Leeds Arts Club

The Leeds Arts Club was founded in 1903 by the Leeds school teacher Alfred Orage and Yorkshire textile manufacture Holbrook Jackson, and was probably one of the most advanced centres for modernist thinking in Britain in the pre-First World War period.

History

The Leeds Arts Club, founded by Leeds school teacher Alfred Orage and Yorkshire textile manufacture Holbrook Jackson, was an iconoclastic organisation that mixed radical socialist and anarchist politics with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Suffragette Feminism, the spiritualism of the Theosophical Society and modernist art and poetry into a heady mixture. It had close associations with the Independent Labour Party, the co-operative movement and the early Fabian Society. At its weekly meetings it would often discuss the connections between art, spiritualism, philosophy and politics.

In 1907 Orage and Jackson left Leeds and moved to London to edit the hugely influential cultural and political journal The New Age. Following their departure the Arts Club came under the sway of Frank Rutter, the founder of the Allied Artists Association and newly appointed Director of Leeds City Art Gallery, and Michael Sadler, the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds. Under their leadership the Arts Club maintained its interest in the relationship between radical politics, spiritualism and art, but this was expanded to encompass early psychoanalysis and, most significantly, abstract art.

The Arts Club

The Arts Club is a London private members club founded in 1863 by, amongst others, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and Lord Leighton in Dover Street, Mayfair, London, England. Today it is a meeting place for men and women involved in the creative arts either professionally or as patrons.

History

The Arts Club was a hub of the arts during the 19th-century and, although a social venue, it was known to be a place where influence could be exerted and careers developed. It was seen as the powerhouse behind the dealings of the Royal Academy. Its members and guests included Dickens, Millais, Whistler, Kipling, Monet, Rodin, Degas and Turgenev. As early as 1891, James Whistler, one of the Arts Club's leading members, broke away to found the rival Chelsea Arts Club.

The Arts Club has continued to provide a forum and meeting place for those involved in all the arts. The visual arts predominate the professional artists amongst today's membership; the vast majority of Royal Academicians still present amongst the members. Members not professionally active as artists include art dealers, gallery owners, artists' agents, as well as those who simply have an amateur or recreational interest in the arts.

Leeds

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 (electoral district)

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.

Electoral history

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:

See also

Leeds (UK Parliament constituency)

Leeds was a parliamentary borough covering the town of Leeds, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1885.

The borough returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) until 1868, and then three MPs from 1868 until the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 split the borough into five divisions at the 1885 general election.

Boundaries and History

Representation before 1832

Until the United Kingdom general election, 1832 the major town of Leeds was represented in Parliament solely as a part of the county constituency of Yorkshire. The only exceptions had been that the town was represented as a single member borough in the First and Second Protectorate Parliaments from 1654 to 1658.

Before 1832 no new English Parliamentary borough had been enfranchised since the 1670s, but Leeds came close to being represented from 1826. Stooks Smith, in The Parliaments of England, explained what happened.