Leeds nostalgia: '˜Experimental' Leeds mixed sex club kept cupid busy in 1919...

Dateline: January 21, 1919...
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

One article - published 100 years ago this week - shows just how much our attitudes have shifted in relation to sex and courtship. It relates to the creation of a so-called ‘mixed club’, in which young men and women could come together for “wholesome recreation”, the alternative being “meeting promiscuously in the street”.

Many at the time said the ‘experiment’ would not work and that, in any case, that the cure was worse than the disease, so to speak. But the club became a reality in the form of the Three R’s on Vicar Lane.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

In a report in the Yorkshire Evening Post from a century ago, it was said to have disposed “of all the fears and doubts which were expressed as to its feasibility.”

It went on: “Night after night and week in and week out, young men and women and women and men approaching middle age, assemble here and spend what many of them describe as the happiest times of their lives.”

Far and away the most popular form of recreation at the club was dancing but they were “properly organised dances, held under careful supervision” on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. There was a whist drive on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, in addition to lectures, concerts and even a debating society.

Over and above all that were external activities such as football, hockey, tennis and cricket.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The article noted: “Members are not slow to express their appreciation of the club... There are 300 or 400 who patronise it on at least three nights of the week and... between 40 and 50 who never miss a night.”

It added: “The bringing together of the sexes has had an inevitable result. Cupid has been busy with his arrows... we will shortly be hearing of the first Three R’s wedding.”