125 Years Ago - 1894

An event interesting in the annals of Ilkley football occurs on Wednesday next, when the Ilkley Grammar School team meets Ripon Grammar School on the town field near the Old Bridge.

At Wells House Winter Gardens on Wednesday evening next is to be held the Fancy Dress Carnival, which has been looked forward to with much eagerness by terpsichoreans. Every accommodation is being provided for the visitors, and there is every possibility of the event being a success.

100 Years Ago - 1919

We have already entered upon the age of flying, and with the end of the war seem likely to enter upon the craze of flying. Aeroplanes that have done duty for war purposes are being offered for sale at a very low figure, and and new ones are said to cost no more than a good motor car. No doubt flying is an exhilarating sport, but it is the commercial uses of flying machines to which most attention is being directed. Even health resorts see in flights a prospect of increased popularity and more visitors, and Harrogate with its fine Stray available for aeroplane uses is likely to become the terminus of the aerial passenger service between London and Yorkshire, while the Blackburn Aeroplane Company are intending to inaugurate a service of passenger aeroplanes between Harrogate and East Coast towns, which it is suggested ought to be extended to Ilkley.

Under the auspices of the Ilkley Women Citizens’ Association, Miss Isabella Ford gave an address on “Equal Status and Equal Pay” in St Margaret’s Hall on Monday afternoon. Miss Ford in advocating that women should have equal status and equal pay with men, pointed out that morally it was as bad for the men as it was for the women for the latter not to receive the same rates of pay. Women being paid less than men had the effect of bringing down men’s wages by women being able to undersell them.

75 Years Ago - 1944

Mr. Edward Maufe, the Ilkley born architect, has been appointed by the Imperial War Graves Commission as their principal architect for the United Kingdom. He will advise the Commission on the planning of war cemeteries in Great Britain, including the large Military Cemetery at Brookwood. This cemetery now contains about 3,000 graves of members of the Empire Forces who have died in this war and the last; also members of the French, Belgian, Polish, and Czechoslovak fighting Services.

General Sir Bernard Montgomery, Commander-in-Chief of the British Group of Armies for the forthcoming invasion, this week paid a series of official visits to troops in areas where he had not been seen before. As soon as his presence became known, crowds flocked to see him, and he was given a rousing reception. At another town the troops were lined up on a factory sports ground. The townspeople flocked to the vicinity, and, as his car passed through the crowds, he was given a great ovation. Women clapped and cheered, men waved their hats, and there were shouts of “Good Old Monty.”

50 Years Ago - 1969

Mr. John C. Ingram, of Beamsley, chairman and joint managing director of C. F. Taylor & Co. Ltd., has been elected chairman of the British National Committee of the International Wood Textile Organisation, the body representing 24 of the world’s major wool industries. In this capacity he will lead the British delegation to the IWTO, which is holding meetings in Parish next week .

The future of the Essoldo Cinema at Ilkley was the subject of comment at the meeting of the Ilkley Urban Council on Monday. An application to redevelop the site as a supermarket was approved subject to several conditions.

25 Years Ago - 1994

Scuppered by apathy! That’s the fate of Addingham’s charity gala, which has been cancelled for what is believed to be the first time in nearly half a century. Organisers of the annual showpiece have cancelled this year’s event after a plea for helpers fell on deaf ears.

A wind farm - closed after a safety scare - will be open by the end of next week. Four 100ft-high turbines at Chelker Reservoir, on the outskirts of Addingham, were shut down after a storm ripped blades from identical models at Cemmaes, Wales.