Adventures and Recollections

by Bill o'th' Hoylus End

THE HENPECKED CLUB AND THE KEIGHLEY SHOW

My next effusion was partly in verse and partly in prose, and was entitled, “The Rules and Regulations of the Henpecked Club.” This club was connected with the Agricultural Society’s Show, and made its existence felt on the Show Day only. At the time of which I write, the Keighley Agricultural Show was about one of the finest shows in the country. The townspeople, then, took some pride in their show. The public thoroughfare from Church Green along Skipton-road to the Showfield was decorated in a gorgeous fashion. Flags, streamers, and bunting, with scores of appropriate mottoes and devices, were numerously in evidence, and trees were planted on each side of the road and decked with all sorts of fairy lamps. Yes; those were the good old days of the Keighley Show; thousands of people flocked from all parts of a not very limited area to attend the annual event. But the principal thoroughfares of the town were not the only places which received attention at the hands of the decorators, for the residents of such places as the Pinfold went in for their own particular local celebration of the Show Day. On one occasion I saw a stuffed donkey with a dummy rider on its back, swinging on a rope opposite the Bay Horse Inn. The donkey, which was the source of intense delight to the younger section of the populace, was the property of one Harry Barwick, a tanner by trade. Not far from here—in old Bridge-street, now known as Mill-street—was to be seen a large picture, containing the portraits, rudely executed by myself as artist to the club, of some forty members of the Henpecked Club. The spectacle was of the most laughable description. There was also displayed a gigantic cradle, large enough to hold the biggest person in the world in case of emergency. The cradle was supposed to be used on the occasion of a member of the club being found guilty of ill-treating his wife. The cradle was made by a practical wag, known as Billy Bradley, who attended to it every Show Day. When there was a clean sheet of actual offenders, Bradley contented himself with “rocking” men who volunteered just for the fun of the thing. Finish was imparted to the performance by a fiddler, named Smith Keighley, playing “Rock’d in the cradle of the deep” during the operation. Many were the visitors who came to see the stirrings in this corner of the town. I remember the late Mr John Sugden, of Eastwood House, coming up in his carriage to see the fun and frolic, which were practically the sole objects of the Henpecked Club. On one occasion there was exhibited a picture, almost as large as a stage scene, representing a trial in the Henpecked Club,—a wife charging her spouse, before the President, with neglect of family duty. The counts of the charge were supposed to be—refusing to wash-up, black-lead, clean his wife’s boots, put the clothes-line out, and last, but not least, refusing to take his wife her breakfast upstairs. I recollect one remarkable and unrehearsed incident which happened in connection with the club on one Show Day. A man of the name of Shackleton had joined the club, and his wife was so disgusted that she was almost “wild.” Before the scores of people who had assembled she protested “Ahr Jack isn’t henpecked, an’ ah weant hev him henpecked.” It was, she said, just the opposite—she who had been henpecked. Just as Mrs S. was concluding her harangue a waggonette drove up, and all the members of the club got into it in readiness for a drive round the town “for the benefit of the Order,” as one of them amusingly put it. This Shackleton was among those who entered the conveyance, but no sooner had he taken his seat than his wife went up to him and seized him firmly by the hair of the head, exclaiming, “Come aat, er Ah’ll let ’em see whether tha’s henpecked er no.” She stuck to her spouse with such a tight fondness that he was soon obliged to come out of the waggonette. Shackleton took the incident quite good humouredly, and seemed to enjoy the mirth-provoking situation with as much zest as the crowd of people who were standing by. And this was a sample of the carryings-on in the days of the old Keighley Show. But, alas! there came a day of trouble to the people. In the period preceding one year’s show an epidemic of small-pox broke out in the town and the show had to be abandoned. Unfortunately that proved the deathblow of the old Agricultural Society.