Eastern Morning News – Friday 24 November 1899
Mr Buckingham Pope might devote some of the leisure moments which he can spare from the task of instructing the Hull and Barnsley Railway Clompany into the way it should go to the more pressing work of promoting reforms nearer home
Last night’s “Westminster Gazette” contained some scathing comments upon a picture of the village of Denaby Main, the colliery community which Mr Pope’s enterprise has called into existence. Denaby has been described, it seems, by religious journal as ” the worst village in England,” and if its statements are not overdrawn the unenviable title is justified.
Contents of “Christian Budget”article repeated
We forbear from quoting the lurid details of family and social in the village, lest the Dantesque gloom of the picture should suggest possible exaggeration.
The ” Westminster Gazette,” however, which is not given to sensationalism, concludes that, despite its prosperity and its eight hours day, a place which “ought to be a paradise seems, if the account given of it be correct, to come very near being a hell.”
In justice to the Denby Main Company, it should be added that a church was recently erected out of its funds; and we can only remark that the ministrations of the clergyman appear to be not at all superfluous