MANSION FOR TRAMPS

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 August 1928, Page 2

MANSION FOR TRAMPS

SOCIAL REFORMER’S SCHEME

Formerly the mansion of Sir Milton Sharp, Bart., Chairman of the Bradford Dyers’ Association, Spring House, Heckmondwike, near Bradford, is now a home for tramps. The change was brought about by Mr. J. T. Gibbons, a prominent social reformer in the North of England, who recently described the result of his experiment at a meeting called by Sir John Simon, Lord Henry Bentwick, and Mr. George Lansbury, at the House of Commons, to consider changes in the vagrancy laws. To a Daily Chronicle representative whom' he showed round the mansion and grounds, Mr. Gibbons said: —“I had never been satisfied whether the greater number of men on the road were actually genuine and just victims of circumstances. or whether they were, in the main, ne’er-do-wells. ,To find out I took this house as my qwn home, went to' local casual wards, selected about. IS men, and brought them back here, determined to treat them as my own guests. “There is nothing institutional about Spring House. Instead of inviting my guests to come and play golf and tennis” with me, I invite these men in order to discover the real causes of vagrancy, and also to give them a chance to make good. “I have now had nearly 100 men in the house, and I am quite satisfied that 60 per cent., at least of the postwar tramps on the road are victims of circumstances. They come h'ere, stay for as long as two or three months, attend to the work of the house and garden, and we help them by collecting references, preparing their application for work, and help them to get to their destination.” The house is a beautiful structure of Georgian type, standing in fine gardens, and set will back from the road. It is not luxuriously furnished, but it is comfortable. There is a bright dining-room, an inviting lounge, a recreation room and a quiet little private chapel where most of the guests go to services of their own free will. The sleeping accommodation is clean, comfortable and spacious. “I cannot now continue the work on its present scale entirely on my own financial esponsibility.” “Mr. Gibbon said, “and the Wayfarers’ Benevolent Association has been formed to support it, with Sybil Lady Eden as president.”

People in all parts of the country are taking an interest in Spring House and several of the rooms of the mansion have been furnished and are, in part, maintained as memorials. One perpetuates the name of Donald Hankey who wrote “A Student in Arms,” and another that of Mr. Eustace Firth, brother of Sir Algernon Firth, the carpet manufacturer and a former president of the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom.