Following the end of the First World War, Skipton considered how best to pay tribute to those who had died. The popular choice was a YMCA.

IN August, 1919, a special committee of the Skipton Urban District Council signed a contract for the purchase of Whinfield House in Keighley Road and grounds. It was the will of the people that a YMCA be built in the town as a fitting tribute to all those who had died in the First World War.

The offer of Whinfield - the former home of mill owner, Thomas Dewhurst, - had been made at a much reduced price. A deposit of just £105 was handed over to the solicitors of the executors of the estate, leaving just £1,100 of the total £1,250 purchase price to be raised by the town in just three months.

The whole idea was to fall through however. Whinfield was to become Whinfield Hospital, and eventually Skipton General Hospital, when a similarly generous offer was made to the town’s hospital committee in the 1920s.

But, back in 1919, a meeting of the town’s ratepayers voted to support the idea of building a branch of the YMCA - the Young Men’s Christian Association - as a fit and proper memorial to all those who had died.

The meeting, in February, 1919, discussed the idea of a suitable war memorial, and ended in a show of hands - with 107 for and 62 against the idea of a YMCA. The 62 were in favour of the building of a public baths in the town centre. It was suggested that the idea be the subject of a town poll, but that was ruled out on the grounds of cost.

Talking in favour of the YMCA, the Rev F G Forder, said the majority of the town’s various organisations were in support.

Speaking in favour of a public baths, Councillor Platt said while a YMCA would train the mind, a public baths would help to uplift, rebuild and regenerate the public. There were already baths in the town, but they were in the wrong place. In Skipton, he said, there were 2,900 houses, and only 550 had baths - and most in the larger houses. Public baths would be very popular, he said, adding he had received several letters from young men at the front wishing him success in his scheme.

The Herald was very supportive of the YMCA idea, and in a leader, urged everyone in the town to get behind it. It would be a very appropriate memorial to all those men who had enjoyed the comforts of the YMCA abroad, said the paper.

“We do not regard the YMCA of today with the same eyes we regarded it before the war; it has demonstrated its usefulness, it can do something to promote a more manly tone among the rising generation; it can educate the youth of the town and district in every thing that tends to be true manhood and healthy citizenship,” enthused the paper.

Councillors then got together to work out how the will of the people was to be realised. One idea - called the ‘ten thousand pound scheme’, involving the erection of a new YMCA building and described at the time as ‘pretentious’ was ruled out. Instead, councillors evolved a plan where the town could buy Whinfield.

It was an ‘ideal mansion and grounds where the ratepayers can meet for healthy, mental, social and physical recreation, free from sectarian and political prejudices’, reported the Craven Herald at the time.

The council had been in talks with the executors of the late Mr T H Dewhurst, who were willing to surrender their 48 year lease of the mansion, together with its attractive gardens and grounds for the ‘comparatively insignificant sum of £1,250.’

The Herald understood that the executors had received an offer of £2,500 for the estate, but ‘as a memorial to the gallant men who had fought to died to secure our liberties’ were prepared to let the town enjoy the house and land as the town’s war memorial.

It was the idea of the council’s special committee to utilise the mansion as a centre for the town’s social activities. The council itself would act as trustees, and would affiliate with the YMCA movement in order to secure the benefit and advice of the worldwide organisation.

The Skipton scheme would not however be run by the YMCA, but the town itself, under a new management committee of the urban district council. The committee’s one aim would be to provide facilities for the ‘healthy recreation’ of both sexes and to ‘bring the young people together in a social circle that will be conducive to true citizenship, and generally tend to the moral uplifting of the town’.

In a word, it was to be the ‘town’s club’ said the Herald. In the summer, there would be outdoor games, in which everyone could take part, and not just be spectators; and in the winter, there would be indoor activities, combined with educational and social recreation of ‘the best kind’.

Ahead of the contract with the estate executors being signed, councillors had carried out a site visit to the mansion in Keighley Road where the unanimous decision had been that no more fitting a memorial could be found and that the very generous offer be accepted.

It was pointed out that at very little expense, tennis, bowls and gymnastics could be provided in the summer. There was also ample room for indoor games and social amenities in the winter, and that the house, properly managed, would be capable of catering for YMCA tourists and visitors during the holiday season.

Architect, James Hartley, added that just minor alterations could create an assembly hall idea for concerts, lectures and social gatherings.

Viewing days, when people could go and look around the mansion and grounds were set, with refreshments laid on for the large numbers who attended.

The signing of the contract for the purchase of Whinfield took place in the same week that Craven staged its peace celebrations.

At the same time, an impromptu shrine had been set up in the High Street, provided by the council. The Herald reported that every hour of every day in Peace Celebrations week, people had been arriving to stand around the memorial.

The Herald said: “We believe that on the part of many families in the town, there is a genuine and natural desire that the cenotaph, which was only put up as a temporary structure, should become permanent - either in its present, or more elaborate form.”

There were suggestions that the shrine be placed in the Parish churchyard, or in Waltonwrays Cemetery. But, the Herald believed a more fitting place would be in the grounds of Whinfield.