Just before the war...

This is not intended to be a history of Leeds during World War Two, rather a look at some aspects of life during that time. It was inspired by two things – the many photographs on the Leodis web-site depicting life in Leeds during the war years, and also the accounts of events as reported in the local newspapers, such as the Yorkshire Evening News. They give a fascinating insight into what life was like in Leeds during the war – how people coped, what was going on politically and how we celebrated the end of the war. Much of the information in this account has come from the back copies of the Yorkshire Evening News.

Before the war even started, Hitler deprived Leeds of a couple of interesting buildings by his actions. Not many people today are aware that the current plans to build a skyscraper in Leeds are by no means the first time that this idea has been put forward. Plans were afoot in the late 30s to build a skyscraper on Briggate, showing that Leeds was a city with aspirations even then! The plans were deposited with Leeds Corporation on 8th March 1938, and were for a skyscraper of 23 storeys, twice as high as the Queen’s Hotel. The plot of land was where Marks and Spencer’s is now, and would have covered more than 3,000 square yards, with a frontage of 86 feet. It would have affected 50 to 60 tenancies, including the old Rialto cinema, which was, in the end, demolished to make way for the store. The intention was to demolish all existing buildings on the site, and cover the whole plot with a huge building, the chief characteristic of which was its height. It was claimed that, if built, it would be the tallest building in Yorkshire.The plans for this project were carried out in much secrecy, but it was rumoured that the new building would be occupied by well-known retail outlets, which makes it sound very much like an early shopping mall!


Hitler also deprived Leeds of a new Civic and Cultural Centre which was to have been built on the site of the existing library and art gallery, and would have extended across to Cookridge Street. It was to have housed the Library and Art Gallery, and the City Museum which was then housed on Park Row. The Libraries committee was very excited about these plans, and congratulated the architect, John Proctor, on his clean, modern design. There seems to be no doubt that the plans would have gone ahead, had not WW2 put a halt to them, and it would have meant the demolition of the Central Library and Art Gallery, which would have been a great loss to the city. The full potential and beauty of the Central Library can now be seen in the newly restored Tiled Hall.

In 1936, building work began on the famous Quarry Hill Flats, which were a symbol of the future for many Leeds people. Happily the war did not, at least, deprive us of them, however, short-lived they may have been. They were hailed as a modern miracle of housing and were inspired by the Karl Marx Hof in Vienna. They were built to replace some of the worst slums in Europe, and there is no doubt that they were infinitely better than the old back-to-backs they replaced. They were clean, warm, comfortable, and almost completely self-contained, with laundry rooms, a state-of-the-art waste disposal system, a communal restaurant, and safe play areas for the children. There is also a nice, if apocryphal story, that Hitler intended to use the flats as the military HQ for the German High Command in the event of a German invasion. Sadly, there is no evidence for this story. They were certainly used as temporary barracks for soldiers at the beginning of the war. Unfortunately, they developed serious and costly structural faults, and were eventually demolished in the 1970s. In this photograph, people are queueing up to have a look at look at the inside of the new flats.

Taking shelter. Air raid shelters soon became an inescapable fact of life for the civilian population. Coal cellars and basements were converted, and specially made shelters, such as the Anderson shelter, were called into use. According to public records, many householders in Leeds were not very impressed with the notion of having an air raid shelter, and initially refused to have them, but then, as soon as the raids began, demanded that the council provide them forthwith!

One Leeds couple, Mr. And Mrs. Horace Fawcett of Cardigan Avenue, Burley, were held up by the ARP as shining examples of resourcefulness and ingenuity. Their shelter was a strengthened coal cellar, and the Fawcetts had obviously gone to great pains to make it comfortable. When members of the ARP came to inspect this shelter, they found the walls neatly papered, electric lighting and a heater installed, chairs and a table, and pictures on the wall, with a cot for the baby in the corner. “It is a grand piece of work” was the comment of Cllr. HW Sellars, ARP chairman, “We only wish that other people would make the same sort of effort instead of rushing to the corporation with trivial complaints”.

At the time, the council was getting many complaints from ratepayers, about the lack of amenities in the public shelters. To be fair, the people of Leeds had a point – the public air raid shelters, such as the ones in City Square, were spartan in the extreme. Most public shelters were built of brick, with a thick concrete roof, and inside were divided up into rough ‘dormitories’ in which up to six bunk-beds would be installed. These shelters were built to accommodate thousands of people, so you can imagine what living cheek by jowl with complete strangers would be like!

Coal cellars were by no means the only sort of domestic shelter to be had. The Anderson shelter was the brain child of the then Home Secretary, John Anderson. He was concerned about the vulnerability of ordinary householders in their homes during bombing raids, and presented the problem to the engineers William Paterson and Oscar Carl Kerrison, who came up with a blueprint in less than a week, and a model in two weeks.

The Anderson Shelter could hold up to six people, and was made of six corrugated curved steel sheets, with two ends pieces for the back and front. It was sunk into the ground, and covered with a thick layer of soil. It was said that this type of shelter could withstand anything but a direct hit. The shelters were given free to people who earned under £250 per year, and were £7.00 to everyone else. Morrison shelters were another solution for the householder, particularly for those who did not have a garden, or for whom an Anderson Shelter was impractical for other reasons. Morrison Shelters were designed to be used indoors, and were table-shaped, with wire mesh sides which could be removed if you wished to use the shelter as a table. Underneath, a mattress and bedding would be placed, and the householder would crawl in and settle down for the night

Public shelters began to proliferate. This photo was taken after the war, and shows how City Square had been transformed for the duration by these ugly buildings. Plans were made to demolish public air raid shelters as soon as the war was over, and this City Engineers photo would have been taken just prior to demolition work.







Bombing raids Leeds got off relatively lightly for bomb damage – certainly compared to cities such as Coventry and London. There were nine bombing raids in all, between 25th August 1940 and 28th August 1942 Many families were made homeless in the bombing raid of 1st September 1940.

Here we see a house on Easterly Road with its doors and windows blown out, but otherwise relatively undamaged. Repairs to such a house would have been carried out fairly quickly so that the family could move back in. In the meantime, they would go and live with friends or relatives, or transferred to other accommodation nearby. The early hours after the raid would have been spent in a nearby local church or chapel, or other community building.
On the same night, a block of working class flats were bombed, and later on, as repairs were started, the head of the Corporation Housing Department expressed his satisfaction at how well the flats had withstood the blast. He said “Close examination shows little, if any damage, to the superstructure”. Another bomb went off in the middle of a group of houses 30 hours after it had dropped. It had buried itself 4ft deep, which minimised the effect of the blast. Even so, one house completely disappeared and others were severely damaged. The occupants had already been evacuated, and the only casualty was a woman suffering from shock.






This photo illustrates how randomly bomb damage affected buildings. No 11, Cliff Side Gardens was neatly sliced in half in the bombing raid of April 1941. The damaged half was subsequently rebuilt to match its original appearance down to the last brick.





Leeds Town Hall was bombed in the so-called Quarter Blitz of 15th March 1941. This was one of the worst raids suffered by the city. The newspapers however, were very secretive about which towns had been hit, simply referring to “A North East inland town”. This was no doubt due to the strict censorship that was in force, although it seems a little naïve to suppose that the Germans did not know where and what they had bombed! The press was at pains to emphasise what a magnificent job the fire brigade and the AFS (Auxiliary Fire Service) had done, bringing the fires under control in remarkably short time. Whether this was true or not we don't know, but even if it wasn't, the best possible spin was always put on these reports, so as to boost the morale of the beleaguered civilians.

The report (from the YEN), goes on to describe how the public and their rescuers were laughing and smiling throughout their ordeal. A German communiqué at the time claimed attacks on Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield, Tilbury Docks, Plymouth and Southampton.



Food and rationing Ration books were first issued in October 1939, although rationing did not actually begin until 8th January 1940. It was meant to start in October 1939, but the Daily Express began a “Stop Rationing” campaign, which meant that it was postponed for several weeks. Here, we see women preparing the ration books for the people of Leeds. Some typical weekly rations for one person were: 4oz bacon per week, 2-4oz tea, 1-8oz cheese, 8oz sugar.

An advertising campaign in 1943 had this memorable little ditty:

Someone's going to be sorry

Someone's going to pay

Someone's going to be sorry

They wasted my life away.

This was accompanied by a picture of a tablet of soap dissolving down the sink because it had been left in water!


The scarcity of food made the new ‘British Restaurants’ popular with the public. These were industrial-style canteens set up by local authorities with money loaned by the Ministry of Food. The food they served was “off ration”, and were a cheap and popular alternative to eating at home. In the early days of the war, the rich few were still able to enjoy almost pre-war levels of fine cuisine at top hotels and restaurants, and this naturally led to much resentment from the rest of the population.

From 1942, the government prevented restaurants from charging more than 5/- a meal, and this helped to curb the most ostentatious examples. A three course meal in a British Restaurant would set you back a mere 9d. Standards varied from restaurant to restaurant, and the good ones were much appreciated, building up a large and regular clientele. They were set up in a variety of places. The crypt of Leeds Town Hall was the location of one such. Some local allotment holders would often supply any surplus vegetables for use in the restaurants. All food waste from the restaurants were given to the local Pig Clubs and the like, so there was no waste at all. Cafes and Restaurants had to comply with the Ministry of food regulations in that no one could be served at one meal with more than one main course of either Meat, Game, poultry, Fish, Eggs, or cheese.

People and events

Escaped Barrage Balloon An escaped barrage balloon was the cause of much excitement in Leeds on 15th May 1940. It had broken away from a barrage over a “Northern Town”, and its progress was followed by thousands of Leeds people as it drifted over the city, knocking chimney pots and spouts off houses as it went, as well as setting lots of alarm bells off. Some ARP men managed to secure one of its trailing wires to a lamp post near St. James's Hospital, but it tore the lamp post out of the ground and continued on its way.

Eventually, a contingent of RAF men, skilled at dealing with escaped balloons, arrived to deal with it. It finally came to rest on Sheepscar Street North opposite the Clarence Hotel, but not without knocking one more chimney pot off a nearby house in Clarence Square. The balloon had been loose over Leeds for four hours.

Escaped barrage balloons were, seemingly, a bit of a common occurrence. A former pupil of Royal Park School recalls: “I remember seeing a barrage balloon coming loose and so I set off to follow it with a dozen or so others. It ended up at the other side of Woodhouse Moor. The next morning we were given 1000 lines –‘I must not follow barrage balloons’.”

POWs reunion, Roundhay Park Seen here are some POWs boarding a special bus on 19th June 1945, which will take them up to Roundhay Park for a huge reunion celebration with friends and families.

The reunion had been organised by the Yorkshire Evening News, and came about as a result of the efforts of Mrs. Constance Gold, the hon. gen. secretary of the YEN POW Club. She had promised “When the boys come back we’ll have a really slap-up party together”. The BBC made a recording of the event to broadcast to Forces programmes, and newsreel cameras filmed parts of the programme. Mrs. Gold addressed the crowd with these words; “This is your day. I have so often written to you about the wonderful party we would have when we came back, and this is it. We have had to prepare for 10,000, but it's a job we've loved tackling”. She paid tribute to the courage, fortitude and devotion of the POWs.

A happy incident occurred when a call came over the loudspeakers for a Mr. And Mrs. Bolton of Heckmondwike. A wire had been sent to Roundhay Park to tell them that their son, who had been missing in the Far East for three and a half years, was now safely back in England. On the day, over 3,000 ex-POWs and 7,000 friends and relatives had gathered in Roundhay Park, on what was to be the hottest day of the year.

Sir Winston Churchill Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Churchill visited Leeds in June 1945, part of a victory tour round the country to celebrate the end of the war. Here they can be seen waving to the crowds from their open Daimler, and have perched on the back of the seats so that the crowds can see them.

Churchill gave a speech from the steps of the Civic Hall, which was largely drowned out by the cheering of the crowds, and affectionate cries of “Good old Winnie!”, and “Good old cigar!”. The crowds swept aside the police barrier so that they could get closer to their hero. Churchill was given the freedom of the city of Leeds on 28th October 1953.

Despite Churchill’s great popularity, he lost the General Election on 5th July 1945 to Clement Attlee's Labour Party. The populace felt that a Labour Government would rebuild post-war Britain without the class and social divisions of previous generations.

Homes of Tomorrow Exhibitions The Homes of Tomorrow Exhibition took place in Lewis's Department Store annually, and was organised by the YEN. The 1944 exhibition was opened by JB Priestley, who remarked that women now had the vote, and could agitate and make elaborate nuisances of themselves. He even hinted that the war could have been prevented by women. “This has been very much a women's war, though if women had only exercised their prerogative to vote and taken a keener interest in affairs, this war might have been avoided”.

The newspaper did not report what the women in the audience had to say about this! The keynote of the exhibition was economy, with promises to save time, fuel, house-space, and the housewife's back. An inquiry bureau had been set up, where housewives could leave their questions, every one of which was to get an answer. In addition, they could put questions to a Brains Trust of building experts.

The exhibition of 1945 was opened by Professor A.M. Low, distinguished scientist and President of the Institute of Patentees, who told women to demand scientific improvements in the home, and not merely wait until they were thrown at them. He is seen here (the man wearing glasses), being shown the wall-mounted “Ascot” instantaneous hot water heater. Prof. Low had a particular interest in scientific applications for homes of the future, and in his speech made some astonishing claims:” Do you realise” he said, “it is now a perfectly simple matter to have apparatus in your kitchen which enables you to see a visitor standing on the doormat as he rings the doorbell? Do you appreciate that there is cloth that cannot be creased, even if the baby sits on it all night; curtains which can be cleaned by the wafting of a white rag; and rooms from which every particle of dust is taken electrically by a simple device to the ceiling, and emptied once a week?”

The war ends

VE Day The unconditional surrender of the German forces came about on May 7th, 1945, and the next day was declared Victory in Europe Day. Thus ended six nightmare years of misery and hardships. In this photo, a group of men from a Scottish regiment perform an impromptu sword dance on the steps of the Town Hall, to the delight of the watching crowds. Celebrations went on all night in some quarters, and street parties were the order of the day.





This is a few days later, on the 13th May 1945. The crowds are waiting for the appearance of the Lord Mayor to make his announcement and speech, after which the VE Day parade will begin. They seem happy and cheerful despite the pouring rain.




VJ day 15th August was officially declared Victory in Japan Day, after the Japanese surrendered to the Allies. In this photo, Lord Mayor Charles Walker stands at a podium draped with the Union Jack, reading the announcement that Japan had surrendered, thus bringing to an end the hostilities of the 1939-45 war.




Crowds of happy people throng the Town Hall Lions as VJ celebrations kick off in Leeds. The weather was awful, despite it being the middle of August, but no-one seems to mind the rain in the least.






A lovely heart-warming image of women dancing in the street as it finally sinks in that the war really is over at last.



This photo was taken at 1.30am on the 15th August, showing that celebrations went on for days, without much of a break! This group includes nurses, servicemen and children




Street Party One of the many street parties which took place all over the country in celebration of VJ day and the end of the war. This one took place somewhere in Woodhouse. The communities would have pooled their resources to provide goodies for the party, and particular attention would have been paid to the needs of the children. Note the plates of iced buns and even a trifle, all made with carefully hoarded ingredients. Trestle tables would be set up the middle of the street, traffic not being much of a problem then!