"If we look around at our
mills, our warehouses and our public buildings, it needs no
great effort to imagine that Bradford was built on wool."
Bradford Observer 31st December 1900
In the first half of the nineteenth century Bradford was
the fastest growing industrial town in the country. This rapid
growth brought many problems and in 1845 it was described
as 'the most filthy town I visited' by James Smith in his
report to the Health of Towns Commission. From being a town
of comparative unimportance it had risen to be one of the
chief industrial centres of the kingdom, displacing Wakefield
and Leeds as the mercantile centre of all the textile industries
of the entire West Riding. Brear's Guide to Bradford, published
in 1873, states "within the last dozen years
so much has been done in the way of street improvements, and
so many noble buildings have been erected in the widened thoroughfares,
that Bradford bids fair at no great distance of time to equal
other towns in the width, straightness and importance of its
principal streets. The heart of the town is occupied with
shops, warehouses, offices and public buildings. Market Street
is now the finest street in the town...including on its street-line
some of the best buildings in the town: amongst them the Town
Hall, the Exchange, the Mechanics' Institute, the range of
buildings occupied by the Third Equitable Building Society
and Messrs Brown Muff's extensive shop."
 St.
George's Hall opened in 1853, shortly after Julius Delius
arrived in Bradford. It was one of the largest public halls
in England. In addition to being a subscriber and guarantor
Julius was a lifelong member of the Bradford Subscription
Concerts Committee. Many of the Germans in Bradford felt that
if they couldn't have an orchestra of their own they would
share the one which had been established by Charles Halle
at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester and so the Subscription
Concerts began in 1865 at St. George's Hall.
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