THIS was Edward Roberts' Borough Model Lodging House in Leeds Street, in 1924, rather euphemistically termed “the Working Man’s Home”, offering single beds for eightpence a night.

Keighley at that time boasted three common lodging houses, essentially catering for the homeless. They had a combined total of 288 beds. The Borough Sanitary Inspector singled this one out for special praise as “a model of cleanliness, and fitted with electric light throughout. Emergency exits, fire extinguishers, baths, hot water in the wash-house and kitchen, in fact everything possible is done to ensure the safety and comfort of the lodgers."

Proprietor Edward Roberts was a local philanthropist. At the 1937 Coronation, by which time he was running the New Mansions Lodging House in the former baptist chapel in Turkey Street, he converted its old graveyard into a garden “gay with tulips and floodlighted at night”, collecting £71 towards the Mayor’s Radium Fund.

He also threw a party for 200 children from the Westgate area, providing tea, fruit, sweets and new pennies, while 20 babies received souvenir spoons.

The photograph has been supplied by Bill Palmer, of Shann Avenue, Keighley.