The Life of Sir William Hartley

With the heavy duties and responsibilities involved in the care and extension of his business, in his work for the Church and his expenditure of time as well as money on service to uplift his fellow-creatures and ameliorate their lot, it would not have been surprising if Mr. Hartley had found no leisure for public service. And it is true that such activity played a very subordinate part in his crowded career. Still he took some share in municipal and political life. In 1893 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the county of Lancaster, and sat at the Courts in the Kirkdale division of Lancashire. On January 14, 1895, he was elected on the Walton School Board. From 1895 to 1898 he was a member of the Liverpool City Council. For a year he served on the Health Committee, and on his suggestion this Committee abolished the 4-feet back passages, and substituted the 9-feet back streets. The late Lord Derby was then Lord Mayor. An invitation which greatly appealed to him was that he should accept the Mayoralty of Colne. This came to him in 1919, when he was seventy-three years of age. In view of the fact that he was a native of Colne, that he had presented to his birthplace the Cottage Hospital and the Hartley Homes and was preparing to build the new hospital, the invitation was very fitting. Moreover he had become an Honorary Freeman of Colne in 1909. He carefully considered and took medical advice on the suggestion. He regretfully declined it because the medical verdict was adverse and because his residence was too far away. He told me at the time that the Town Council had offered to make the duties as light as possible so as to facilitate his acceptance. But he had felt that he could not accept an office the duties of which he could not adequately fulfil. Undoubtedly he did wisely to refuse, but naturally he felt very deeply the call from his native town to which he was so profoundly attached. He was knighted by King Edward VII on July 21, 1908, and he was presented to King George V and Queen Mary when they visited Southport in 1913.

Few distinctions which Sir William received were more highly valued than his admission to the Honorary Freedom of the Borough of Colne. On Wednesday, July 28, 1909, the Mayor, Councillor John Smith, introduced the following resolution at a meeting of the Town Council which had been passed by the General Purposes Committee: "That in the opinion of the Committee of the Town Council it is the most fitting opportunity to place on record its appreciation of the high esteem in which Sir William Hartley, of Aintree, is held by the inhabitants of his native town; and in recognition of the many valuable services rendered by Sir William to the Borough, as well as to the community at large, that he should be created a Freeman of the Borough, and that the usual formalities required by the Municipal Corporations Act be complied with."