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COLE THOMPSON DESIGN & PHOTOGRAPHY
"One thing that always strikes me as mysterious is that many of the northern towns see fit to build themselves immense and luxurious public buildings at the same time as they are in crying need of dwelling houses.The town of Barnsley, for instance, recently spent close on £150,000 on a new town hall, although admittedly needing at least 2000 new working-class houses, not to mention public baths. (The public baths in Barnsley contain nineteen men's slipper
baths--this in a town of 70,000 inhabitants, largely miners, not one of whom has a bath in his house!) For £150,000 it could have built 350 Corporation houses and still had £10,000 to spend on a town hall. However, as I say, I do not pretend to understand the mysteries of local government. I merely record the fact that houses are desperately needed and are being built, on the whole, with paralytic slowness."
George Orwell - The Road To wigan pier.
But George Orwell was unaware that Barnsley Town Hall was built using funds from the Unemployment Grants Committee. It was not the waste of money that George Orwell had assumed.
Shortly after world war one soldiers were returning from the front line to a future of unemployment. The jobs that they once did were no longer there and unemployment began to reach catastrophic levels throughout the U.K.
War Memorial World War 1 & 2, Barnsley
photography credit - Cole Thompson
The Government created the "Unemployment Grants Committee" in a bid to combat the extreme levels of unemployment where any town or city recognised as having dangerous levels of unemployment and granted local governments the ability to request funds to build municipal projects that would improve the towns and cities and provide the returning soldiers with the employment opportunities needed.
Final Report of The Unemployment Grants Committee, found in a book depository, London, Uk
photography credit - Cole Thompson
Barnsley long held the need for a central government building and in 1929, Mr A.D Mason of the ministry of health stated in his assessment the following;
"It is doubtful there is a county borough in the country where the accommodation for local government affairs is so inadequate as it is in Barnsley"
Barnsley was successful in their application for the Grant and was awarded £180,000 to build a town hall.
Grant Agreement from unemployment grants committee to Barnsley Council
photography credit - National Archives, copy paid for by Cole Thompson
The Grant however is only awarded if the following conditions are agreed to;
1. The Expenditure must not exceed a total of £3,000,000
2. Works will be approved only in areas where the existence of serious unemployment which is not provided for is certified by the ministry of labour.
3. Preference in employment must be given to ex-service men
But why choose a luxury building that wouldn't be out of place being built around the houses of parliament?
The well known architect Sir Arnold Thornely who is credited for designing buildings such as Stormont (the parliament building for Northern Ireland) and the Port of Liverpool building. He was a well respected architect and although the price tag from such an architect would obviously be high the work load to create a complex building would obviously be great and would ensure that a lot of the returning soldiers could feed their families and agitate the local economy.
During my second year of my Fine Art BA (Hons) degree, one of the modules was about historical objects and alternative narratives and I decided that because Barnsley was my home town and I have always loved our town hall. Since seeing it as a child I always saw it as a piece of London dropped into our small town. I never really understood Barnsley's huge industrial heritage but I loved going to town with my mother and seeing it watching over our small town. Despite the fact I hated being dragged into all those various shops on a Saturday every now and again when moving through the small back streets to the various shops and market stalls following the route worked out by my mother and executed with the remarkable efficiency only a mother and a handful of special forces units had the ability to do to get the best bargains, the strongest wearing shoes and the freshest foods, every now and again while passing between shops I would get a glimpse of the Town Hall and it looked amazing.
So I decided I wanted to do my project based on the town hall but after a basic google search, I realised that one of the greatest political writers had criticised building the town hall when so many people were desperate for the most basic of facilities in their homes.
But it just did not make sense to me. Why would a council spend so much money on such a lavish building on the edge of the great depression? Especially considering the points raised by George Orwell?
It just did not add up so I began researching the origins of Barnsley Townhall and after months of research in the Barnsley Archives and National Archives I removed a stain from Barnsley's heritage that was put there by one of the greatest political writers of all time and left unchallenged for the better part of a century.
The war memorial in front of Barnsley Town hall might be a tribute to those that gave their lives but the Town Hall itself is a memorial to those who survived World War one and provided desperately needed jobs at the start of the great depression
Below are some of the works of art I created to pay tribute to this brand new narrative about Barnsley town hall.
The story so far
One Shilling
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