Members - Leeds

Leeds DIOCESAN BRANCH - Formed 1910

President: Mrs Sally Hamp
Branch Secretary: Mrs Joan Cheetham
Branch Treasurer: Mrs Margaret Cox
OLC Representative: Mrs Mary Rodwell
Chaplain. Father Nicholas Hird
Sections at: Harrogate, Huddersfield, Heavy Woollen (Batley) and Wakefield. We have 46 members and 6 Direct members.

Bishop Arthur Roche after blessing the new Leeds Branch banner.

Miss Margaret Fletcher, founder of the Catholic Women’s League in 1906, was present at a meeting in Leeds on 4th June 1910 when Cardinal Bourne urged every woman present to join the League and there was a great response. At one time there were over 1000 members in the West Riding parishes. Cardinal Heenan, when Bishop of Leeds, was a great supporter of the CWL and appreciated all the work they did in his Diocese. Now we are small but still involved in all aspects of the League’s work in our parishes, the wider community, nationally and internationally.

Members of the Branch are very active in the mainstream of the League. Joan Cheetham, has just completed her three years as Representative for Region 1 and now represents the League on the National Committee of the Women’s World Day of Prayer. Barbara Stitt has stepped down from serving four years as Public Relations Officer and is now the League’s International Liaison for WUCWO and both she and Sally Hamp, Branch President, are members of the Services Committee. Other members are involved with Churches Together, the UNA, Housing Association and Parish Councils. Members from the four sections also support the Apostleship of the Sea, St. Michael’s, St Gemma’s  and Hospices for the terminally ill, the Leeds Diocese Peru Commission, CAFOD, Water Aid as well as the charities within the CWL itself.

Branch officers-the AGM 2008 held at St. Peter’s Skipton. Joan Cheetham, Sec. Sally Hamp President, Cath Morley, Vice President, Margaret Cox, Treasurer.

Members come together to celebrate Founder’s Day on December 5th and the Branch AGM is held in a different Parish each year.

In September 2007 three members of the Branch attended the WUCWO European Assembly in Verona, Italy. The theme was “Let’s stop the trafficking.” Delegates from 16 European countries, many of them former Eastern-bloc countries, reported on the situation in their own area. The statistics were horrifying of the numbers of victims, women, children and young men who are trafficked across the world and back, like a commodity, for the financial gain of the evil perpetrators of this transgression of human rights. We must never forget that it is here and now in the UK too, not in some remote corner of the world.

In 2010 we shall reach the centenary of the founding of our Branch and plans are well underway for the celebration, to be held on Saturday June 5th with Mass at Leeds cathedral of St. Anne. This will be followed by lunch at the Queen’s Hotel, the AGM and a Gala dinner.

The annual Pilgrimage to the Wayside Crucifix at Studley Roger near Ripon will also be special in 2010 as the Mass will be held in Ripon Cathedral prior to the ceremony.

Members of Leeds Branch and UCM at the Lady Chapel in Leeds Cathedral of St. Anne, on December 5th.

History of the Shrine
The Wayside Crucifix was erected by the, then, West Riding Branch of the CWL on a corner of the site which was used, at the outbreak of war in 1914, as a holding camp for English and Canadian soldiers waiting to be shipped to France, where many died at the Battle of the Somme. By 1916 there were 30.000 troops in the Northern and Southern Command Depots. Each day members of the CWL travelled to Ripon from Leeds, Halifax, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Batley and Dewsbury to serve over a 1000 meals a day to the troops in what was known as the Ripon Hut, (The Mother Hut) bought and paid for by the CWL. There was also a library and a chapel, served from St. Wilfrid’s church in Ripon where the parish priest was Canon Levick “who did wonderful work among the soldiers of Ripon Camp.”

The Leeds Branch members now maintain the site and plant flowers along the front borders, though the Harrogate KSC did this for many years. New gravel chippings were laid in 2006 when two new benches were placed by the Leeds Branch to commemorate the Centenary of the League. The gardens around the Crucifix have been replanted with old fashioned red roses and the whole area fenced for safety. A new wrought iron gate and new hand rails at the steps finished this work, started in 2007.

The Crucifix is recorded as a War Memorial and because of this we have close links with the Services Committee. Many of the League’s Officers and members, past and present, have been to Ripon for this pilgrimage which is unique and a very special and a moving experience for those taking part.

www.dioceseofleeds.org.uk