Standburn was in an unusual position. It had a Gothenburg public house – the profits from which were invested in welfare schemes for the mining village. Using this money a public hall had been built in 1914 and in 1920 the public baths were opened. The latter contained five bathrooms for men and five for women. This arrangement will be the subject of a separate article.
By May 1924 a Welfare Committee had been set up at Standburn and after discussion it was agreed that it should take over for its scheme the existing Standburn Public Hall and the Standburn Baths, which had been closed since the end of the previous year. As the hall was in need of repairs, and central heating would have to be introduced, it was estimated that a sum of £800 was required for the purpose. This project required the legal transference of the lease from a trust to the Standburn Miners’ Welfare Committee and in the meantime that Committee was awarded £200 to erect a hut at Redford.
The legal niceties surrounding the Standburn Public Hall took time. It was January 1926 before the Second Division of the Court of Session considered a petition presented for Sir Adam Nimmo KBE, coalmaster, Glasgow, and others, the trustees acting under a trust constituted in a lease granted by James Nimmo & Co, and for the trustees acting under the Standburn Trust, which was created in 1914. By the lease the company had let to the trustees named in it, and their successors, inter alia, the hall which had been built by the company, and was then known as the Standburn Public Hall, for 800 years, for a nominal rent of £3. The hall was to be used solely for the purpose of a public hall and recreation rooms, and deficits in the accounts were made good by grants from the Standburn Trust of £2,500. The petitioners now desired to transfer the objects let under the lease to the Standburn Miners’ Welfare Society, formed under the Mining Industry Act, 1920, whose objects closely resembled those of the trust so far as related to the hall and ground attached. The petitioners further desired that the trustees under the Standburn Trust should be released from the obligation to contribute to the upkeep of the hall. The Welfare Society was willing to take over the hall and the other subjects of the trust. The division granted warrant to the trustees to renounce the lease of the subjects in question to the company in order that the company might transfer them to the society, and admitted the final accounts of the Standburn Trust.
Meanwhile work proceeded on upgrading the hall. Contractors moved in during July 1925 and by mid August the repairs in the baths were fully completed. A new floor of Oregon pine had been laid in the hall, and two billiard tables stood in the recreation room. Central heating still had to be installed throughout the building, and the whole building had to be painted and finished. A new departure was the installation of a large library. In November that year the Standburn Miners’ Institute was open on two days of the week – Fridays and Saturdays. Dances were held and the membership already stood at 150. At the beginning of 1926 the Institute was open throughout the week and the baths twice weekly.
January 1926 also saw the official opening of the Redford Hut on the 21st. It had 46 members. The year proved to be a difficult one due to a lengthy strike which considerably reduced the Society’s income. On account of the closing down of No. 6 Standburn Colliery, the electric light supply was cut off for several weeks. A friendly arrangement was reached with Messrs Nimmo, whereby the firm deferred claim for grant due, allowing a sum to go to the Welfare Society sufficient to install a small electric light plant. The strike used up the reserves of the Welfare Society and in 1927 it made a loss.
On 11 December 1926 a new cinema was opened in the hall and proved very popular. Frank Thomson describes some of the many social activities held in the Institute which continued to be known as the “Public Hall,” or sometimes as the “Welfare Hall.” Foremost amongst these were the film shows which attracted audiences from a wide area. These were run by John Paterson assisted by Andrew McFarlane and it was only with difficulty that the caretaker, Willie Robertson, was able to get the patrons to leave. Local talent was on display in shows produced by Jenny Forbes, such as “Cinderella” and “The Magic Ruby.” The Saturday night dances held in the Welfare Institute, under the auspices of the Welfare Society, proved very popular, with large crowds from Falkirk and the surrounding places attending. The Standburn Miners’ Welfare Society worked closely with the Standburn Child Welfare Clinic, letting it use its accommodation and staging Christmas parties.
The opening hours at the Standburn Public Hall were seasonal – being shorter in the summer months. In July 1930 parts of it were closed for renovation and then re-opened in the first week of October. The woodwork in the hall was patched up and painted as part of a new decorative scheme, the central heating was overhauled, and the billiard tables were recovered. The baths, which had been part of the original scheme, had never been very popular, and as the boiler for heating the water would have to be renewed they were closed down. It was several years before they were demolished:
“FOR SALE, at the STANDBURN MINERS’ WELFARE BATHS, 10 CUBICLES. 2 WATER TANKS, HEATING BOILER, other Plant, etc. offers to Hon Secy, 3 Irene Terrace, Standburn.”
(Falkirk Herald 31 March 1934, 1).
1931 had closed with a deficit of £32 for the Standburn Miners Welfare “owing to the industrial distress in the district” and things were not going to improve. Despite that, the hall was renovated over the summer of 1933 and a new piano acquired. Alterations made in the billiard room were claimed to have made it “one of the finest in the district.” The Institute, which had generated its own supply of electric light, now took the supply from the Scottish Midland Electricity Supply Ltd, and Laurie and Son of Falkirk installed the new motor generator for cinema use. There was an ample supply of daily and weekly newspapers. Almost immediately rumours began that the population was to be moved and the miners’ rows demolished. Families started to be moved to Maddiston and the new model village at Westquarter – the community was split asunder. Inevitably the Miners’ Insitute closed.
Latterly the hall was also used as the “Buroo” for paying out dole money to the unemployed. The Standburn Institute then stood empty for a number of years – but in 1937 it looked like it might get a reprieve. The Property Sub-Committee of the Stirlingshire Education Authority inspected the building with a view to using it as a store for its school furniture. The idea was to employ a joiner to overhaul the furniture to save money. The County Architect reported on the condition of the two-storey hall, noting that it would cost between £200 and £300 to put it into proper order. However, the location was far from central and so in the end the store was located elsewhere. That November the property was advertised for sale (to be demolished), with the contents thereof, comprising central heating boiler, piping, electrical fittings, etc. Fuller information and conditions of sale were to be had from the Secretary at 3 Irene Terrace, Standburn.
Fate had one final twist of fortune for the building. In the 1938 preparations leading up to the Second World War the Stirling and Clackmannan Air Raids Precautions Committee needed a store for its allocation of respirators. That June it reported that the only suitable building in the entire eastern side of its area was the Miners’ Welfare Institute at Standburn. It had already been sold to a demolition contractor and he agreed to withhold further demolition. It lay empty and partly demolished for over 35 years before finally being levelled around 1975.
Falkirk Local History Society 