RANDOLPH INSTITUTE

SATURDAY 30 JULY 1898:

The Randolph Institute was opened.  The official ceremony was performed by Miss Hopkins, daughter of North Bitchburn Coal Company chairman William R.I. Hopkins.  It was an occasion, “the like of which had not been seen in living memory”.  A public tea, dancing and a cricket match took place. The Institute was presented to the village by the North Bitchburn Coal Company as a Diamond Jubilee gift, its cost of erection being about £500, the members raising a fund themselves to pay the cost of furnishing.  The billiard table cost £75, the firm giving ⅓ and lending the other ⅔ which is to be paid back in 2 years.

Below: August 1897: Possibly the ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone for the Randolph Institute.  Evenwood Band in front of the building.

In October 1909 a new library was added and in May 1910, a billiard table.

Below: The billiard room

Auckland Chronicle reported the following:

1897 August 26: North Bitchburn Coal Co. have a large interest in the Evenwood district and will commemorate the Jubilee year by providing a recreational and educational institute to be named the Randolph Institute.

1897 September 2: A great event of last week was the stone laying of the new institute.  Local “grand old man”, Mr. T. Hewitt made the presentation speech.  Mr. Heslop, the chairman of the Parish Council, is justly proud of the work done at the colliery – screening, washing and the coke plant is the wonder of the North. The foundation stone was 35ft by 24 ft.

1898 July 7: Randolph Institute built by the colliery owners is to be opened on Saturday July 30th by Miss Hopkins of Walworth Castle. A number of influential gentlemen are expected to take part in the proceedings.  At the opening there is to be a public tea, cricket match and dancing.

1898 August 4: A full report of the opening ceremony by Miss Hopkins and speeches given by Lord Barnard, Ald. Richardson and Ald. House was published.

1899 February 23:  A gathering presided over by Mr. Brown at Randolph Colliery when Mr. Thomas Briggs (Evenwood’s schoolmaster) was presented with a microscope. 

Evenwood Parish Magazine reported the Opening of the Randolph Institute as follows:

“As one has justly observed “Saturday, July 30th 1898, will be very appropriately regarded as a red-letter day in the annals of the village of Evenwood.”

Whilst the Randolph Institute is erected to stand as a memorial of the sixty years’ happy reign of Good Queen Victoria – a reign teeming with the greatest inventions and wonders in the world of science and art – it will also stand out as a witness of the kindly feeling and harmony existing between capital and labour.

In front of the Institute had been placed a massive and firm platform raised four or five feet from the grund on which and near it the following personages were present, viz: Ald. Joseph Richardson MP, who presided; Lord Barnard; Mr. W.R.I. Hopkins, Rev. A.T. Gledhill; Rev. C.H. Goodwin; Ald. House; Mr. W.H. Hopkins; Mr. Ralston; Mr. C. Widdas; Mr. Heslop; Mr. Foster Hutton; Mr. J. Cox; Mr. S. Vasey; Mr. T. Hewitt; Miss Hopkins; Miss Gledhill; Miss Bolam; Miss Murray; Mrs. Goodwin; Mrs. Bruce and others too numerous to mention.

Ald. J. Richardson, the chairman, said, “It was with extreme regret that he had to announce that Lady Barnard was not sufficiently well to be there” but they were delighted that Lord Barnard was present.  The Chairman of the Company, Mr. E.B. Mounsey and Sir Jos. W. Pease MP, were unable to come to the ceremony; the latter was out yachting with Sir Donald Currie.

He spoke of a great future in store for Evenwood and trusted that the inhabitants would make use of the Institute.  He said he saw an abundant supply of newspapers and he hoped by and by they would have a good library because he thought in places like that something ought to be done to try to raise the level of the young people.  They had now free education and he hoped everyone would make free use of such a library to elevate themselves for the better educated a man was, the more useful and the better citizen he made.  The County Council had made their colliery villages more habitable and he would commend such work which made the villages more what they should be – places of recreation where the men after hard work in the pit could enjoy some of the pleasures of life.

Mr. Foster Hutton then came forward at the request of the chairman and addressing a few words to Miss Hopkins presented a beautiful Silver Key to her.

Miss Hopkins, who is the daughter of the managing director of the North Bitchburn Coal Company, then descended from the platform and unlocking the door opened the building.  After which, addressing the assembly in a few choice words, she said it had been a great pleasure, and she felt it to be a great kindness on their part to ask her to open that Institute, and what moved her more than anything was the fact that such a desire on their part had been caused by their affection for her father.  She hoped that the Institute would confer a lasting benefit upon the inhabitants of Evenwood, and now she declared the building was open for use and pleasure of the inhabitants and that it would be carried on in agreement with the rules which she had been told had been drawn up by the workmen themselves.  She thanked them very much for their kind reception and for the kind presentation of the Silver Key, which she would value very much.”

Below: The Randolph Institute at South View, overlooking the village green, Evenwood

1912: The Randolph Institute annual meeting confirmed the following:

  • President: W. Hustler
  • Vice President: Thomas Heslop
  • Secretary: John Cox
  • Treasurer: R.W. Watson

Committee:

G. Parkin; T. Briggs; J. Simpson; T. Hewitson; C. Patterson; W. Allison; W. Gray; R.W. Atkinson; J. Ellerker; J. Thorburn & G. Robinson.