Following the Licensing Act of 1904, a quid pro quo situation had developed between the licensing authorities and the brewers whereby the latter voluntarily surrendered the existing licences on some old rundown public houses in return for the grant of licences in respect of new premises situated on greenfield sites in areas of urban expansion. A variation on this theme was the application of a brewery for the grant of a 'removal' licence, permitting the transfer of the licence of public house in a deteriorating condition or an area of declining trade, to modern premises in a developing area.

Upon the outbreak of war in August 1914, the modernisation plan of Knottingley Brewery Co. in respect of its tied houses was well advanced and although a hiatus arising from wartime constraints eventually occurred, the impetus of the ongoing schemes produced a momentum which created the appearance of 'business as usual' which characterised the public response to the conflict initially.

In October 1913, the company had obtained a 99 year lease on 1,500 square yards of land at Rawcliffe Bridge near Goole from Ralph Creyke of Rawcliffe Hall, Snaith, at an annual rental of £15-12-6. The company agreed to erect a dwelling house on the site with stables and outbuildings at a cost of not less than £1,000, the property to be yielded up upon expiration of the lease. (1)

Plans for the establishment of a new hotel had been formulated several years earlier with a provisional removal licence application in mind concerning the Fly Boat Inn, Whitley Bridge, and reinforced by the surrender of the licence of the Aire Tavern, a beerhouse situated at Rawcliffe. (2) Indeed, the question of the necessity for the latter inn had been raised by the Justices at Snaith Brewster Sessions in 1911 when they made renewal of the beerhouse licence conditional on the owners taking steps to secure a new site. The response of Knottingley brewery was the erection of the premises at Rawcliffe and in April 1913 in one of the last actions prior to his death, Edwin Lawson made application for confirmation of the provisional removal licence which was granted.

In November 1913, tenders for the construction of the new house had been examined and approved by the directors of the brewery and instructions issued to the architect, A. Hartley of Castleford, to accept the tender submitted by Messes Walker & Son to build the new premises at a cost of £2,160.(3) In July 1914 a decision was taken to name the new premises as the Rawcliffe Hotel, subject to the approval of the licensing authority (4) The following month tenancy applications were being sought, (5) the tenancy being granted to Harry W. Hewitt on the 28th of the following month. (6)

Despite the removal of two licences from the Whitley area and the fact that the Justices had practically invited the ensuing course of action, there were some grave objections to the transfer, opposition being offered by a Wesleyan minister of the Goole circuit and his allies, one of whom was James Hepplestone, landlord of the Black Horse Inn, Rawcliffe, thus presenting a somewhat incongruous front based upon temperance and booze. (7)

The acquisition of the greenfield site at Rawcliffe is a prime example of the implementation of company policy to erect spacious, airy public houses in semi-rural locations where urban development was anticipated. In conjunction with this policy the company sought to divest itself of cramped, insalubrious premises which presented a poor image of the company to an increasingly discerning public or where a proliferation of licensed houses retarded trade. An example of both aspects is seen at Knottingley where in 1904 an application was made to transfer the licence of the Anchor Inn, situated in a backyard off Aire Street, to the more peripherally located Lamb Inn which at that time was a licensed beerhouse. In support of the transfer application it was stated that there were no less than seven licensed premises within 300 yards of the Anchor Inn: the licence transfer was approved. (8)

The purchase of land for future development whilst desirable and indeed, a necessary adjunct to the progress and prosperity of the company required careful consideration by a company with limited financial resources. Thus, an offer by a William Luckman in 1896 to sell a plot of land at Featherstone Common was declined whereas a similar offer of two plots at Moorthorpe in June 1903 was accepted, the latter being considered more likely to lend itself to future urban development in an area where no rival inn existed. (9) Also typical of this line of thought was the decision in the summer of 1914 to purchase 1,363 square yards of land offered by the representatives of the late Mr Geoff Kenyon. The plot, situated at Westfield Lane, South Elmsall, was offered at 4 shillings and sixpence per square yard and was purchased for the Brewery by T.J. Sides for the sum of £373-13-6 in shortly after the outbreak of the war. (10)

In purchasing land the company was mindful of the need to secure sufficient space for eventual extension or replacement of the premises. As early as 1904 the company had bought a plot of land in excess of one acre, known as Guide Post Close and situated opposite the Fox & Hounds Inn, Thorpe Audlin, for £172. (11) In order to make assurance doubly assured, a plot within the same village, 3 acres 2 roods 13 perches in extent, named Stool Tree Close, was purchased the following year at a cost of £140. (12) In August 1910, 697 square yards of abutting the company's North Eastern Hotel at Snaith, was purchased for £142 (13) and a month later the site of the Star Inn, Lofthouse Gate, was consolidated by the purchase of two strips of land of 20 square yards and 10 square yards respectively. (14)

Site acquisition was largely halted during the war period with the single exception of June 1916 when the company bought ground adjoining the Pine Apple Inn, Pontefract from the Mathers Trustees for £250. (15) Simultaneously, an adjacent plot on the site of the old pinfold in Baxtergate, adjoining the Turk's Head Inn, was also obtained by the company. (16)

As early as the beginning of 1914 a decision had been taken to improve the Turk's Head premises and plans were approved the following year. (17) It was not until June 1916, however, that official approval was obtained to allow the plans to come to fruition. (18) In the case of the Pine Apple Inn an even longer period of gestation was necessary. In February 1912 the brewery had applied for removal of the licence of the existent Pine Apple Inn to a new site at Knottingley Road, Pontefract, but the application was refused by the magistrates. (19) There the matter rested until following the acquisition of the land in Baxtergate it was decided to rebuild both premises. Rebuilding was scheduled to commence early in 1920 (20) with the Pine Apple, which had previously faced Baxtergate repositioned to face the parallel running street, Gillygate. (21) The Turk's Head, originally known as The Falcon and then as The Red Bear was rebuilt by local builder, George Ward, on the site of the town pin fold. (22) The exigencies of war also delayed other plans for the refurbishment of Carter houses. Approval was given in 1915 for alterations costing £440 to the Curriers Arms, Pontefract, and at the Moorthorpe Hotel at a cost of £132-17-0 (23) but these were not undertaken until 1920. (24)

Transactions concerning the acquisition of licensed properties were also suspended for the duration of the war although a few properties were disposed of. The Fly Boat Inn, Whitley Lock, which the company had leased from William Eadon of Whitley Hall and later from Mr C.G. Lyon of Rogerthorpe Manor was purchased from the latter gentleman, together with a little over an acre of land for £450 in July 1913 (25) before being sold to the Aire & Calder Navigation Co., for £350 in January 1915. (26) The same month the Aire Tavern, Rawcliffe, was sold to Mrs S.T. Faith for £200. (27)

One of the constraints imposed on the company during the war was the shortage of suitable tenants as the majority of able-bodied men were under arms, particularly with the introduction of conscription in 1916. The company had to appoint managers to operate the Sydney Hotel, Goole, and the Wagon & Horses, Knottingley, as a temporary measure. (28) A letter from H.W.D. Fielding, the company solicitor (later a director) to T.J. Sides dated 5th December 1916 stated the difficulty of obtaining suitable tenants and advised Sides to exercise caution in his supervision of tied house tenancies.(29)

The conclusion of hostilities opened the way for a series of purchases by the company. In June 1919 the Punch Bowl, Brotherton, was bought from William Whitaker & Co., for £3,000. (30) The sale also included four cottages; two in the inn yard and two behind the premises, one of the cottages within the yard having a club room above. (31) A week earlier the Plough Inn, Kellington, was obtained from the Earl of Cathcart, together with 36 acres 3 roods 6 perches of farmland, at a cost of £1,800. (32) In August the company purchased the Red Lion, Askern, from William Middleton, a retired blacksmith of Norton. The appurtenances included outhouses, loose boxes, stables with hay chamber above, saddle room, coach house and a nearby dwelling house, the whole costing £5,545. The company's entry date is recorded as 25th March 1920 which suggests possible refurbishment took place following its acquisition. (33) The company accounts do show expenditure of £300 for repairs to public houses during 1919 but do not indicate the nature or location of such expenditure. (34)

The year 1919 also witnessed the further purchase of property at Gillygate, Pontefract, The purchase included shops and houses a close to the Pine Apple Inn, one house being the residence of James Mountain Scott who shortly thereafter became the proprietor of the Playhouse Cinema, situated next to the Pine Apple Inn and doubtless boosted the custom of that place throughout the following four decades.(35) The almost simultaneous closure of the inn and the cinema in the 1960s was no coincidence, the cinema being demolished but the architecturally distinguished facade of the inn being spared as the frontage of business premises.

November 1920 saw the purchase of the Greyhound Inn, Ferrybridge, through Alfred Spink, a local solicitor, acting on behalf of the Earl of Crewe. The purchase, completed in the February following, included a dwelling house, formerly part of the old inn and probably surplus to needs following the collapse of the mailcoach business in the second half of the previous century, which had two large cellars used by the company for storage since leased in 1906, together with a second dwelling house and outbuildings. (36) The whole Greyhound complex also included a small farmstead, perhaps an indication that the inn had developed from the farm through serving passing travellers on the Great North Road and had ultimately enjoyed such prosperity during the coaching era that the farm had become a secondary entity, being sold as such to the Brewery in 1906 while the inn was held leasehold. (37)

In the Spring of 1920, the company purchased the Bell & Crown Inn, Snaith Market Place, from Lord Deramore for £1,500 having held the leasehold since 1881. (38) The property included an outbuilding rented by John Heptonstall, a local butcher to whom it was sold in April 1921. (39) It is of passing interest to note the number of property transactions at this time involving members of the local aristocracy for whom the decline of English agriculture from the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the imposition of death duties together with the socio-economic effect of the recent war, had rendered the upkeep of their country estates and aristocratic lifestyle passé.

A somewhat unusual transaction of 1920 was the lease by the company of the Coach & Horses at Bolton by Bowland, from Mr C.B. Eldright. (40) The acquisition of this house stands in contrast to the company policy which was to divest itself of all licensed premises outside the immediate neighbourhood of Knottingley as shown by the disposal of houses in wider locations such as those obtained from Mitchell Bros. by George Carter in the 1880s.

Two further properties converted from leasehold to freehold in 1920 were the Providence Inn, Barnsley, and the Creyke Arms, Rawcliffe. (41) The Providence Inn and appurtenances stood on a site some 632 square yards in extent and was bought in May 1920 from Mr William Howarth, a licensed victualler, for £500, having been leased since 1909. (42) The Creyke Arms was purchased in July 1920 from Ralph Creyke Esq., and was a large site, some 2,661 square yards in extent. (43)

The Black Boy Inn, Market Place, Pontefract, together with cottages and stables was also obtained from the University College, Oxford, in March 1920 at a cost of £2,730. (44) A sale catalogue in the College archive reveals that the property was due to be sold by auction on the 15th September 1920 with a sale value of £1,500. Allied correspondence reveals, however, that an agent expressed an interest on behalf of an unidentified potential purchaser which further documentation shows to be the Knottingley Brewery Co. (45) With five rival houses already established in the Market Place, lying in close proximity to the Black Boy and with two houses of their own, the Pine Apple and the Turk's Head just round the corner in Gillygate, plus the Green Dragon and the Gardeners Arms in nearby Beastfair, the willingness of the company to pay almost twice the auctioneer's valuation provides an insight into its assessment of the potentially lucrative trade of the centrally situated Black Boy in the immediate wake of the Great War. The capital expended on the purchase of licensed properties in general during that brief period bespeaks the buoyant optimism of the brewery company which may have owed much to the recognition of the business ability and social influence of the managing director T.J. Sides.

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NOTES:Chapter 6
1. W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 47/474/182
2. WYW 1415-1. 30-7-1913
3. ibid 9-11-1913
4. ibid 18-7-1914
5. ibid 20-8-1914
6. ibid 18-11-1914
7. WYW 1415-17 p6. Cutting from Yorkshire Post 8-4-1913
8. Pontefract Advertiser 12-3-1904
9. WYW 1415-1-17-7-1896 & 11-6-1903
10. ibid 20-8-1914 & 2-12-1914
11. ibid 25-7-1904 & W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 35/1006/448
12. WYW 1415-1 2-3-1905 & W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 9/645/272
13. ibid 33/71/276 & 1415-1 10-8-1910
14. W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 36/111/43. & WYW 1415-1 29-9-1910
15. ibid 30-6-1916 & W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 22/990/354 & 22/993/355
16. ibid 16/1231/494
17. WYW 1415-1 14-1-1915
18. ibid 30-6-1916
19. WYW 1415-17 & Pontefract Advertiser 27-1-1912
20. WYW 1415-1 23-1-1920
21. Holmes J. 'Pontefract Pubs Past & Present (1982) p21
22. op cit p25
23. WYW 1415-1 9-6-1915
24. ibid 23-1-1920
25. ibid 30-7-1913 c.f. Brewery History Vol 1 p112. Also W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 29/800/309
26. ibid 7/1059/445. & 1415-1 28-1-1915 & 22/3/1915
27. ibid 14-1-1915
28. ibid 25-1-1917
29. ibid inserted letter dated 5-12-1916
30. ibid 28-6-1919
31. W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 59/123/52
32. ibid 59/120/51. & 1415-1 28-6-1919
33. ibid 29-8-1919 & W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 4/1418/489
34. WYW 1415-1 9-10-1919
35. W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 59/117/50. For details of J.M. Scott 's proprietorship of the Playhouse Cinema, Pontefract c.f. Spencer T. 'The Palace Cinema, Knottingley' (2000)
36. W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 60/236/102
37. WYW 1415-1 9-6-1906 & W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 45/1049/453
38. ibid 60/238/103 & 1415-1 1-5-1920. Brewery History Vol I p112 for reference to earlier lease by the Company
39. W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 37/751/280
40. WYW 1415-1 7-5-1920
41. ibid 22-7-1920 & 12-11-1920
42. W.Y.A.S. Wakefield 102/469/165
43. ibid 102/471/166
44. ibid 34/59/23 & 1415-1 12-11-1920
45. I am indebted to Dr Darvall-Smith, Oxfordshire County Council Archives who is also the University College archivist, for this information

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