Old crane Co-operative Coal Wharf Leeds

[Phill_dvsn]

Yes it does, thanks Jim. Thanks also for the other pic Buffaloskinner To be honest i much prefer how it looked in those days, to how it does now. It's pretty souless down there.    

[jim]

Too many posts flying about for what I said to make sense! I don't think that the Industrial Museum crane is either of the Coal-Wharf cranes. They both had deep-section channel or RSJ upper-work main frames and cast iron water tanks. The Industrial Museum crane has neither. Lots of great pics though!

[The Parksider]

buffaloskinner wrote: Another shot also shows the rounded top What are the chimneys in the background???

[jim]

Hi Parksider, I believe it's the Y.E.B. electricity generating station. I can't be absolutely certain, but it's in more or less the right place ------ ------- and I don't think it's Soapy Joe's!

[Trojan]

The Parksider wrote: buffaloskinner wrote: Another shot also shows the rounded top What are the chimneys in the background??? Kirkstall Power Station?

[grumpytramp]

Interesting thread.I can honestly say that I have no memory of the Leeds Cooperative Society's coal wharf; but it did remind me that in the dim and distant past I had come accross an online history of the first fifty years of the Leeds Cooperative Society.It took a while, but then I remembered the purpose of my original google ........ one George Jacob Holyoake. He is a very interesting man, a follower of Robert Owen (Owen was arguably a founder of socialism and definately the father of the Co-operative Movement), imprisoned for blasphemy (a committed atheist), developer of the concept of secularism and responsible for the introduction of 'jingo-ism' to the english lanuage! As well as being the the first president of the Co-operative Congress, he wrote a number of books about the co-operative movement, the most important of which is the Rochdale Pioneers published in 1857. One of his other works, published in 1897 was The Jubilee History of the Leeds Co-operative Society, from 1847 to 1897Both works are available along with much of Holyoake's other worked on an excellent website dedicated to Gerald Massey (poet and chartist) and other lessor known victorian authors/poets:http://gerald-massey.org.uk/ [main site]http://gerald-massey.org.uk/holyoake/index.htm [George Jacob Holyoake]Anyway, back on message, the attached photopraph was extracted from Jubilee History and is described under the heading 1884, in typical victorian style, in the text: Quote: Report was made that the boot factory in Marshall Street is being enlarged by the appropriation of the old People's Hall, and that the directors have bought the coal wharf at Victoria Bridge for £10,000, which gives them a valuable property in the centre of the town.Of all possessions of man the most delightful are land and water, with vessels about—more picturesque than mountain or valley, and more serviceable, since water will carry you far elsewhere which valley and mountain will not. Though the adjacent representation is but a coal wharf, it has pictorial qualities. The boat is probably the "Tabbern" or the "Baxter." The man standing so jauntily on the side of the deck is probably some Nansen in the service of the Society, who explores Hull and Goole in the interests of the corn mill. There is a barge lying by whose destination is somewhere in the regions of coal. There is life and stir all about the wharf. The tall chimney sends up a cheer of smoke, its only mode of expressing its satisfaction at being in the picture. Surveying the scene are substantial, well-managed offices, as I thought when recently there. There are fourteen boats in possession of the Society, each carrying eighty tons, besides three grain boats. The Society has sixteen horses, and in winter it has to hire twenty more, which are probably "boarded out," as the Society has no home accommodation for them. The coal department includes twelve railway depôts, five on the Midland and six on the Great Northern Railways, and one at Burley-in-Wharfedale. Seventy railway wagons are employed in carrying coal to the various depôts. The opulence of the Society may be seen in many places, its outlying activity is nowhere more striking than on the bank of the river Aire at the Victoria Wharf. My eyes may decieve me, but crane unloading the barge is steam driven (judging by the small chimney clearly shown in the foreground) ........ same one?

[jim]

Hi Grumpytramp, marvelous old picture. LH and centre cranes are steam, and probably jib to RH of picture is another. Definitely not connected with the 1940 onwards cranes though, by comparing with the adjacent human figures the 1884 cranes are very much smaller specimens, with different mechanical configurations, and, in particular, they have solid sided jibs. The later cranes had lattice-work jibs.The background information on the Co-op and the Victoria Wharf is great context for the thread for which thanks are due.

[buffaloskinner]

Trojan - The chimneys in the background are definately not Kirkstall Power Station (wrong direction), the building in question is on Aire Street and is at the bottom left of this picture, however I do not recall what the building was.

[buffaloskinner]

Phill heres an aerial view from 1981 and the crane sits graciously at the canal basin waiting for its ghostly operator

[jim]

Thanks Buffaloskinner, your overhead photo of the chimneys which Parksider enquired about in conjunction with a 1950s street map confirm positively my earlier posted belief that they were part of YEBs electricity generating station. Coincidentally the boilers there were supplied with coal by barge via the canal river branch under the railway station, thus connecting a variety of threads!