Sometime listed as in Willow Street, as it stood on corner Wanlip Street and Lower Willow Street.
In 1866, a court case showed John Tew charged with keeping his house open after time when twenty-one people were found drinking upstairs. Tew won the case by claiming it was a private party.
Ed Smith obtained licence in August 1867, but was refused a spirit licence. He passed it on to Charles Harrison in 1868, who he was fined £1 for being open on Sunday morning. This passed to William Johnson in 1869, and on to John Harris (some discrepancy in the names as some reports say John Harris, some John Harrison), in April 1869.
James Wykes followed, entering into an agreement that he would pay John Harris £1400 over a period, giving security that he would keep up the payments. This Wykes did until June 1872, when he had a breakdown and was placed in the Borough Asylum. There he remained for four years until 1876.
After he was discharged, Wykes attempted to regain the Wanlip Inn and a dispute arose over the ownership. Wykes claimed that whilst he was in the Asylum mortgage payments had been kept up. Harris denied this and asserted that as nothing had been received, Harris ran and kept the proceeds from the trade.
The disagreement rumbled on, and by 1879 Harris had had enough so took action against Wykes to recover the arrears, threatening that if there was no positive response from Wykes, he would sell the Wanlip Inn and brewhouse at auction. This he did in July of that year. The Wanlip Inn was eventually knocked down for £960 – to no other than James Wykes.
During October 1874, a meeting was held at the Wanlip Inn to present John Webster on his release from prison, a purse containing 8 sovereigns. Those present believed John Webster had unjustly received two months imprisonment relating to a weavers’ strike and assault of a PC during the weavers dispute.
The dispute between weavers at Archibald Turner’s Bow Bridge works followed a period of ill feeling and a lock out at the factory. Windows had been broken and a ‘knobstik’ (strike breaker), weaver assaulted. But the wrong man had been arrested.
A crowd gathered in Russell Square, trying to rescue George Sherriff, who had been agitating after the ‘knobstick’ weavers who had worked during the lock out. PC Morrison claimed he was struck a violent blow on the back of the head that rendered him insensible, and claimed John Webster was the culprit. The weavers knew Webster had been wronged so arranged a meeting and collection for him at the Wanlip Inn.
Other Licensees at the Wanlip were: 1884 James Goddard (who took over from James Wykes); 1896 Joseph Webster. At this time Welch Bros became the owners.
1910, Fred Smith; 1915, Sydney Page. In April 1920, LBM purchased the property from Welch Bros. In 1929 Walter Grey was licensee, in 1938 it was John Copson.
LBM would purchase the adjoining properties in December 1940: numbers 18, 20, 22 and 24 Wanlip Street.
A postscript on Archibald Turner. My father joined as a weaver as a fourteen-year-old. As a teenager in the 1950s, I visited the gothic looking factory, as my dad wanted to get me a job there. Not for me though, I couldn’t believe he had worked in those conditions all his life. The noise of the looms was deafening. There was more to life. He also pointed out that old Miss Polly Gadsby who had worked there doing the same job since she was nine, was now nearing ninety-three-years-old (a world record according to Guinness Book of Records).
My father joined Archibald Turner in 1923, and apart from his army and war days, he worked there for almost forty years, until he was taken ill and admitted to hospital in 1961, as he had been off work seriously illy (it was his third time in hospital), Archibald Turner sent him a letter in hospital, his P45s, which upset him deeply, breaking any hope of him returning to work.
He died not long after. That insensitive act shaped my outlook and politics. I vowed I would never be in that position. I would work for myself.
Archibald Turner went into liquidation in 1963 (no tears shed by me). The ornate Georgian/Gothic building was later demolished.
Barry Lount
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