A History of how Burley has been governed
By Dennis and Margaret Warwick
Burley village has existed for well over a thousand years. It was known as a Township within the Parish of Otley at the time of the Domesday Book in the 11th Century. Its boundaries ran from the river Wharfe to the top of the Moor at Ashlar Chair. There are boundary stones which mark this ancient boundary.
The Township was responsible for implementing the Poor Law from 1601 and decisions about this were taken in the Vestry of the old Chapel which preceded the building of the present Parish Church. The smallness of the village meant that there was no public building other than the chapel. Most of the meetings and decision making took place there. Annual Vestry meetings to appoint the various Township officers could be attended by all adults in the village.
Towards the end of the 18th century a number of Burley's principal inhabitants drew up a series of rules to guide Township officers in their various tasks for the parish. These rules, written out at the beginning of Burley's Town Book, form the first reliable record of how the farming village was organised.
The parish had Overseers of the Poor, Chapel Wardens, a Constable and a Surveyor. Power was given to these officials to decide on the distribution of poor relief, money from charities and payments for services to the village. As employers the same group had control over the lives of the labourers and servants, who formed the majority of inhabitants. This labouring class, the poor of the village, had little influence over the running of Township affairs.
Between the two classes were some artisans, like blacksmiths, carpenters, small tenant farmers and shopkeepers, who, because of their skills and services to the upper class, could fashion some independence for themselves. In their capacity as employers, too, they had some influence in village affairs.
Villagers who had no regular or satisfactory income from work, or who were elderly or sick, received monthly payments in cash or in kind from the poor rate. Among the officers of the village, the Overseers of the Poor were legally responsible for these payments. They collected rates from their neighbours and kept records of payments made. In the 18th Century, the Overseers were paying on a regular basis about one in eight of all householders of the village from the Poor Rate. In 1771, the total payments in the year came to just over £65. Burley like many other places had a number of charities, created in the wills of wealthier people.
Generally, annual payments were made from six charities at Christmas. These were the Thorpe Arch, Saxey, Vavasour, Jenkinson, Hitches and Pulleyn Charities. They still exist and are managed by a number of Trustees appointed from among residents of Burley.
Dramatic economic changes were occurring all over Britain in the latter part of the 18th century, and Burley did not remain isolated from them. What had been a domestic system of producing textiles was transformed by the introduction of water powered machinery for some of the processes. Cottages to house the growing number of workers were built near to or alongside Main Street. Iron Row, Pleasant Row, Peel Place and North Parade are typical early examples of this development.
Little was done, however, to ensure that basic amenities were provided in new or older housing. Overflowing privies, flooded cellars, uncleared night soil heaps and animal dung heaps were common place in the early 1850s. There was a high incidence of tuberculosis, and other diseases. The ensuing high death rates were a cause of great concern. The existing Township officials, the Overseers of the Poor, the Chapel Wardens, the Constable and the Surveyor, had neither money nor power to carry out major sanitary reforms.
Legislation did exist from 1848 to make reforms possible, and leading figures in Burley, like the manufacturers, Forster and Fison, and local clergy and ministers, applied for powers to establish a Sanitary Committee in 1853. When they came up against the problem that the poor rates could not finance better sanitation, the reformers went one step further, applying for powers to set up a Local Board of Health, which could raise its own property rate for sanitary improvements.
After an official enquiry into the health and sanitary condition of Burley, permission was given by the General Board of Health to set up the Local Board in November 1854. Nine people were to be nominated or elected to serve on the Board. They had a duty to raise a Sanitary rate, bring about reforms and to report directly to the General Board in London. William Forster became the first Chairman.
For twenty years after its formation, with only one exception in 1861, the chairmanship of the Board was in the hands of Forster or his partner, William Fison, the mill owners. Burley had nevertheless moved significantly towards a modern system of democratic government. Elections were held annually with three of the nine councillors standing down each year.
The Local Board of Health was succeeded by the Burley Urban District Council in 1898, a body with even wider democratic powers.
The Burley Urban District Council got into its full stride in the 20th century. From its records we have a very good idea of the state of the village. The Council purchased the Grange in 1904 for £1660 and had the buildings converted for Council offices by 1905. Prior to that, they had shared the old Township school premises. At the opening ceremony, the Chairman said that Burley could boast a suite of offices as “convenient and much more prettily situated than any to be found in Yorkshire” (Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, August 1905). As in the previous Local Board of Health, there were nine elected Councillors, and several remunerated Officers, including a Clerk, Treasurer, Surveyor, Medical Officer, Rate Collector and Overseers of the Poor.
The Council had control over expenditure on local services including gas supplies, water and public baths, refuse collection and disposal, maintenance of highways, lighting, public halls, parks and gardens, the fire brigade, housing and public health. Rates were set each year to cover the cost of these services, and the Council often prided itself in setting the lowest rate in Wharfedale.
The West Riding controlled educational services, and Burley Council appointed school managers and representatives on the District Education Committee. Burley had had its own gas works, near Greenholme Mills, for street and house lighting, but in the 20th century the village was linked with Otley gas works.
In 1926 public baths were opened at the Grange, in a building which stood on the present car park. These were not for swimming but for personal cleanliness and laundry. The charge for a “slipper” bath was 6 pence. Males and females were allocated separate times in the week.
The Recreation Ground off Main Street and the area around the Grange were tended by Council gardeners. Peel Park was added to Council administration in 1930. Allotments could be rented from the Council in Grange Road and Prospect Road.
Burley had its own part-time fire brigade and in 1926 it consisted of six members with a captain.
The Council had control of Victoria Hall (The Drill Hall) in Peel Place and the Lecture Hall (Queen's Hall), which was purchased from the Mill.
Streets and roads were always causing problems, and the maintenance of good surfaces was resolved to some extent when in 1922, the Council purchased, with the aid of a government grant, a horse drawn road roller.
One issue that dominated the Council and local political discussion in the 1930s was the proposed fusion of small Councils into larger districts, on the ground that economies of scale might be achieved. This arose from the Local Government Act of 1929, which followed the recommendations of a Commission on Local Government set up in 1923 to address the problems in administration caused by too many small authorities. Unlike many County Councils, the West Riding was keen to eliminate its smaller Urban and Rural Districts.
For Wharfedale, it was proposed to have an Urban District Council covering Otley and Ilkley, and surrounding villages, including Burley and Menston. Some thought that the village might become the administrative centre, because of its geographical position, it quickly became obvious that Ilkley and Otley would never agree to that.
A campaign was set up in Ilkley to oppose union with Otley, and after much debate for some five years, the West Riding agreed reluctantly to allow Ilkley and Otley to have separate Urban Districts. Burley, along with Menston, decided to join Ilkley, possibly as the lesser of two evils. Burley was divided into two wards for the purpose of elections to the Ilkley Council, and the first vote was held on Saturday, 19th March, 1937.
Burley Urban District Council held its last meeting in the spring of that year. Councillor J.H. Foulds, who, at the age of 86, had been a Burley Councillor for 49 years and nine times chairman, did not seek election to the new Council. He had been one of its most outspoken members and had often represented the interests of small traders in the village. He had a sizeable constituency, since in the 1930s, there were many local craftsmen with small businesses and people remember that there were over sixty shop keepers, sited along the length of Main Street and in Station Road.
From this time, however, many people in Burley felt that the village had come to be dominated by outside interests. As Greenholme Mills could no longer provide secure long term employment, people had to look outside Burley for work, much more than in the past.
Post-war reforms and provisions of the Welfare State all had their effect on Burley, as much as elsewhere in the 1950s. The local schools became primary schools, and all children at age eleven went to secondary schools out of the village.
New council houses were erected by Ilkley UDC, adding to the stock built by Burley UDC in the 1920s. They included provision of flats for the elderly in Aireville Terrace and Grange Road. The Lawn was converted to sheltered accommodation.
Local doctors became part of the National Health Service and provided free health care to all who wanted it.
Scalebor Park Hospital provided services to a wider community and it became the main single employer, as Greenholme Mills went into terminal decline.
These changes in the village were emphasised by the reshaping of Local Government after the Act of 1972. The West Riding County Council and Ilkley Urban District Council were abolished. Ilkley was left with a Parish Council, having very limited powers, even though it covered over 20,000 residents living in Menston, Burley and Ilkley.
All the major spending on education, highways, planning, refuse disposal and social services, and the setting and collection of local taxes, came under the Bradford Metropolitan District Council.
Central Government was also increasing its power to control local government spending and services. The Grange, which up to this time had remained as a Council office and Library under Ilkley and the West Riding, now became part of Ilkley College, later to be amalgamated with Bradford College in the early 1980s.
From the 1960s local and national political movements have often been based in the assertion of community rights, and community politics has changed Britain's general approach to democratic government. The effect of this was felt in Burley too.
With the decline of local government power, mentioned earlier, Burley formed a Community Council in 1976. It is a non-party political voluntary organisation and has thrived on the new politics. As a useful intermediary between the village and statutory bodies, such as Bradford Council and Ilkley Parish Council, it has managed to improve village facilities particularly in publishing a Village Handbook and regular bulletins. It developed the village green, the annual Christmas Lights and various environmental improvments.
Regular meetings of the Community Council, supported by Bradford Council's Neighbourhood Forum policy, attract a good number of residents to discuss local affairs. It has been supported financially too by many generous donations and regular fund raising.
This has been taken further and after widespread consultation, a petition to have a Parish Council was put to Bradford Council, where it was supported. The Government announced that Ilkley Parish Council should be split to allow the creation of a Burley Parish Council. Elections were held in April 2006, and nine councillors elected (See the Parish Council pages).
The Community Council, having formulated a Parish Plan, will disband after the issue of Burley House Field is settled and the Burley–in–Wharfedale Community Trust has taken over its assets.