These are the history pieces which appeared in the Batley St Mary of the Angels and Birstall St Patrick’s bulletin during January 2025. As the parishes are jointly administered and a single bulletin produced, the history pieces are not solely focused on St Mary of the Angels.
04/05 January 2025
The 5 January 1929 edition of the Batley News reported on the concert which took place in school on 1 January to aid the building of the new Presbytery at St Mary’s, which was now nearing completion. School children portrayed nursery rhymes, and the St Agnes Guild put on a play “The White Dove of Erin,” in which Miss Alice Colleran played the part of St Bridget. James Harkin won a box of chocolates.
11/12 January 2025
The 15 January 1921 edition of the Batley News announced the winners of its writing competition for schools across the Heavy Woollen District, on the subject of the cinema. 13-year-old Annie North from St Mary’s was joint winner of the girls’ competition, sharing the first and second prize monies totaling £1 11s. 6d. This was the era of silent film, and Annie wrote about the wide variety she enjoyed, like The Lost City jungle serial starring Juanita Hansen and George Chesebro; educational films like one she had just seen documenting the various processes in woollen cloth manufacture; and comedies starring Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, Chester Conklin and Ben Turpin.
18/19 January 2025
On 18 January 1916 Mr. P. Melvin presided at the annual meeting of the Birstall (Daniel O’Connell) Branch of the United Irish League. It reported a balance of £62, and a membership of 110 of whom 40 were with the Armed Forces. Officers were elected, including the committee of Messrs. James Blanchfield, T. Lyons, T. Lynch, John Melvin, T. Grayley, H. Twyford, T. Prendergast and T. Duffy. The meeting was followed by supper and a concert, with Messrs. T. Costello, J. Adams, J. T. Brennan, J. Hopkins, and T. Prendergast performing songs. T. Grayley was the pianist.
25/26 January 2025
This piece illustrates the attitudes at the beginning of 1934 to Hitler, and how in the early days he was viewed with minimal concern by the wider world. It demonstrated how many were initially taken in by him. It should not be interpreted through the lens of the later realisation of what he really was. On Sunday evening, 28 January 1934 a large audience of local Catholics gathered in Batley’s Empire Super Cinema, to listen to Father Martin Dempsey of London lecturing on “The Catholic Church, the only solution to the problems of the world.” Arranged by Batley Catholic Young Men’s Club, Dr. J. R. Cowgill, Bishop of Leeds, presided. Somewhat shockingly to readers today, the bishop said – to laughter – he did not know quite whether to put down Father McBride as a Hitler or a Mussolini, but he always seemed to get his own way. It shows the initially untroubled view about these two politicians. How these views were to change before the decade ended!
Past To Present Genealogy 