Ancestry UK

St Hilda's Home for Girls, Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire

The St Hilda's Home for Girls was opened by the Waifs and Strays Society in 1926 at 24 Keighley Road in the Manningham district of Bradford. The Society had already been raising money to open a home for very young children in the Bradford area when it was offered the existing Bradford Orphan Home, which fitted its requirements. On October 5th, 1927, Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles, officially re-opened the home as St Hilda's, with the Bishop of Wakefield conducting a service of dedication. A guard of honour was provided for the occasion by girls from three other homes in the diocese, St Chad's Home at Far Headingley, the Beckett Home at Meanwood and St Margaret's Home at Nidd.

St Hilda's appears to have been used to accommodate girls somewhat older than originally envisaged. In the late 1920s, it housed 36 girls aged from 6 to 8 years; five years later its capacity was given as 30 girls aged from 7 to 16.

Former St Hilda's Home for Girls, Bradford, 2013. © Peter Higginbotham

The home had its own Girls Guides company. It also developed a strong musical tradition after a percussion band was started in 1936 by Mr Stephen Moore, the Honorary Secretary of the Worcestershire Association of Musical Societies, who had been visiting Bradford on other business. The following year, the band played on the radio as part of a talk given by Mr Moore. They also appeared on two gramophone records and were even visited by Sir Adrian Boult who listened to them playing along with some of his own orchestral recordings.

At the outbreak of war in 1939, the girls were evacuated to the St Winifred's Home in Rhyl, and then to Lismore House on Fairfield Avenue in Rhyl. It appears that the Bradford home was never re-opened.

The property is now in private use.

Records

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