Leeds Town Hall was built between 1853 and 1858 on Park Lane (now The Headrow), Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, to a design by architect Cuthbert Brodrick.
Until early 1813, the Moot Hall at the top of Briggate was the seat of Leeds Corporation and was used for judicial purposes. It was replaced by a new court house on Park Row, Leeds.
Leeds went through a period of rapid growth in the first half of the 19th century and by the mid-19th century it became apparent that the court house was no longer large enough for the functions it performed. In July 1850, Leeds Borough Council decided to build a new town hall and established a committee to assess the opinions of Leeds' inhabitants as to the building of a new municipal hall.
In order to finance the town hall, the council proposed to sell shares in the building to the value of £10 but the proposal failed. The council then proposed introducing a specific rate levied to fund its construction although it was not introduced until after the November 1850 local election, and most residents who would have paid the tax at the time lacked voting rights. The town hall was approved in January 1851 when Alderman Hepper put the motion to the council and it was carried by 24 votes to 12. It was intended to represent Leeds' emergence as an important industrial centre during the Industrial Revolution and symbolize civic pride and confidence.
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre, (in the UK or Australia) a guildhall, a Rathaus (German), or (more rarely) a municipal building, is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city or town council, its associated departments, and their employees. It also usually functions as the base of the mayor of a city, town, borough, or county / shire.
By convention, until the mid 19th-century, a single large open chamber (or 'hall') formed an integral part of the building housing the council. The hall may be used for council meetings and other significant events. This large chamber, the 'town hall', (and its later variant 'city hall') has become synonymous with the whole building, and with the administrative body housed in it. The terms 'council chambers', 'municipal building' or variants may be used locally in preference to 'town hall' if no such large hall is present within the building.
The local government may endeavor to use the town hall building to promote and enhance the quality of life of the community. In many cases, "'town halls' serve not only as buildings for government functions, but also have facilities for various civic and cultural activities. These may include art shows, stage performances, exhibits and festivals. Modern town halls or "civic centres" are often designed with a great variety and flexibility of purpose in mind.
Halifax Town Hall is a grade II* listed, 19th-century town hall in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It is notable for its design and interiors by Charles Barry and his son, Edward Middleton Barry, and for its sculptures by John Thomas.
The Mayor and corporation first proposed that they build a new town hall in 1847. They suggested it again in 1853 after the town had become a borough five years earlier but they still had no central offices. They proposed it again in 1856. The later proposals were prompted by the 1853 Improvement Act, which allowed the borough to borrow £15,000 to build a town hall, courthouse, and police station. The 1856 proposal was also prompted by John Crossley, who was at that time developing Princess Street and Crossley Street, using the architects Lockwood and Mawson who later designed Bradford City Hall. This may explain why the Town Hall blends in with several Crossley Street buildings, which are now listed as a group.
The Council, Edward Akroyd and John Crossley requested that Charles Barry judge the design entries; he disliked all three entries and was asked in turn to submit his own design. His design was accepted, but he died in 1860. His son, Edward Middleton Barry, completed the design which was erected on a 148 x 90 ft plot on John Crossley's land. The foundation stone was laid in 1861. Whiteley Brothers were the builders. It was listed on 31 July 1963.
The Town Hall of Colombo is the headquarters of the Colombo Municipal Council and the office of the Mayor of Colombo. Built in front of the Viharamahadevi Park, Colombo, Sri Lanka, it is the meeting place for the elected municipal council.
The foundation stone was laid on May 24, 1924, by Mayor of Colombo T. Reid, CCS, and the work was completed in 1927. Designed by S. J. Edwards, it was originally meant to house the office of the mayor and the council chamber, and as a venue for functions requiring a large ballroom.
Today it houses the administrative staff of the municipal council. Its garden is the venue for many events.
Coordinates: 53°47′59″N 1°32′57″W / 53.79972°N 1.54917°W / 53.79972; -1.54917
Leeds i/liːdz/ is a city in West Yorkshire, England. Historically in Yorkshire's West Riding, the history of Leeds can be traced to the 5th century when the name referred to a wooded area of the Kingdom of Elmet. The name has been applied to many administrative entities over the centuries. It changed from being the appellation of a small manorial borough in the 13th century, through several incarnations, to being the name attached to the present metropolitan borough. In the 17th and 18th centuries Leeds became a major centre for the production and trading of wool. Then, during the Industrial Revolution, Leeds developed into a major mill town; wool was the dominant industry but flax, engineering, iron foundries, printing, and other industries were important. From being a compact market town in the valley of the River Aire in the 16th century Leeds expanded and absorbed the surrounding villages to become a populous urban centre by the mid-20th century. The main built-up area sub-division has a population of 474,632 (2011), and the City of Leeds metropolitan borough of which it is a part which has an estimated population of 757,700 (2011).
Leeds was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1904 to 1979. It was located in the province of Ontario. This riding was first created in 1903 from parts of Leeds North and Grenville North and Leeds South ridings.
It was initially defined to consist of the county of Leeds, excluding parts included in the electoral district of Brockville.
It 1914, it was redefined to consist of the whole county of Leeds, including the town of Brockville. In 1966, it was redefined to include, in the County of Lanark, in the Townships of North Burgess, North Elmsley and Montague excepting the Village of Merrickville.
The electoral district was abolished in 1976 when it was redistributed between Lanark—Renfrew—Carleton and Leeds—Grenville ridings.
On Mr. George Taylor's resignation on 25 October 1911:
On Mr. Stewart's acceptance of an office of emolument under the Crown, 7 August 1930:
On Mr. Stanton's death, 8 December 1960:
Loidis, from which Leeds derives its name, was anciently a forested area of the Celtic kingdom of Elmet. The settlement certainly existed at the time of the Norman conquest of England and in 1086 was a thriving manor under the overlordsip of Ilbert de Lacy. It gained its first charter from Maurice de Gant in 1207 yet grew but slowly throughout the medieval and Tudor periods. The town had become part of the Duchy of Lancaster and reverted to the crown in the medieval period, so was a Royalist stronghold at the start of the English Civil War.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Leeds prospered and expanded as a centre of the woollen industry and it continued to expand rapidly in the Industrial Revolution. Following a period of post industrial decline in the mid twentieth century Leeds' prosperity revived with the development of tertiary industrial sectors.
The name "Leeds" is first attested in the form "Loidis": around 731 Bede mentioned it in book II, chapter 14 of his Historia ecclesiastica, in a discussion of an altar surviving from a church erected by Edwin of Northumbria, located in "...regione quae vocatur Loidis" ('the region known as Loidis'). This was evidently a regional name, but it subsequently occurs in the 1086 Domesday Book denoting a settlement, in the later Old English form Ledes. The name is not Old English in form, so is presumably an Anglo-Saxonisation of an earlier Celtic name. It is hard to be sure what this name was; Mills's A Dictionary of British Place-Names prefers Celtic *Lādenses 'people living by the strongly flowing river'. It has been surmised that the name denoted a forest covering most of the kingdom of Elmet, which existed during the fifth century into the early seventh. An inhabitant of Leeds is locally known as a Loiner, possibly derived from Loidis.