NOTED PUBLIC FIGURES ATTEND OPENING AT GLEN COTTAGE

For 28 years, Glen Cottage, Earby, was an ever-open door.

The occupant, Mrs. Katherine Bruce Glasier, would welcome any traveller, no matter how humble his station, and offer warmth, rest and food. Now the cottage will offer shelter for the traveller for ever, for on Saturday, greatly converted, it was officially opened as a youth hostel, a memorial to one described as "one of the greatest women of her age."

Leaders of the Labour movement, including the Rt. Hon. J. Griffiths, deputy leader of the Labour Party, travelled from all parts of the country to pay a final tribute to a woman who, by her vision and campaigning zeal, helped to build the Labour movement from modest beginnings. They remembered her pioneering work for many social reforms, notably in the field of nursery schools and in working conditions for the miners. Officials of the Youth Hostels Association represented the organisation which, in future, will be trustees of the memorial. And throughout, Mrs. Glasier’s love for her fellow men and of high religious principles, were remembered with deep affection.

The occasion must have been a touching one for her son, Mr. Malcolm Bruce Glasier, now managing director of Elder Dempster Lines, the shipping company, who was accompanied by his wife. He looked round the much changed cottage which had for so long been his mother's home, where she had known happiness and tragedy. He heard people who had known her since they were children pay warm, sincere tributes to her fine character and beneficial work. Mr. Glasier was well pleased with it all. He told a Craven Herald and Pioneer reporter, "I think the whole scheme has been excellently devised and splendidly carried out. I feel sure my mother would have been delighted too. While the cottage has altered a great deal, yet it retains much of my mother's character."

"HER ANGELS"

Our reporter talked with Mr. Glasier in the muniments room, where young hostellers will be able to enjoy peace and quiet. Looking down on them, smiling always, will be a restored portrait of Mrs. Glasier, painted by John Mansbridge, whose father Dr. Albert Mansbridge, founded the Workers' Educational Association. Facing is a picture of her husband, Mr. Bruce Glasier (an architect who gave up a lucrative practice to write, speak and work for social reform), while furnishings include Mrs. Glasier’s bookcase, bureau and table. Later, pictures of her "angels," the people with whom she most liked to be surrounded and whose pictures always graced her home, will be added. They are Walt Whitman, G.B. Shaw, Kier Hardy, Mrs. Glendower Evans, Ghandi, Sir Raymond and Lady Unwin and J.W. Wallace. Mr. Glasier told our reporter that his sister, Jeannie, who is married and now lives in Australia, had sent her good wishes for the occasion.

A plaque on the wall of the hostel was unveiled by Miss. Miriam Lord of Bradford, who worked with Mrs. Glasier in many of her fights for social reform.

Introducing her, Counc. H.W. Waterworth, chairman of Earby Urban District Council, said the cottage had sentimental associations for him, since his father and mother had lived in it, and his eldest brother was born there. Mr. Waterworth said they who lived in Earby knew of the good work Mrs. Glasier had done in the district; others present would know of her achievements nationally.

MARGARET MACMILLAN Miss Lord said that she loved Mrs. Glasier from the bottom of her heart. Miss Lord refereed to the Margaret Macmillan fund, with which she is associated, set up as a memorial to one with whom Mrs. Glasier had a close association.

Miss. Lord said it was appropriate that the ceremony should be taking place on the anniversary of Mrs. Glasier's marriage. The lady they were that day honouring would be saying "splendid" and Miss. Lord continued "the radiance of her spirit is thrilling through this building. She is here with us now. She loved beauty and colour."

Recalling one of her favourite quotations, "As we give so we live," Miss. Lord said Mrs. Glasier had given to all who asked with both hands. She had given the gathered jewels of her whole life, and the speaker recalled how, on her eightieth birthday, she had been presented with a beautiful dressing gown and pair of slippers. The next time she saw the slippers they were on the feet of a poor refugee lady to whom Mrs. GLasier had given shelter. The speaker said that she pointed out that the slippers had been given to Mrs. Glasier, to which she received the reply "How better can I see them than on someone else."

The hostel, Miss. Lord ended, was given for youth. Her spirit would be rejoicing, and she would be with and over that company; her angels would ever shine over the hostel. It gave her the greatest pleasure and privilege of her life to unveil the plaque, she declared.

FAMED ROSE GROWER

Mr. Harry Wheatcroft, the internationally renowned rose grower, a friend late Mrs. Glasier, had travelled from Nottingham for the occasion, and presented her daughter-in-law with a beautiful bunch of roses. He has undertaken to stock the beautiful natural garden with roses in perpetuity.

Mr. Griffiths, who has been president and treasurer of the Katherine Bruce Glasier Memorial Fund, said when one wished to pay tribute to a great lady, memory itself turned the pages, revealing snapshots. His first snapshot, Mr. Griffiths recalled, went back to days, happy in retrospect, before the 1914-18 war, before the age of tumult from which the world had not yet emerged. It was at a conference at Merthyr Tydfil that he had first met the Bruce Glasiers, when he was a delegate, and fell under the influence of them, and people like them. Kiel Hardie was present.

Mrs. Glasier would have liked the gathering to think of her and her husband as a great partnership. They belonged to great generation of people who came to the Labour movement because they felt that to have full lives, there must be established a society calling forth the best in all men. Their roots were deep in religion, and they treasured highly their ethical values. Theirs was an ideal of giving not receiving. They practised Christian Socialism, and it was good in these days when we were so busy with the events of the world that crowd on us, to remember that was the fountain from which all sprang.

RELIGION FIRST

Quoting Mr. Glasier as saying Socialism was more closely related to religion than to politics, more to saints than statesmen, Mr. Griffiths said Mrs. Glasier’s favourite quotation was "As we give, so we live." That was the message of those early pioneers of the movement. Her socialism implied the socialism of all life, and she lived out that principle to the full. It was the secret of all happiness in life. The things a person enjoyed most, were the things he shared with others, and Mrs. Glasier was the greatest witness he knew to that great truth. It was enriching to have met and known Mrs. Glasier, and a privilege he could not express in words. She was an idealist who poured her self out in service. She lived on the hills but came down into the valleys to work.

The labour leader went on to describe how he had been a miner himself, and he recalled seeing her on the platform, pleading with the miners to campaign for pit-head baths, to agitate for them and thus relieve the womenfolk of much work. Now there were baths, but she had a hard fight, and for a long time the miner would not get away from the old ideas. From that she lead on to a crusade for the emancipation of women. Miners throughout the world, realising the debt of gratitude they owed to her, had contributed to the fund as a tribute to this great lady, Mr. Griffiths declared.

EVER YOUNG

His final recollection was when the Labour Party held power from 1945 to 1950. Some of those Ministers who had known her had thought they would like to entertain her in the House. They were the lucky ones; they had lived to see the fruits of her early pioneering, but she and those with her had served without hope of government, of winning elections or of gaining power.

Mrs. Glasier had visited the House of Commons and been entertained in a room there. She had been told of the work they were doing, the legislation they hoped to introduce and plans for the country. His final memory was of the leaders shaking hands with her, and as she reached the door she had turned round and said, "goodbye, I must go now. I have so much to tell Bruce."

Mr. Griffiths ended, "Although she lived to ripe old age, Mrs. Glasier was in spirit ever young to the end. There is something appropriate that this house, in which she spent so many years of her life, should go to the Youth Hostels Association. May her spirit inspire all who go in there. May the fellowship that inspired her life, abide in the hostel for ever more."

Mr. Arthur H. Dower, chairman of the Youth Hostels Association, paid tribute to the trustees of the fund, especially to the one who first had the idea, for going ahead with the scheme. To him, Mrs. Glasier had been for years only a name; now he knew she was someone they in the Association had sought for years, the genuine Youth Hosteller.

" I lift up mine eyes unto the hills," the Psalmist said, and that quotation meant a great deal to them, Mr. Dower continued. Not all Hostellers were potential social workers. Some merely used the hostels as a means of a cheap holiday. But some had dreams and saw visions, and it could be that perhaps someone in the mountains would see a great vision.

INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP

Mrs. Glasier, the speaker continued, had striven for international fellowship; so did the Youth Hostels Association. He felt their organisation would have her keenest support and love, and that she would have agreed with bringing young people together to prove that the nations of the world were not potential enemies, but friends. He hoped those who used the hostel would be inspired and that some hosteller would, perhaps see a vision and would prove a guide through the world chaos to which the Labour movement had not yet found a way.

If such a person was found, he would be the true successor to Mrs. Glasier. " We will endeavour to be worthy trustees of this hostel, and make it a true shrine from which the spirit of Katherine Bruce Glasier will shine forth for ever," he concluded.

Mr. Malcolm Bruce Glasier briefly paid tribute to all who had been associated with the project, and he was quite sure his mother would have loved it, for while there had been many alterations, the cottage still retained its character. He expressed special delight that representatives were present from the Margaret Macmillan Training College at Bradford. Margaret Macmillan had been a very old friend of his mother's, and she would have been glad to know that the college was represented. Mr. Glasier also revealed that the chairman of the fund, and of the ceremony, Mr. Gilbert McAllister, had been responsible for first suggesting the cottage should be a youth hostel.

Mr. McAllister added his tribute and asked Mr. Glasier to send good wishes to his sister in Australia. Miss Elizabeth Wigglesworth, of Accrington, who, with Miss Lord, was always referred to as " my spiritual sisters," added her tribute.

Others present at the ceremony included Mr.P.J. Clarke, president of the Youth Hostels Association; Mr.L.J. Clark, treasurer, Y.H.A. ; Alderman Anderson, representing the West Riding Ramblers Association; Mr.A.S. Lynch, one of the fund trustees, as well as many other local and national friends of Mrs. Glasier’s. Craven Herald and Pioneer June 27th 1958 Transcribed by Bob Abel, used with his permission.