1907 - The Pole Masters' "Annus Horribilis"
Back to the Main Historical Society page
Back to the Barwicker Contents page
1907 - The Pole Masters' "Annus Horribilis"
Barwicker No. 90
June 2008
During the 1904 maypole raising ceremony the tail of the gilded metal
fox which surmounts the maypole was accidentally broken off.
Newspapers of the time noted this as a bad omen. Now I'm not
superstitious, but the next time the pole was touched, three years hence,
in 1907 a series of disasters occurred.
At the lowering ceremony on Easter Tuesday, 2nd April 1907 the pole
fell out of control, and smashed onto the roof of the disused coach
house on the corner of the rectory grounds, the top part breaking into
two pieces. Luckily, even though the road was crowded with people at
the time there were no injuries. The Pole Men of the day, responsible
for organising the event, must have been wondering what they could do
with the broken pole when a greater calamity occurred, the maypole
was stolen!
On Sunday night, the 14th April, Albert Wilkinson, a fireman, and
Richard Gray, a labourer, both of Aberford stole a ten or eleven foot
section of the broken pole. They carried it to Aberford and got as far as
the main street in that village. They then met the local policeman, P.e.
Hartley. When he approached the pair they used bad language and were
obviously drunk. He charged them with being drunk and disorderly.
The Barwick Pole Men got to know of the removal of the portion of the
mast and, no doubt, with the agreement of the police arranged for Albert
and Richard to carry the pole back to Barwick in daylight. Reports of
the day indicate that many Aberfordians turned out "to see the pole
removed by the unhappy jokers who, I daresay, found on the return
journey the mast was a rather heavy weight"
The following week, on Tuesday the 23rd April, at the Leeds West
Riding Court they were each fined 10 shillings including costs for the
incident. During the court proceedings one of the defendants asked how
a drunken man could carry a pole eleven feet long from Barwick to
Aberford? P.C. Hartley responded "You would not have carried had
you been sober!" There was much laughter in the courtroom.
Albert Wilkinson was born in 1868 and lived in the Boyle in Barwick
for most of his childhood. He married Sarah Jane Capper of Aberford
in 1890 moving to live with his wife and mother-in-law in Becca Lane,
Aberford. By 1901 he had five children and is described as colliery
stoker in one of the Aberford or Garforth mines. This was an above
ground colliery occupation involved in keeping the fires going in the
steam engines that drove the machinery.
The rest of that year's maypole festivities went off without a hitch,
however due to the broken end, a "slightly" shorter than usual pole was
raised on Whit Tuesday, the 21st May, in the presence of a crowd of
thousands.
DAVID TEAL
Sources:
The Skyrack Courier editions of :
25th May 1904,
5th April 1907,
26th April 1907
& 17th May 1907
1881 & 1901 Census
Back to the top
Back to the Main Historical Society page
Back to the Barwicker Contents page