It’s the question we’re all asking, so it’s time to activate our unrealised public celebrations correspondent Angus Young.
To the right of Hull City Hall’s main entrance there’s a marble foundation stone set into a wall officially laid by Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales during a royal visit to the city in May 1903. Unusually, it’s not accompanied by another stone elsewhere on the building commemorating the hall’s official opening. Edwardians loved the spectacle of an official opening ceremony yet, for some reason, one was never arranged for this monumental new civic landmark in the very heart of the city. Instead, a trade exhibition – the very first event staged in the building – provided visitors with their first glimpse inside without any fanfare, ribbon-cutting or more engraved stonework.
There’s no documented explanation for it except for some clues lurking in a rather sour newspaper report on the exhibition which opened on December 13, 1909. It said: “The visitors obtained a splendid view of what the hall will be when completed. The design of the interior of the entrance hall was not favourably commented on, the grand staircase at the Old Town Hall being, in the opinion of some, more dignified. Though the City Hall is designed for a bazaar, it cannot for a moment be stated that the building is completed. Simultaneously, workmen have been engaged in the interior of the building with the builders of the bazaar. The City Hall has been a joke with Hull for so long that one wonders how we shall get along when it is really completed”. The report went on to suggest an opening ceremony was being proposed at some point in the future but nothing ever materialised.
In noting construction was still underway more than six years after the laying of the foundation stone, the less-than-complimentary tone of the article was perhaps a nod to what had gone on before. For the long-running saga of the ambitious building project had turned many people against it.
The process of laying out a new public square which the City Hall would eventually overlook had started in 1890 following the clearance of houses, back streets and some small businesses. Sixteen years later, members of Hull Corporation property committee were getting understandably worried over the apparently sluggish progress on the new venue. By October 1906 it was being reported there was “considerable anxiety” over the issue with work on the basement and 15 planned shops “at a standstill”. At a meeting in May 1907 they requested the main contractor, George Panton, attend the next committee.
“The committee said the matter was so serious that they would like to see him. They did not want to break the contract but pressure had been brought to bear upon them,” it was reported. When he did appear, Panton said the delays were not his fault and that was the truth. “You are the contractor, whose fault is it?” asked a committee member. Panton insisted he was trying his best but claimed “unfortunate circumstances seem to be continually turning up”.
Another councillor then described employing just 34 men on the job as “perfectly ridiculous”. Panton said the size of the workforce wasn’t the problem, it was “getting the stone on the building”. City architect Joseph Hirst, who had designed the new concert hall, art gallery and shops which formed the building, revealed he had written over 50 letters to Panton complaining about delays.
Ten months later Panton was back before the committee being asked again when the building would be finished. Legal action had even been considered when piling was halted because the ground excavation work had not been completed. Committee chairman Alderman George Hall warned if sufficient progress was not made in the next fortnight the contract would be terminated. “The position is very grave and the committee’s patience is exhausted. We are the laughing stock of the town,” he added.
As we now know, the hall was eventually finished but there’s no official plaque to record exactly when that was. After all the fuss, perhaps it was just thought unwise to do so.