HANDSWORTH

(COPYRIGHT)
A  LOCAL  SOCIETY  MAGAZINE

CIRCULATING IN HANDSWORTH, PERRY BARR AND BIRCHFIELDS.

Vol. V			  	JANUARY, 1899.				     No. 55
Our Picture Gallery.

No. 55. – MR J BAYLEY LEES, J.P.

With the name of J. Bayley Lees are associated in no small degree, the honour and respect which are the tributes due to one who worthily labours for the public good.    A better citizen or more upright magistrate it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find.

Mr Bayley Lees is a native of Hill Top and received his early education at the school of Mr John Marshall in that parish.  Subsequently he was sent to the Wesleyan College, Taunton, of which Mr T Sibley, M.A., was headmaster and went through the usual course.  After completing his college career, Mr Lees at once entered upon commercial life and is at the present time head of the firm with which his name has so long been identified in the midlands.  His first public function (says the “Asbury Magazine” our indebtedness to which for much in this article we are glad to acknowledge) was when a youth he laid the first brick of the Hill Top Chapel, in which he continued to worship until 1874.  The religious life of the Hill Top Society during those years was of a very high level indeed.  It reached its loftiest point during the ministry of the Rev.W L Watkinson.  The congregation was about nine hundred and there were five hundred members of the church. A band of earnest and devoted men, co-operated with the minister, class leaders of rare gifts and graces, men of sound sense and piety, spent their Sundays in teaching, visiting the sick and sustaining the minister by their practical expressions of sympathy.  Mr Lees remembers the visits to his father’s house of many of the most renowned of the Wesleyan Methodist ministers, Dr Newton, Dr Dixon, Dr Waddy, Rev. W Arthur, M.A., Dr Osborne and many others.

In 1874, Mr Lees married and went to live at West Bromwich.  He took a vigorous part in the secular life of the town and assisted by his amiable and accomplished wife, did splendid Christian work.  When in 1886 Mr and Mrs Lees came to reside at Handsworth, the West Bromwich Chapel with which they had been connected must have missed them greatly, Mr Lees having filled the offices of chapel, society and circuit steward.

It was not long before the fact was made apparent that the loss of West Bromwich was Handsworth’s gain.  For some years Mr Lees represented the central division of this parish on the Staffordshire County Council and during the three important educational years, 1892-5 (important that is to say to Handsworth, as marking a great change) he did yeoman service on the Handsworth School Board.  This authority, which consists of nine members, came into existence in 1892 and has got through an immense amount of useful work.  From the first the Board has pursued the policy of giving religious teaching in our Board Schools and its efforts in this direction have been signally successful.

Naturally a great deal depended upon the result of the election of 1892, since it would decide for three years at least, the vexed question of whether the bible should be taught or simply read to the children.  There was a strong list of candidates and party feeling ran high.  Mr Lees was one of six champions of the cause of bible teaching and he had the satisfaction not only of being returned himself, but of seeing his party head the poll with many hundreds of votes to spare.

At the first meeting of the new Board, Mr Lees was unanimously elected chairman of the Finance Committee and this important office was held by him until 1895 when, owing to the singular conditions under which the election was fought, he was unfortunately defeated.  The nine members of the Board being agreed on the general policy which had been adopted and not anticipating any serious opposition, consented to appeal to the electorate in a body.  A tenth candidate nominated by the Independent Labour Party in the person of Mr J Humphrey Humphreys (a member of the present Board) and, thanks to the cumulative system under which such elections are conducted, was in due course elected.  Someone, of course, had to be at the foot of the poll and to the intense surprise of most people and the unmitigated disgust of not a few, this dubious distinction fell to the lot of Mr Lees.  His colleagues were much chagrined at the whimsical turn taken by the election and it says much for their belief in the striking ability of the chairman of the Finance Committee that, one by one, almost all of them expressed a willingness to resign in favour of that gentleman.

Mr Lees must have warmly appreciated the camaraderie that prompted these offers, but he declined to allow any one of the successful candidates to so sacrifice himself.  Indeed the pressure of other duties was so great that he was not in anyway anxious to resume his work on the Board.  May we hope that when he has more leisure he will allow himself to be persuaded to resume his splendid services to education in this district?

A generous supporter of all charities and every movement that seeks to improve the social life of the neighbourhood, Mr Lees has long taken an interest in the Handsworth and Smethwick centre of the St John Ambulance Brigade.  Three years ago he presented a cup for competition by the ambulance classes in the centre.  This was won by Messrs. Best and Lloyd’s class.  So keen was the interest taken in the competition, that Mr Lees subsequently provided a massive silver cup for annual competition.  The first winners of this were the members of the Railway Carriage Works class and last year it was won by the Handsworth Parish class.  It is a direct incentive to the members of the brigade to keep up their knowledge of the principles of first aid.  Mr Lees is a staunch Conservative in politics.

Soon after Mr Lees came to reside in Handsworth he interested himself in the erection of Somerset Road Wesleyan Chapel.  The services had been held at the college, but the accommodation was limited and when the students were in residence, the college hall was inadequate to the needs of the locality.  At Somerset Road, Mr Lees is superintendent of the Sunday school, society steward and treasurer of the trust.  He has made a special study (says Asbury Magazine) of foreign missionary finance and contributed an article advocating a more thorough circuit organisation to work and workers in the official organ of the Mission House, which created very considerable interest.  Mr Lees was elected a representative to the Burslem Conference and also to those at Liverpool and Leeds; at the latter his life-long friend the Rev. W Watkinson was elected president.

Mr and Mrs Lees are blessed in having a family of three daughters and one son and dwell amidst a refined and beautiful home life.