WORKING-MEN’S CLUBS: RESCUING THE WORKING MAN
Archivist Lisa Edwards recounts the history, the restoration and the future of one such historic club
Working Men’s Clubs were designed to educate the working classes. It is quite the Victorian notion that working class men had to be rescued from themselves, explains Lisa Edwards. Here she steps back in time to examine their history, their premises, and the role of just one such club in her home town today
We are told that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and for me that came true; except it wasn’t a book, it was a building. I grew up near Madeley in Telford Shropshire and right in the centre of the town is a working men’s club called the Anstice. As a child I had imagined it to be a place of snooker tables, onearm bandit machines and dart boards. Of course, as a child I knew all this without ever having set foot in the place! My grandad would laugh at my quiet consternation and tell me it was an historic building. ‘Yeah, that’s just for men,’ I would retort.
Closure of the oldest Working Men’s Club in England
Forward some 20 years and the Anstice, the oldest Working Men’s Club in England was forced to close in 2014. It was in a state of disrepair, the ruling committee hadn’t been able to apply for grants to sort out the building problems because they wouldn’t allow women full voting rights – hmm, the young ‘me’ had been right on one thing at least! A friend was looking after the building so I had the chance to explore.
It was eerily quiet like the Marie Celeste; things had been left in place like a half emptied house. The downstairs bars and once grand entrance hall were covered in 1960s wooden cladding and the floors in sticky carpet but the stairs to the first floor were beautifully carved in oak, and led up to the ballroom. My grandad had been right; this was a building with history.
There is something magical about the beautiful ballroom with its Victorian sprung floor and the wonder of what might have lain beneath the carpets and wooden panelling in the bars. I was now the ‘grown up’ historian wanting to know more and so I began to research and was quite surprised at what I found.
Researching the Anstice Memorial Institute
The Anstice Memorial Institute was built in 1870 and as the area and communities changed around it, the building remained a pivotal point, a place to gather and to meet friends. Since it was first built it has seen the
My grandad had been right; this was a building with history
decline of both the local mining and iron making industry, two world wars and of course the birth of Telford new town. It was a lasting memorial to local Madeley Wood Mining Company owner John Anstice, who was a well-respected employer and
When the carpet was lifted, the original Victorian Maws tiles were discovered to be still there and in perfect condition
reportedly had four to five thousand people in the Madeley church yard for his funeral. The whole town, plus nearby Ironbridge shut down and the National Schools were kept closed…‘emblems and signs of mourning and weeping were universal’. It was decided by his friends and family that a fitting tribute to him would be a place where the working man would have access to a reading room, lecture hall and a kitchen. The building’s indenture states that it would be ‘to promote the social comfort and physical intellectual and moral welfare of the members’.
A miniature history of working men’s clubs
A ciub for working men was not a new idea and for some years prior to the Anstice opening, mechanics and working men’s institutes, workmen’s halls and the like, had been created, often with strong connections to the Temperance Movement. All of which had a strong emphasis on education for industry.
One of the very earliest founded was a Working Man’s Institute which was opened in Brighton by Rev Frederick Robertson in 1848 who said in its inaugural speech that the institution was to allow the working men the same opportunities enjoyed by other classes. There was to be a library and a reading room and concerts and lectures would be held.
Rev Robertson stated that the institution was to provide ways of improving the mental and moral wellbeing of the working man. He was keen for men to be taught political knowledge but only if they used it wisely and didn’t engage in wage strikes and the like. He wanted them to be taught about poetry and art so that their tastes might be refined. He also insisted that as members they were to be responsible for the control of the club.
Interestingly two women were responsible for creating establishments. In 1860 Adeline Cooper opened a
I smile as I read that sentence, ‘Oh Grandad did you realise that you were being rescued!’
club in Duck Lane Westminster for men and Mrs Bayly in 1861 launched the Nottingdale Workmen’s Hall in the Kensington potteries. Both women were interested in trying to lure men away from public houses to alleviate the suffering caused by them on their wives and children. Their establishments were where men could meet to socialise and improve their mental wellbeing without the need for alcohol.
On 14 June 1862 a society named the ‘Working Men’s Club and Institute Union’ was formed by the Rev Henry Solly. The inference was on rescuing the working man from his low morals and especially the public house; for drinking to excess was... “as injurious to their moral as to their pecuniary wellbeing…” by the end of the year there were twenty three new clubs that were part of the union and by 1870 it was over 200; with half a million male members by 1912.
I smile as I read that sentence, ‘Oh Grandad did you realise that you were being rescued!’
The opening of the Anstice
I can’t imagine that many of the Rev Solly’s working men’s clubs would have had such an elaborate setting as the Anstice with its Italianate design of the architect John Johnson. On its opening day in 1870 the Shrewsbury
Chronicle wrote of the displays of products by local companies, including porcelain made by the Coalport China Company, bronze vase castings from the Coalbrookdale Company and elaborate decorative tiles from Messrs. Maw and Co. Portraits of the donors and their families as well as the previous generation of local ‘industrial giants’ such as John Wilkinson and William Reynolds lined the walls, replicating a ‘Gentlemen’s Club’. As did the smoking and reading room, library, lecture hall and kitchen, all a world away from a potential member’s life down the pit or in the ironworks.
Time moved on yet the building remained standing. It survived a major fire in 1874 and the birth of Telford, which engulfed the area around it. Up until the early 1970s a small room within it was used by the County Lending Library and Lloyds Bank. The reading room was still filled with newspapers and magazines. Dances and concerts were played in the ball room and lawn green bowls on the green behind it. But then it all went wrong and finally closed in 2014.
Saving the Anstice
The Anstice was saved for the community by the community and on 15 February 2020 it finally reopened. The Anstice Community
Trust had galvanised the support of local people and committee members and volunteers alike raised money and helped to restore it back to its original state. Gone are the carpets and wooden cladding revealing the glorious Victorian Maws tiles beneath and the entrance has been taken back to its original design. A lift has been installed to allow access to the ballroom for all. The old bars downstairs are gone, the library has returned to the building and a café opened. All that is needed is for the Covid pandemic to be behind us, and the ballroom will be alive again with dance and fitness classes, as well as music, art, youth groups and a film club too. Afternoon tea will be offered in the ballroom where you can eat sandwiches and cakes amongst the Victorian splendour.
The Trust has taken the Anstice back to what it had initially been designed as; a place to learn and meet. Adeline Cooper, Mrs Bayly and the Rev Jolly would approve of what it has become and although it’s a very different to the place to that which my grandad knew, I’m sure he would be delighted with it too.
About the author
Lisa Edwards has had an interest in family and local history for decades; she started when family historians poured over fiches and films long before the internet existed. She has researched her own family back to the C16th and discovered magical secrets and heartache along the way. She now works in the Buckinghamshire Archives helping people to explore the past and hopefully unearth some stories of their own.
…by the end of the year [1862] there were twenty three new clubs that were part of the union and by 1870 it was over 200; with half a million male members by 1912