Leeds nostalgia: 99 years ago in Leeds... pictures from 1917
Morley Hall was built by Thomas Dawson in 1683. He was a cloth manufacturer and he build the hall on the brow of the hill which bore his family name, Dawson’s Hill. After the Dawsons, other owners of the house included the Wetherills, Dixons, Priestleys and Websters; Joseph Priestley erected the large building at the rear of the hall for the installation of hand looms. From 1884 the house was occupied by Oliver Scatcherd and his wife Alice Cliff Scatcherd, until his death in 1906. During the First World War it was used for the accommodation of about 20 refugees from Belgium whose land had been occupied by the Germans. In 1917 the house was bought by Sir Charles Scarth who presented it to the town as a maternity home, for which purpose it was used between November 1918 and October 1972, when it became surplus to the requirements of the NHS. A preservation order was placed on the Hall in 1973 and it is now a lsted building. The grounds around the Hall became Scarth’s Park.
Oliver Scatcherd was born at the house in 1833, the youngest of six and the last of his line to live in Morley. He was a former mayor of the town (1898-1899), he married Alice Smith and together they tried to improve the lot of schoolchildren. The sporting shield, which dates to 1900, was part of this. It now resides at Seven Hills Primary School, formerly Peel Steet School, where it has been since 1962.
The second picture from a National Railway Museum exhibition charting the railway’s role during the First World Wat. It shows women volunteers aboard a locomotive as it arrives in Leeds.