly-Quaker corps of conscientious objectors who refused to fight, but who were often to be found in the places of greatest danger rescuing and caring for the wounded.
Sturge worked tirelessly for the Folk House for 14 years. Even at the end of the first year he wrote in the annual report of “the growth of the whole of a man’s or a woman’s personality, intellectual and spiritual … through the medium of books, or self-expression in drama and music, or through definite service of one kind or another.”
The Folk House would not be a mere “night school”, he said. If the members did not see themselves as “a body of fellowseekers, then increase in numbers and crowded rooms will have little meaning or value.”
The first years at the Folk House set the pattern. There were classes in psychology, English literature and folk dancing. There were lectures and discussions; conversational French, Bible study, economics and foreign affairs, most of these led by Bristol University lecturers.
There were social events – a trip to Paris and a summer garden party. There were rambles, folk dances, a choir and eurythmics classes. On Saturday nights members held dances. From the beginning, the Folk House encouraged its users to be active members. You didn’t just go there to watch plays or listen to lectures; if you wanted, it could become a major part of your social life.
It was just as well, because money was a constant worry. Members were encouraged to stage fundraising events, which led to a busy programme of concerts, plays, pageants, garden parties and other entertainments.
Soon there was a Folk House Orchestra, and the drama classes led to the formation of the Folk House Players in 1922. There was a Rambling club, too, which was organising walking tours abroad by the early 30s.
Not every fundraising initiative was successful. A huge pageant in Ashton Park in 1934 raised just £15 because of atrocious weather. Also in the 1930s, the Lord Mayor broadcast an appeal for subscribers on the local service of the BBC Radio: “Young men and women should be encouraged to throw aside the alltoo-general apathy in relation to civic affairs and make wise use of the more ample leisure time that is coming to them.”
The response turned out to be £2.8s in donations and 240 kettle holders.
These were small setbacks. During the Depression the Folk House provided help for the unemployed, and men “on the tramp” – jobless workers on the road in search of employment – were never turned away, but offered cups of tea, advice and vouchers for a bed and a meal at the Church Army hostel.
On the outbreak of the Second World War, the Folk House proceeded with a limited programme of education and entertainment, but it was its well-established tradition of social work which came to the fore. Members organised a social centre for people who had been evacuated, and for members of the armed forces.
Once the United States entered the war, Bristol’s large contingent of GIs, both white and African-American, found a welcome there. The Folk House Players were kept very busy, performing for civilian audiences, and at hospitals and military camps throughout the South West.
All this despite the bombs. The building was seriously damaged in the December 2 1940 air raid. Coincidentally, Tyndale Baptist Church was gutted by fire in the same raid.
The roof was lost and much of the furniture destroyed.
A couple of weeks later, the Warden, Harold Bing, managed to secure the use of the Read Dispensary, a little further along Deanery Road. Not long after this, Mr Bing had to leave just as the Folk House was marking its 21st birthday as there was no longer enough money to pay him. There was no such thing as unemployment during the War, however; Mr Bing became a teacher at Cotham Grammar School.
The Folk House’s guardian angel at Tyndale Baptist Church, despite its own problems, managed to find some cash, and funding from the Council and other bodies, brought the premises back into use before the war’s end. Meanwhile, activities continued at the Read Dispensary, and there were regular lectures and social functions (“Two one act plays will be given by the Folk House Players … followed by games and dancing” reads a 1941 handbill) at Lewins Mead Chapel and the Little Theatre.
Even before the war, there had been plenty of talk about finding bigger and more suitable premises, and in any event the Council was eyeing up the Deanery Road site for its planned extension of the Central Library.
But a move would require a lot of money. By the late 1950s the estimates were something between £40,000 and £50,000.
The old Hamilton Rooms, a longforgotten function room off Park Street was bought in 1958 for £4,400 and the money was raised for the new building thanks, in large part, to local entrepreneur and philanthropist John James stepping in to guarantee £20,000 of the cost.
The new building was officially opened on Saturday February 8 1964, by Lord Mayor Florence Brown.
A celebratory programme the following week included a lecture by celebrity historian AJP Taylor, a Grand Ball with Richard Day and His Band, and a broadcast of BBC Radio’s current affairs programme Any Questions. The new building was an immediate success, with a huge upsurge in educational enrolments and memberships.
There were classes run by Bristol University, by Bristol’s Education Committee, the Workers’ Educational Association as well as the Folk House itself. Crofton Gane sponsored the Craft Studio.
Outside of the formal classes and lectures, there were, as before, a number of clubs attached – tennis, table tennis, rambling, swimming, dancing, discussion and more. Today’s Bristol & Avon Family History Society originated as a Folk House club.
The Folk House Archaeological Club, which had started at Deanery Road in the 1950s, was involved in a number of significant digs in the rich environment of 1950s-60s Bristol when so many sites were being cleared for development. They made some important contributions to the local archaeological record which you can still find in academic papers.
By the mid-60s Tyndale Baptist Church had more or less withdrawn completely from what was by now a wholly secular institution, though the Folk House has never abandoned its sense of social responsibility. It continued to rack up an impressive list of achievements.
In the 1960s it pioneered rehabilitation classes for soon-to-bereleased prisoners. It was also one of the earliest places in the country to offer pre-retirement courses to empower older people to enjoy their leisure time. In the late 70s and early 80s it was running English classes for refugees from Vietnam.
It also occupies an important place in Bristol’s gay history, as the first regular meeting venue for the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. While homosexual activity had been decriminalised in 1967, there was still a widespread hostility towards gays, and for gay rights activists to find a place to meet was not easy.
From the mid-1970s the Folk House provided a safe and welcoming venue for monthly gatherings and, later, larger social events.
The changes in education policy during the 1980s and 1990s brought more money difficulties as funding for “non-vocational” courses was withdrawn as well as financial support from Avon County Council. Courses were cut back, and the need to increase fees meant enrolment numbers dropped.
By the mid-1990s the problems were so acute that the Folk House nearly closed for good. It was eventually taken on by a co-operative run by some very committed members who over several years succeeded in putting it on a sound financial basis.
From the late 1990s it also started staging local national and international music festivals. While being a live music venue was not always especially profitable, it had the advantage of raising the Folk House’s profile, and encouraging visitors to sign up for classes.
Graham Knight, secretary to the Trustees of the Folk House, reckons that the Folk House’s lasting appeal lies in the way that people come to enjoy learning, and to form friendships. But as he explained to Bristol Times, there’s also the ‘digital detox’:
“In this technical age when we spend our days on laptops and computers and mobile phones, the vast majority of the courses we put on here are hands-on – writing, dancing, music, pottery, art … it’s the same timeless ageless crafts really.”
The Folk House started 2020 with great confidence … But then 2020 happened.
Covid-19 has hit everyone, and the Folk House had to cancel its summer courses.
By the time you read this though, and with any luck, they will be teaching again, though with muchreduced class sizes because of social distancing.
“The message we need to get across,” says Graham, “is that in spite of everything, we are open!”
#For more on the Bristol Folk House, its history, future events and courses, see www.bristolfolkhouse.co.uk