Leeds Bowling Stories - The Original Oak Bowling Club

The Shire Oak Tree, Headingley Lane

In October 2014, it was my privilege to meet Mr Brian Campleman to hear about his long association with crown green bowling in Leeds. Mr Campleman has had a long and varied career in the game, rising to be President of the Original Oak Bowling Club and then, from 1973 until 2001, General Secretary and Treasurer of the Leeds and District Amateur Crown Green Bowling Association.

He recently donated bowling memorabilia to Leeds Museums and Galleries, including trophies from both the Oak Bowling Club and the Leeds ABA, which we were delighted to receive. They are currently on display at Abbey House Museum on the ground floor.

The Original Oak, Headingley

As well as being keen to hear more about the history of the objects and about the man who donated them, I had some personal interest in hearing Mr Campleman’s recollections. My parents first met in the Original Oak in the late 1970s, and they both clearly remember the bowling green there, of which there is now no trace. I’m sure not every pub-goer realises the long history of the Bowling Club which was once where the Oak beer garden is now, a club which started as long ago as 1868 and only disappeared in the 1990s.

Mr Campleman recalled the irony of being born in Headingley and attending St Michael’s School, which was only a stone’s throw away from the Club he would later join. He vaguely remembers the Shire Oak tree that gave its name to the public house. This tree collapsed in 1941, while Brian was a small boy. He got into bowling by utter chance- another, older member of the Oak Bowling Club put his name forward, while he was serving in the RAF.

The Preston Challenge Shield (1900)

Trophy winners

After telling me about these chance beginnings in the sport, Brian moved on to talking about the trophies he had donated which relate to Leeds and District Amateur Bowling Association. The Leeds ABA was founded in 1897. The premier cup played for was the Preston Challenge Shield (1900), donated by one of the founders of the Association, a Mr. Preston. It was the prize for the 1st division. Coincidentally, the first club to win it was the Oak bowling club, though Mr Campleman pointed out that they had never done so since! 

The Elliott-Forrest Shield, presented by a Mr F. Elliott and Mr E.V. Forrest for annual competition, was the runner up to the Preston Shield. Two further trophies formed the prizes for the second division, the Movley Trophy presented by a Mr Oscar E. Movley in 1906, and the runner-up cup, the ornate Gipton Silver Bowl Trophy, Presented by E.P. Robson Esq. in 1959. In addition to these items, a Centenary Plaque was presented by Tetley’s Brewery to Leeds ABA in 1997 when there was a celebratory bowling match at Bramley Liberal Club.

The bulk of Brian’s recollections relate to the Oak Bowling Club. The top cup played for here was the Plymouth Cup. This was first presented in 1888 by the Armada Tercentenary Commemoration Committee. That year, the Leeds Bowling Club played a match against Torrington Bowling Club of Devon on Plymouth Hoe to commemorate a famous game of July 19th 1588, which had taken place on Plymouth Hoe with the armada in sight! The Don Wise trophy was a runner up trophy to this. 

Two further cups were played for on an annual basis; the Guinness Shield – for the pairs competition - and the Stephenson Cup, presented by the landlord of the Original Oak, Ted Stephenson, some time between 1967 and the late 1980s).Mr Campleman recalled that it was initially played for as a handicap, in one day – but as the older members of the club found they were flagging by 9pm on the Saturday, the final was moved to Sunday and a buffet put on by Ted, who also generally gave cash prizes.

The Oak Bowling Club celebrates its centenary (1968)

Memorable matches

Mr Campleman then recalled two memorable matches. The first was on 1st June 1968 (pictured above) when, on a red hot day, the Oak played against representatives from Tetley’s brewery , dressed as huntsmen in their finery. 

A line was drawn at allowing the accompanying horses on to the green; the head hunstman was permitted to bring his on, so long as it didn’t gallop about! Tetley’s Brewery presented the Club with a hunting horn on a plaque, and a photograph of the occasion shows a Miss Joan Parton of Headingley taking centre stage, in more contemporary garb.

The Armada Plate, presented to the
Oak Bowling Club in 1988

Yet perhaps most memorably was the year 1988, which saw the Oak invited once more to on Plymouth Hoe by Torrington Bowling Club, one hundred years on. The members asked to dress up for the occasion in Elizabethan garb – not something Mr Campleman does usually, he stressed to me, but having seen the photos, they did indeed look splendid as he said. 

After a Tetley’s dray horse and cart had grandly escorted the members as far as the city centre, they changed into normal attire for the journey down to Plymouth, where a hearty meal awaited them on the Saturday night. On Sunday 19th July the match on Plymouth Hoe took place, ‘packed on all four sides’ as Brian recalls. Afterwards, a civic reception and prize giving ceremony took place at the Town Hall.

The club were presented by a commemorative glass vase from Torrington Bowling Club and a commemorative plate from the Civic Trust bearing a picture of the Armada, both of which are now also in our collections. Mr Campleman fondly recalled that the sun shone for the entire duration of their time away – apart from on a visit to Torquay – and after several pleasant days the party got back to the Oak ‘just in time for tea’.

Members of the Oak Bowling Team in 1993

125 years of the Oak Bowling Club

By the early 1990s the membership of the Oak bowling club was sadly in decline however. In 1993, the 125th anniversary of Oak Bowling Club, the Leeds Weekly News were asked to run campaign for new members. It certainly put the Club in the limelight for a while, with a front page piece on the club, but sadly was not sufficient to arrest the waning interest at the time.

I greatly enjoyed my time chatting to Mr Campleman, and it is a real delight that Abbey House Museum have been able to display trophies and memorabilia with such fond personal associations. 

Listen to the interview with Brian Campleman on our AudioBoom account

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By Patrick Bourne, Assistant Community Curator

Copyright and Charles Ginner’s ‘Orphan Works’

You may be surprised to know that we don’t have the copyright holder’s permission to publish any of the images featured in this blog post. Copyright usually lasts for 70 years after the artist’s death, so these paintings by Isaac Charles Ginner (1878-1952) will remain in copyright until December 2022. 

The reason we’re able to show them now is because they’re all ‘orphan works’, which means that the rights holders are unknown or cannot be traced, and we’ve recently been granted a seven-year licence to use the works by the government’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

Copyright law helps artists and their descendants to control how their work is used, and also allows them to make money from it, by licensing it out for public use. Anyone who copies a work of art, or publishes it in print or online, must first seek permission from the copyright holder or they commit an infringement of copyright and risk being sued for damages.

What is an Orphan Work?

In October 2014 the IPO launched a new Orphan Works Licensing Scheme in an attempt to give wider public access to millions of creative works. At the same time this protects any rights holders who might come forward at a later date by promising to compensate them.

Applicants must provide evidence of exercising ‘due diligence’ in trying to trace any rights holders, to assure the IPO that all reasonable efforts have been made prior to them issuing a licence.

Many well-known galleries and institutions have tried, unsuccessfully, to trace the heirs to Ginner’s estate, and we could not shed any new light on the matter. He is a well-known artist represented in numerous large public collections (such as Tate and the National Portrait Gallery) yet nobody has ever come forward making any claims on his estate.

How does the licence work?

Our licence cost 10p per work plus a £34 application fee, and was the first under the new scheme to be granted for works of fine art in the ‘still images’ category (which also includes photographs). It allows Leeds Museums and Galleries to use images of Ginner’s paintings in the UK in the following non-commercial ways:

• In live events or exhibitions, including publishing in free handouts

• In any of our newsletters, bulletins or promotional material, either in print or online (for instance this blog!)

• On our social media platforms

• For educational purposes, including any related learning or training material produced.

Another work by Ginner in our collection wasn’t included in the Orphan Works application because it is already in the public domain: Royal Ordnance Stores (c.1943) was commissioned by the government’s War Artists’ Advisory Committee and subject to Crown Copyright (which lasts for 50 years after creation, and therefore expired in 1993).

‘Royal Ordnance Stores’, oil on canvas, by Isaac Charles Ginner.
Work in the public domain, donated by the War Artists' Advisory
Committee, 1947. Photo © Leeds Museums and Galleries.

When our Collections Online site is launched, all the Ginner paintings will be proudly, and legally, displayed alongside thousands of other objects, artworks and artefacts from the Leeds Museums and Galleries collections.

The Orphan Works Register lists all applications and licences granted. Anyone with information that might help to trace rights holders of Orphan Works is encouraged to contact the IPO.

Images from top: 'Leeds', oil painting, 1914; 'The Circus', oil on canvas, 1913; 'Penally Bridge, Boscastle', oil on canvas, 1915-1947. All works are by Isaac Charles Ginner (1878-1952). Images displayed under IPO Orphan Works licence no. OWLS000005, see: www.orphanworkslicensing.service.gov.uk/view-register Photos © Leeds Museums and Galleries

 By Alison Glew, Copyright Project Officer 

Playing detective - Researching Victorian crime objects

Police truncheon made by Howell of Leeds

I have been researching objects in the collection relating to Victorian crime and punishment for next year’s exhibition at Abbey House Museum.Some of the objects I researched were equipment used by 19th Century police constables, such as police truncheons, a policeman’s rattle and a warrant card.

I researched the owners, manufacturers and dates of the objects. This led me to social history section at Leeds Central Library, where I researched the identities of the people who owned or made the objects using trade directories and reference books. On websites such as www.ancestry.co.uk I found birth and death records of the police constables who owned the objects. 

Police rattle made by J Wood, Leeds

Researching past police officers

In order to research the police constables further I went to the West Yorkshire Archives, where I found a detailed account of the careers of the police constables from such sources as a register of police constables from the early 19th to the early 20th century. I also found the identities of the police constables in the police code of conduct book which logged any promotions and any disciplinary actions the police constables faced.

Uncovering court cases

I also researched some of the 19th Century court documents in the collection, such as a document that summoning a woman named Emma Jarrett to court as a witness to testify against a man named Harry Earnshaw. He was later found guilty and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for stealing two horses in 1880. 

I also found other interesting court cases. There was a jury summons for the Leeds Assizes in May 1926, during which one of the trials involved Louie Calvert, who was one of the last women in Britain to be hanged.

By Bradley Hilton, Level 5 work placement, Leeds Trinity University

3D Scanning the West Yorkshire Hoard

We love a good challenge here at Leeds Museums and Galleries and currently we’re looking into 3D scanning technology to develop 3D data models of objects in the West Yorkshire Hoard, a small group of Anglo-Saxon gold rings and other items found in the Leeds area. 

One of the objects found from the hoard include this stunning, unusually large 10th Century gold ring with a round decorated bezel (pictured below).

This 10th Century gold ring is part of the
West Yorkshire Hoard 

For conservation reasons, the items from the West Yorkshire Hoard cannot be scanned the same way as other objects; usually a fine powder is applied to gold to stop the light reflecting during scanning. Because the objects are so precious, putting any sort of coating on the items risks leaving a residue, particularly on the objects that are very highly decorated.

So how do we digitally preserve these objects without damaging them?

Last week, Curator Kat Baxter and Digital Media Assistant Liz Chadwick went to Crewe for the day to check out the latest in small scanning technology.

Three different types of scanning technologies were identified, including this infra-red laser that scans at 458000 points per second at a resolution of 5 microns (One micron is 1/1000 mm (1/25,000 of an inch).

In order to achieve the perfect scan, the object needs to be able to rotate 360 degrees so the laser can pick up all the information.

These items are over a thousand years old; the arms usually used to do this could potentially harm the surface of the objects, so Europac are developing a special arm for Leeds Museums and Galleries to use which will be both stable enough to rotate the objects securely but padded so as not to damage their delicate surface.

The next stage is to come back to Europac once the arm has been developed and to scan all the objects properly. We will keep you updated on the progress!

By Elizabeth Chadwick, Digital Media Assistant

Creating a Community Wall Hanging at Temple Newsam House

The City of Leeds YMCA Sewing group, pictured with Councillor Lucinda Yeadon

The inspiration to create a new wall hanging for Temple Newsam House came out of a community engagement session about textiles through history.

The City of Leeds YMCA Sewing group, based at Osmondthorpe, visited Temple Newsam on two occasions in 2013 to learn about Leeds Museums and Galleries’ Textile Collection. During one of their visits they viewed fabrics in the Textile Discovery Room, chose fabrics that were of a particular interest to them and gave reasons behind their choices.

We discussed how to make the Textile Discovery Room look more interesting and colourful. The idea of creating a community wall hanging was born. Members of the group decided to design images on 30cm squares of material with themes based around Temple Newsam House.

The museum and the community collaborating

As momentum for the project developed, staff, volunteers and members of other learning groups became interested and expressed a desire to contribute. Eventually the created squares reflected other interests and cultures beyond Temple Newsam House.

A member of the Family Learning group from Osmondthorpe offered to sew all the squares together to produce the finished piece that now adorns the Textile Discovery Room.

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By Helen Pratt, Assistant Community Curator, Temple Newsam House