HISTORICAL records from a Bradford Masonic order have provided insight into the German heritage of its early membership. Included with items of regalia including aprons, robes, banners, collars and certificates from the now closed Chapter of Sincerity - which was consecrated in 1854 and initially met at the Literary Institute on Darley Street - were detailed minute books and financial ledgers. The records reveal some people who founded the Chapter were German, or of Germanic decent, who came to Bradford to work in the city’s burgeoning cloth and textiles industry. The founder and First Principal was Joseph Arnold Unna, who is recorded as taking a great interest in local trade and charitable organisations. Born in Hamburg in 1800, he came to Leeds in 1836, and then to Bradford in 1844, to take charge of the local branch of a Manchester merchanting house, Messrs SL Behrens & Co.
ALL Keith Walker wanted was to see Father Christmas at Busbys so, aged just five, he took himself off and caught a bus to the department store. By the time he’d walked all the way home to Baildon, his frantic parents had joined a police search for him. “I didn’t know I was a missing child - I just wanted to see Santa,” smiled Keith, who remembers his adventure in December, 1953 “as if it was yesterday.” Despite being a five-year-old on his own, Keith managed to catch a bus from Baildon Bridge to Busbys on Manningham Lane, where he queued up to see Santa. Afterwards he walked several miles home.