JAMES Ickringill, worsted manufacturer of Eastwood Mills, Keighley, and Legrams Lane, Bradford, and benefactor of the Oakworth Road Primitive Methodist Mission, was mindful of youths’ welfare when he founded his Good Lads’ Brigade in 1911.
Its members pledged to attend Sunday School, say their prayers and refrain from smoking “cigarettes, cigars, tobacco or any other kind of weed”.
This code of conduct bore fruit during the Great War, when nearly 300 former Good Lads, successfully resisting temptations in the Army, wrote appreciative letters home to Mr Ickringill.
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