The Franklin Hotel

This image, taken around 1907, shows groups of well-dressed patrons setting out for what we can assume is some type of summer excursion in open-top horse-drawn carriages. The open windows seen on the buildings here suggest that the day trippers had the benefit of warm weather. By this time, the establishment’s proprietor is listed as J C Lewis, who took the reigns in 1902.

In 1909 in was reported that Mr. Lewis was stepping down due to ill health and that Mr H J Jones would be his successor. However, the 1911 census lists William and Susannah Jopling as manager and manageress – and it seems that the couple stayed in post until the hotel closed its doors for the last time.

Adverts from this period advise that the hotel and restaurant ‘supplies the great need of the town of Luton, conducted as it is on strictly temperance principles.’ They also promise the ‘best provisions’ at the ‘most moderate prices.’

In 1921, William Joplin was prosecuted for holding illegal dances in an upstairs room of the hotel. A newspaper report of the time details how an undercover officer attended an event and witnessed 22 people dancing and a ‘female at the piano’. It was also noted by the policeman attending court that the party who used the room were the ‘best dancers in Luton’. Joplin was fined 40s and advised to apply for a licence.

The Temperance movement in the UK, first founded in Bradford in 1830, campaigned against the consumption of alcohol and promoted total abstinence. Temperance hotels offered the amenities of a typical hotel but served no alcohol, only soft beverages.

Although the movement met with local success in parts of Britain, it failed to impose national prohibition and disappeared as a significant force after the World Wars.

Like the temperance movement itself, this building was relatively short-lived. By in the mid-1920s it had been demolished to make way for the gas showrooms, which occupied the plot until at least the 1970s. The large house which can be seen here to the left of the hotel was Dr Horace Sworder’s residence, Durham House. This was the last residential address on George Street. It was knocked down in 1925 to make way for a new Sainsburys. William Joplin died in 1929 in Rothesay Road.