Yorkshire Almanac Bradford councillor and would-be property developer John Foers denies trying to “Poulson” Gary Rawnsley, chair of the planning committee

11 March 1974: Bradford councillor and would-be property developer John Foers denies trying to “Poulson” Gary Rawnsley, chair of the planning committee

Times. 1974/03/12. Councillor’s Alleged Offer of “a Bob or Two”. London. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Councillor’s alleged offer of ‘a bob or two’
From Our Correspondent
Leeds, March 11
John Foers, aged 62, a Bradford city councillor, who wanted planning permission to build houses on his five acres of land, offered the city’s deputy lord mayor a “bob or two” in the council chamber, it was alleged at Leeds Crown Court today.
Mr Foers, a councillor for the Thornton Ward of Bradford since 1966, was alleged to have said to Councillor Garfield Rawnsley, chairman of the planning and parks executive committee: “I don’t want to Poulson you, but if this application gets through there will be bob or two in it for yourself.”
Mr Foers, a smallholder, of Brighouse and Denholme Road, Bradford, pleaded not guilty to a charge of corruption.
Mr Geoffrey Rivlin for the prosecution, said that for several years Mr Foers had wanted to build houses on his land in Thornton, but in 1962 he was refused planning permission because of the isolation and drainage difficulties.
Last June, after approaching the city development officer, Mr Foers was advised to put in another application for outline planning permission, which he did.
In the council chamber in July, just before a council meeting, Mr Rivlin said that Mr Foers caught Councillor Rawnsley, a telephone engineer, by the arm, took him to a quiet corner and told him of his plans.
After the offer of a “bob or two” Mr Rawnsley had told him to stop there and to submit his application for consideration on merit.
At a later meeting, Mr Rivlin said, Mr Foers told Mr Rawnsley: “I did not mean anything wrong. I simply meant that if the application went through we would have a celebration.” The trial continues tomorrow.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Verdict. The Yorkshire Post may specify the date of the meeting in question. “Good God, Gary, don’t think I am trying to Poulson you!“

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Comment

Verdict. The Yorkshire Post may specify the date of the meeting in question. “Good God, Gary, don’t think I am trying to Poulson you!“

Something to say? Get in touch

2 March 1830: Leeds Corporation prosecutes its own waste contractors, Messrs Kelly, and a Woodhouse Moor landowner, who have been fly-tipping fæces

22 February 1865: Rioters besiege the Park Square, Leeds, home of surgeon and magistrate Henry Chorley, on the release from Armley Gaol of his dripping-thief cook Eliza Stafford

30 May 1835: The (Tory-dominated) Leeds Corporation gives its assets to three cronies to prevent their being inherited by the new (Whiggish) town council created by the Municipal Corporations Act

27 June 1835: On the eve of municipal reform, the Leeds Mercury maps the self-electing clan that runs the Leeds corporation

2 May 1844: The Bradford Observer reports a 10% increase in the borough’s population in two years

30 October 1744: Landowners form a partnership to pipe water from Little Horton to Bradford, facilitating urban growth

30 May 1835: Alfred Austin, future poet laureate, “Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum,” is born into rural splendour at Ashwood, 48 Headingley Lane, Leeds

26 October 1864: Martin Tobin confronts his ex-banker, William Beckett-Denison, regarding the bank charges levied on his account

27 August 1754: The (Tory) Leeds Intelligencer calls on Holbeckers to accept the appointment by Samuel Kirshaw, Vicar of Leeds, of a new curate, Richard Fawcett Snr, to St Catherine’s Chapel

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Comment

Via Roy Wiles (Wiles 1965).

Events

“Sunday last” is 25 August, but Fawcett managed to get in by 11 September:

On Wednesday last Mr. Fawcett for the first time performed Divine Service in the chapel of Holbeck, but was escorted to and from the chapel by a party of Dragoons, who kept guard at the doors during the service. Notwithstanding this precaution, some evil-disposed people found means to break the windows and throw a brickbat at Mr. Fawcett while he was in the reading- desk. The Sunday following he went through the service unmolested. And on Sunday last he preached a most excellent sermon, 46th verse of 13th chapter of Acts… The same night some prophane sacrilegious villains broke into the chapel and besmeared the seats with human excrements.

On 22 September he was able to conduct a reduced Sunday service in peace:

On Sunday last the Rev. Mr. Fawcett was received and behav’d to by his congregation at Holbeck with great decency… One of Mr. F.’s friends admitted their favourite preacher to his pulpit in the town-by this means the tumultuous part of the people were mostly drawn away from Holbeck, and the curate left at liberty to perform his duty amongst the peaceable and well-disposed inhabitants of the chapelry.

However, on 22 October we read that

In the night between the 16th and 17th inst., the windows of the chapel of Holbeck were again broken. No wonder, when Holbeck contains such a nest of vermin whom neither the laws of God or man can confine within the bounds of decency, etc.

For which John Robinson, a “Houlbecker,” was in November sentenced to be whipped and to pay a fine of £5 (Griffith Wright 1895).

In the summer of the following year he published his first Sunday’s sermon and and his resignation letter. I think that in the following Fawcett is quoting things actually said to him:

A man might oftentimes, by due Care and Watchfulness, perhaps very safely defeat the Schemes, and discourage the Practices of the private Pilferer; and yet, whenever this is done, it is commonly suspected to be done rather for the Preservation of his own Property, than out of a pure Regard to the Public-good: But when he is attack’d in his house, or upon the road by open Plunderers, and requir’d to deliver, or suffer himself to be rifl’d of what he is possess’d of, with some one of these dreadful Alternatives, of having his Brains immediately blown out,” or their hands “wash’d in his hearts Blood,” or “having bis “Entrails pull’d out at his Mouth,” or “being “buried alive,” it will Then surely be accounted highly Romantic in him to reject their demands, out of a Pretence to prevent the bad Influence of their Example; and he will be generally suspected of giving a Proof of his Fool-hardiness or his Avarice, rather than of his public Spirit, by such a Refusal.

In the resignation letter he says that he

perform’d the Duty of the Curacy for near Three Months after he gain’d Admission into the Chapel, and this too, rather to prepare a Say for the peaceable Reception of any other Person whom the Patron shou’d think proper to nominate, that out of any Prospect of reconciling the People to himself.

Fawcett declines to attribute responsibility (“Who the Incendiaries were, the Sufferer neither Pretends to Know, nor Desires to be Inform’d”). He also explicitly excuses the lord of the manor, who at this juncture I take to be Lord Irwin (aka Henry Ingram, 7th Viscount of Irvine) rather than the Whiggish Scholey family, as well as other leading citizens (Fawcett 1755).

Was Fawcett a lousy preacher, or was the mob’s alternative, whoever he was, utterly adorable? Was there a Whiggish or Radical element at work? Was there some element of revenge for Samuel Kirshaw’s victory over James Scott in the struggle from 1745-51 for the vicarage of Leeds (Taylor 1865)? Perhaps you know.

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