The first world war changed the fortunes of the town celebrated
for its springs, the world depression of the 30's accelerated the
decline in Spa treatment.
Came the second world war and Harrogate as a safe area, was
requisitioned to its last five-star bedroom. The Ministry of Works,
and other government departments evacuated from London, moved in;
hotels were stripped of their furniture over-night, and permanent
residents had alternative accommodation found for them by the doting
doctors.
It was remarkable that when de-requisitioning and rehabilitation
came about on 28th February 1947, there remained no fewer than
thirty old ladies, (one, with a devoted middle-aged bachelor son,
whose father had built the beautiful church of St. Wilfrid on the
Duchy Estate) anxious to be re-introduced to the Hydro as permanent
residents. The new management, recruited from the catering
department of the new Westminster Hospital in London, received them
and resumed business on the old pattern, but the revival was short
lived. The old days had gone for ever; medical science had
progressed enormously, and though the doctors re-appeared and tried
to dominate, they were no longer willing to invest their own capital
in hotel keeping, and whilst the National Health Service prescribed
a respite of three years for the Harrogate Spa treatment with a
subsidy of £30,000 per annum, more advanced treatment was becoming
available in the new hospitals. The Queen Hotel re-opened, but soon
closed to become the headquarters of the Leeds Regional Hospital
Board. The Hydro re-claimed its moribund intoxicating liquor licence
and changed its name back to the Swan - The Old Swan Hotel - as that
latter day benefactor and Mayor, Alderman C Jack Simpson, Chairman
of the company, whose father and grandfather before him had both
been Mayors of Harrogate, proclaimed it must be.
Jack Simpson was also chairman of the Baths and Wells Committee
of the Harrogate Corporation; he could not condone the re-opening of
the Hydro's suite of medical baths to compete with those of the
municipality. A shrewd decision, for they could not have been
profitable, and a wise decision too, for subsequently the area was
redeveloped for the operation of the modernised hotel.
C Jack Simpson became a Freeman of Harrogate before he died in
1973, but it was now Geoffrey Wright who was " licensed to sell
intoxicating liquor" at the sign of the Old Swan at Harrogate from
1952 onwards. Alderman Simpson or Jack Simpson as he was known to
his
