KEIGHLEY was honoured with its first royal visit on May 29, 1918, when King George V and Queen Mary, showing the flag for the war effort, spent an hour in the town.
Into this short spell they crammed tours of Burlington Shed and Grove Mills and a reception in the Municipal Hall, taking an unlikely interest in “the latest type of combing, backwashing, drawing and spinning machinery”, chatting to workers of 50 or more years’ service, and admiring the “smart khaki-coloured uniforms” of cheering munitions girls.
Among assembled local dignitaries the queen spoke briefly to Mrs Matilda Walsh, “a widow who has had three of her four sons killed in the war, the fourth being seriously ill from wounds in France”.
This informal photograph – another from Kevin Seaton’s collection – captures the moment when the king greets the mayor of Keighley, Frederick William Louis Butterfield, of Cliffe Castle.
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