Monday, May 9, 2005

100 years ago

The York City Council met to consider a report from the Finance Committee and to set the General District Rate, the Borough Rate, and the Skeldergate Bridge Rate. The chairman of the Finance Committee, in introducing the estimates for 1905-6, said it was a very unpleasant duty, as what he had to say would end with a proposed increase of their already high rates. He emphasised that an expenditure which caused rates to be set at 8s 2d in the pound was too high for a city like York, and was placing burdens on many people they could not bear. The council had been led to hope that they would be able to include proceeds of the Electric Light Committee to the relief of the rates, and it was a disappointment to find that that Committee were now claiming from the rate £924, in addition to carrying forward a debit balance of £2,022. The total loan debt of the city was £777,125 13s 7d, which did not include the Ouse Navigation debt.

50 years ago

Selby would have Sunday cinema showings in the winter. This was decided at a specially convened election, when 1,179 people voted for Sunday showings and 323 voted against. The decision of the electors would be sent to the home office for formal approval. Only 1,500 people voted out of a total of about 7,000 who were qualified to go to the poll. Following the counting of the votes the manager of the town's Ritz Cinema, Mr T Drayton, told a Yorkshire Evening Press reporter, "A public poll has been carried out, and I am very pleased that the result has turned out as it has." After the announcement of the result in the Museum Hall, Selby, the Rev Gregson, Superintendent Minister of the Selby Methodist Circuit, and one of the people who helped to raise a petition to hold the vote after a public meeting in the town had expressed an overwhelming desire to have Sunday cinemas, told the officials and others present: "We went to the poll because we believed that the people have the right, in the correct and proper way, of expressing their opinions."

25 years ago

(Industrial action means there was no Evening Press 25 years ago today. Instead we have used an entry from as close to this date as possible.) About 50 women demonstrated outside the Working Men's Club and Institute Union conference at Blackpool, for full membership rights, including admission to games rooms at clubs throughout the country. The demonstration organisers had announced that up to 2,000 demonstrators could be expected. There were no resolutions on women's rights down for discussion by the conference, but a paragraph in the annual report said the Sex Discrimination Act did not apply to private clubs. The report added: "It is entirely a matter for a club committee to decide whether or not to amend its rules to give ladies the same rights and privileges as male members."

Updated: 08:26 Monday, May 09, 2005