Hooper the Mayor’s
LAST week we looked at the Royal Navy career of Frederick John Hooper, as well as his dreadful experience in the Antarctic discovering Capt Scott’s body.
This week is our concluding part, with Hooper settling down to life in Southport as the Mayor’s Officer.
The Hooper family abode in Bank Buildings, on the Eastbank Street corner was, of course, just a stone’s throw away from his work place, Southport Town Hall – but perhaps Frederick, the former South Pole explorer, clambered across and explored the adjoining rooftops to get to work to keep alive his adventurous spirit!
Perhaps not, but on a daily basis he would have skirted parallel to Lord Street, throughout the four seasons, in all kinds of weather, passing some classic town centre scenery and fine architecture – the typically Victorian Cambridge Hall, gardens, trees and terracotta fountains, to the classical town hall, Southport’s oldest public building dating to 1852.
Electric trams would have trundled passed Frederick’s humble abode until the early 1930s.
His title and role was described variously, from Mayor’s Attendant and Caretaker, to Mayor’s Officer, Macebearer and Keeper of the Town Hall, as in the 1939 Register and, he was listed – like his address, – variously throughout the street directories at 1a and 3, Eastbank Street, at the same time; 1a is thought to have been his flat, or rather family accommodation somewhere above the library, possibly on the top floor (perhaps even the rooftop’s gabled dormer/attic), and No 3 may have been his office.
FJ Hooper held his esteemed post at Southport’s Town Hall for some 33 years, although it is not known if he had retired from his post a few years before he died.
However, it most certainly would have witnessed first-hand over three decades of strenuous, constant change and development, during an important chapter in the history of Southport.
The men holding the high office of mayor had been, as should be the case, of widely differing occupations and characteristics, and so Hooper’s job was a pretty varied one having served under so many during his record tenure.
Then came a lady, Cllr Christiana Hartley, JP, (daughter of the philanthropist, Sir William and Lady Hartley – the famous manufacturer of preservatives); Miss Hartley was elected Southport’s first mayor on November 9 1921, serving the term 1921-22; the council is said to have never been better behaved than during her term.
Unfortunately, her father died a year later.
Nellie Hooper was recorded in the 1939 Register as an “unpaid domestic”, while their daughter, Yvonne, was described as a “mannequin” – which basically meant she was a model, possibly hired as a fashion model for clothes or by artists to demonstrate drapery arrangements; perhaps she had done some work in conjunction