An industrial relations ploy adapted by workers

The Darlington is justifiably proud of being the oldest surviving club in the town and the first to be affiliated to the national Club and Institute Union (CIU).

But the CIU had been formed in 1862 - why had the working men of Darlington taken 40 years to join?

The answer seems to be that the town's establishment had tried, in its customary well-intentioned way, to hijack the idea of a working men's club and impose its own ideals upon it.

The very first working men's club was at Bank Top. It was formed in about 1869 and soon had 160 members. Emboldened by its success, 1,000 of the town's leading men gathered at the Darlington Waggon Company's works on Albert Hill on Boxing Day, 1870, for a "great public tea meeting" to discuss the formation of more working men's clubs.

The main speakers were people like the mayor Thomas Barron, the MP Edmund Backhouse, the head of the ruling family, Henry Pease, the industrialist David Dale, who was in partnership with the Peases and who was married to a Backhouse, and another industrialist, Theodore Fry, who was married to a Pease.

They said they wanted to "raise the character of the ironworkers" of Albert Hill and Hopetown, who were suffering chronically because of the poor economic conditions and because of their poor social conditions.

"It is well known that the labour of the ironworker is very hard and very fatiguing, and the thirst which it induces leads to the habit of drinking intoxicating liquors," said one speaker, Benjamin Shelton.

David Dale, who was an internationally-regarded expert on industrial relations, said men went to the pubs to socialise and to escape the bedlam of their over-crowded terraced homes.

He said: "The hours which a married man has to spend at his own fireside ought to be looked forward to with the most pleasurable anticipation, but there are times when domestic arrangements in a small household render it more convenient that he should be absent."

If he went to a pub, he would come home befuddled; if he went to a working men's club "he would return home refreshed in mind and body".

And so, on May 20, 1871, North End Working Men's Club was opened in a rented house on Nestfield Street by its president, David Dale.

It had a smoking room, a games room, a newspaper room, a meeting room and outside was a games area for the playing of skittles, football and quoits.

Membership cost 1d a week, and it was open 7am to 10pm every day except Sundays. Opening hours on the Sabbath were 1pm to 5pm, and then only the quiet, contemplative rooms were open.

"It will require great care to prevent anything occuring in these rooms which is not in consonance of our view of what Sunday ought to be", said Dale, a Quaker, laying down the law to working men.

At the opening, Theodore Fry, owner of the Rise Carr Rolling Mills, said it was hoped that similar clubs would soon open at Rise Carr and Harrowgate Hill. Within the year, his wish became reality.

But these early working men's clubs lasted about a decade. The premises in Nestfield Street, for instance, were sold in 1883.

David Dale, who was knighted in 1895, said: "They were given up owing to trade depression and the consequent dispersal of many members, while those who remained were not able to pay their subscriptions."

He may have been right, but an alcohol-free environment run by their employers may not have been the taste of many working men.

It then fell to the church to step into the breach and provide a club for the working men.

On January 17, 1893, David Dale opened the "commodious but unpretentious" Borough Road Working Men's Club, so that the Reverend William Gore-Brown could continue his good works among the railway workers of Bank Top. He had about 70 men and 70 boy members - largely men who were at "loose ends", he said, and during the course of his work many had become devout churchmen. The Borough Road club had a reading room, smoking room and bath with hot and cold water for the football club.

It was followed in 1885 by the St John's Working Men's Club, on Bank Top, which was opened by the Archdeacon of Durham.

The vicar of St John's was the club president and the club building was in the vicarage grounds off Neasham Road.

"The foundations were dug out by the men themselves and the whole of interior work, with the seating, was also the work of the members," marvelled The Northern Echo, which also reported that the club reading room would double as a parish room.

These religious working men's clubs seem to have satisfied the appetite no better than the 1870s models run by the bosses. So, in 1901, a group of railwaymen gathered in a cocoa shop in Tubwell Row and began planning a working men's club of their own. It would be affiliated to the CIU, it would have a bar to sell beer, and it would be run by ordinary working men - and certainly not industrial magnates with knighthoods.

It worked - which is why the Darlington is able to celebrate its 100th anniversary this year.

OF course, the working men's clubs maintained a healthy interest in learning and self-help. After the Echo Memories article on the Darlington club in April, A Buckle of Darlington has written to say the club's library once seated 40 people and contained 2,000 books.

Beryl Wilson, of Darlington, has clear memories of the club. Her parents, Harry and Jean Reeks, moved into 5 Arthur Street at the end of the Second World War. It was next to the club - possibly built on top of the club's stables - and owned by it. "Our back yard had two gates, giving access both to the back lane and to the club yard," she writes.

"They still used spittoons in those far off days and the club's sawdust house was just opposite our back gate."

She also remembers the annual club outing.

"It was usually to Redcar," she says.

"Crowds would descend on North Road station and we queued for an envelope containing our spending money. I think we got five shillings."

She concludes: "My parents eventually had the opportunity of buying our house, which was dad's second home as the club was definitely his first! He had his favourite seat in the window and whenever I pass, I picture him sitting there."

SINCE the first article on the Darlington, the club has received much information about its past (more is welcome - contact steward Doug Heseltine on 01325-467925). One interesting item that has turned up is the Darlington and District Working Men's Clubs' Billiard League Championship trophy, which in 1924-5 was won by F Connor of the Northgate club who retained it (it may well have been his third victory and so was entitled to it).

His son now lives in Worcestershire, but on a visit to Darlington returned the trophy to the club. It will now be presented to the snooker player with the highest break of the season.