Helen Hague celebrates the history and importance of Wortley Hall - built by aristocrats but now owned by the workers
Wortley Hall, a Georgian mansion in South Yorkshire, was built for aristocrats who got rich on coal and the toil of miners in the pit they owned nearby.
The ancestral home of the Earls of Wharncliffe, Lords of the Manor of Wortley, it now hosts conferences, weddings and trade union education.
Known as “The Worker’s Stately Home”, it has been owned collectively by supporters of the labour movement for more than 70 years.
Its history is an uplifting story of ownership passing from the few to the many, with trade unionists and socialists as shareholders and profits ploughed back into the venue.
The hall, commandeered for war service, was in a dilapidated state when the army left after WW2 and the Earl wanted to lease it out.
Former miner Vin Williams – blacklisted by pit owners for his role in the 1926 general strike – was a man with a vision. In 1950 he asked others in the local labour movement: “Why should only the wealthy occupy grand houses?”.
Wortley Hall, he argued, could be owned by working class people and run by them, providing worker education and family holidays, away from smog and smoke.
His vision won support and a lease was agreed.
Miners, engineers, foundry workers, labourers and other volunteers poured in to clean, renovate and restore the buildings and grounds.
Wortley Hall, now “Wortley Hall (Labour’s Home)” was opened officially in May 1951, in front of 3,000 supporters. Hall and grounds were “sold to the workers” for £10,000 eight years later.
Why should only the wealthy occupy grand houses?
Set in 26 acres of glorious parkland and formal gardens and benches honouring labour movement figures, it has become a hugely popular venue for weddings.
The FBU has strong bonds with Wortley Hall – successive general secretaries have championed it, and many members have honed their activism there.
Stewart Charnley, former president of Wortley Hall, first served as vice president of the FBU. A meeting room is named in his honour.
FBU national schools are held there – and, since 2000, “equalities” schools for under-represented groups – women, black and ethnic minority and LGBT+ members.
Control, retained and officer committees also convene there for AGMs and seminars.
Fleur Lombard, the first woman firefighter to die on duty in peacetime, is honoured. At 21, she lost her life in a flashover in a Bristol supermarket fire. A framed picture of Fleur receiving a silver axe as top recruit in her training school hangs in the National Assembly of Women’s (NAW) Garden Room.
Wedding guests can’t miss the historic links with the labour movement. There’s the Unite Ballroom, the Unison Room and the FBU Bar, one of the most spectacular rooms in the hall.
This is our oasis of socialism, let us ensure its successful continuation
All the bedroom wings are named after socialists – including Keir Hardie, George Lansbury, Robert Owen and Wortley’s own Vin Williams. All men – a point not missed by the many women who have sharpened their activism over the years at Wortley Hall.
At the end of the nineties, the NAW sponsored the Garden Room – and later successfully championed re-naming the library after trailblazing socialist Sylvia Pankhurst.
An annual lecture exploring her legacy is given every August – on the same weekend as the free South Yorkshire festival.
Philippa Clark, life-long trade union activist and former FBU research officer, is a member of the Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee.
Also a shareholder, she has been visiting Wortley for decades. “It is steeped in socialism – and it seeps into your soul,” she attests.
Wortley Hall survived recent lockdowns – when weddings and union schools were cancelled, and staff furloughed.
The Workers’ Stately Home is having to adapt.
The pits are long gone and weddings are booming, but bedrock principles like providing education for trade union activists in a splendid countryside setting remain – with socialist shareholders there to make sure they are upheld.
As former firefighter Stewart Charnley put it when he was Wortley president: “This is our oasis of socialism, let us ensure its successful continuation”.
