Dukinfield Town Hall

To celebrate the reopening of the fully refurbished Dukinfield Town Hall completed in February 2005

Back to History | Welcome | Town Hall Tale | Dukinfield and the Charter | Dukinfield Civic Silver | A Chronology of Dukinfield | First Town Council 1899/1900 | Last Town Council 1973/1974 | Freemen of the Borough | Mayors of the Borough

Dukinfield and the Charter

The campaign for Dukinfield to be granted its own charter of incorporation as a Borough can be traced back to October, 1897, and an article in the Ashton Reporter calling for the town to be given equal status with those around it. At the time, Dukinfield was in its second year as an Urban District Council.

Until then a Local Board of Health had administered it for almost 40 years. However, many neighbouring towns were Boroughs, enjoying the extra powers that a Charter conferred.

In what is now Tameside, Ashton had attained such status in 1847, followed by Stalybridge (1857), Hyde (1881) and Mossley (1885). Why not Dukinfield as well? people asked. There was a fear that the town might be swallowed up by the more powerful communities around it, and many pointed out that when Stalybridge had become a borough it had absorbed the area around Stanley Square that rightly belonged to Dukinfield.

The Reporter argued that a Charter would allow people to have closer contact with officers in the District, and the Police in particular. It added that the Dukinfield Magistrates bench needed to free itself from the petty and annoying restraints of a Standing Joint Committee sitting in faraway Chester.

It was also pointed out that Dukinfield had the population to merit a Charter. Mossley, a town of 14,000 people, had been a Borough for 12 years. Dukinfield’s population was 4,000 higher. The Reporter article met with widespread approval, a ratepayer’s petition

followed, and a public meeting was called at the Co-operative Hall, Astley Street, on November 23. The room was packed.

Not everyone was in favour of applying for Charter status. Some feared that a Borough Council would mean higher costs and, consequently, higher rates. But a rousing speech by Mr James Grime later to be a Conservative councillor won the day. George Heathcote, another future Alderman, supported him and the motion “it is desirable that application should be made for a Charter of Incorporation under the provisions of the Municipal Corporation Acts 1882/93, and that a District Commissioner be hereby requested to give assistance in the matter” was passed with a huge majority.

An Incorporation Committee was then elected comprising Allen Howard, Charles Webb, John Moorhouse, Robert Phipps, Charles Selby, Edwin Kenyon, James Garforth, Abraham Jeffreys, William Underwood, Henry Pratt, George Heathcote and Thomas Hall. The Petition for Incorporation was sent to the Privy Council on February 25, 1898, and bore the signatures of 2,400 men, representing a rateable value of £31,000.

It was now a matter of waiting for an inquiry to be established by the Local Government Board to take account of the views of those for and against a Borough Council. Soon after, the Government announced that Mr Commissioner Cresswell would chair the inquiry, and the Charter Committee engaged the services of Dr Richard Pankhurst, husband of the famous Suffragette Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, to put forward its case. Cresswell was to have visited Dukinfield at the end of May 1898, but a collapse in the “no” campaign meant that the inquiry was delayed until June.

Dr Pankhurst then gave what the Reporter described as a detailed and painstaking address that, at times, reached the point of eloquence. Tracing the town’s history from the formation of the Local Board. He based the substance of the appeal upon the fact that we have collected, in a very difficult area, an intelligent, active and prosperous community possessed of public institutions of the greatest value and the most eminent service. Solicitors Booth and Wilkinson had drawn up a petition opposing incorporation, but the signatories failed to attend the inquiry. The main pillar of the “no” campaign was an insistence that Borough status would be bad for agriculture, leading to an increase in rates. However, it appears this would only have been the case if cereals had been cultivated in Dukinfield. Given that the town was in a dairy farming area the argument did not apply.

When the inquiry ended, Cresswell said he would recommend Charter status to the Privy Council. Unfortunately Pankhurst was not to see his labours come to fruition as he died only weeks later.

By September the Privy Council had approved Dukinfield’s application, and preparations were put in place for celebrations and for the first Council elections that, in those days, were held in November rather than May.

The Charter of Incorporation was granted on August 2, 1899, and September 23 was designated Charter Day. It was planned as the greatest day in the Dukinfield’s history and the Urban District Council voted £250 for the celebrations and £50 for decorations. A total sum that would be worth around £21,000 in today’s money.

Edwin Kenyon, a son of the founder of William Kenyon and Sons, was appointed Chairman of the Decorations Committee and four triumphal arches were erected: at the bottom of King Street, on Astley Street below the Old General and near Dukinfield Hall, and close to what was to become the park. At the junction of Astley Street and King Street a circular device, suspended by streamers, bore the inscription “We appreciate the civic

Honour”. A decorated masthead was erected on Chapel Hill, and there were attempts to stretch a banner across Town Lane with the message “Dukinfield is now on the map”. Unfortunately, it was ripped apart by the dreadful weather that was encountered on Charter Day.

The ceremonials began with the cutting of the first sod at Dukinfield Park. Mrs J.F. Astley-Cheetham, who was presented with a silver spade, performed this. Miss Charlotte Astley-Nicholson, who was presented with a silver trowel, planted the first tree, a sapling ash.

Under the terms of the charter, Dukinfield was divided into three wards: east, central and west. Six Councillors represented each, and there were to be six Aldermen, giving a total strength of 24. The first polls, on November 1, 1899, resulted in 12 Liberals being elected and six Conservatives. Four councillors Ñ Henry Pratt, James Kerfoot, James Bancroft and James Pickup Ñ were appointed Aldermen along with two Independent

Non-Council members, Abraham Elce and Charles Hadfield. By-elections were then held for the four vacancies, giving the Liberals 14 seats, Conservatives 8 and Independents 2.

Henry Pratt, owner of the Compo washing powder company, of Crescent Road, was

chosen as Dukinfield’s first Mayor, and Alderman James Pickup was named as his Deputy Mayor.

Thomas Gordon was appointed Town Clerk and the other officers were: Thomas Hyslop, Borough Treasurer; William Smith, Accountant and Committee Clerk; Samuel Hague, Surveyor; Dr John Park, Medical Officer of Health; Joseph Summmerfield, Sanitary Inspector; Harrison Veevers, Gas Manager; George Hague, Cashier and Collector; Edwin Broadrick, Librarian.

Over the following 75 years, only two women held the office of Mayor, Elizabeth Hannah Kenyon in 1917 and Hilda Andrew in 1964-65.