Dunstable Yesteryear: Images of town's first lady Mayor

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Dunstable’s first lady Mayor, Lucy Dales, is now commemorated by a wooden statue erected in Broadwalk, Dunstable.

The carving is not an image of Lucy, so here are two lifelike pictures taken during her heyday. Inset is her official Mayoral photo from 1925. The main photo shows Lucy representing the figure of Peace on the highest point of a float during Dunstable’s Peace Day procession in 1919. Her father, John Dales (who founded a dubbin factory bearing his name in Tavistock Street) is the man with the beard standing on the left. He was Mayor of Dunstable that year, with his daughter as Mayoress, and they used this photo as their official Christmas card.

Her election as Mayor coincided with the introduction of electricity to the town, hence the carving of a lightbulb on the Broadwalk statue.

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Lucy had been a Dunstable councillor since 1908, living with her widower father in Tower House, an imposing building in High Street North. She established a Voluntary Aid Detachment in Dunstable to provide nursing care for military personnel and, with assistance from Waterlow’s, obtained the first fully equipped motor ambulance in the town, together with a driver. She used part of her father’s factory to establish a Brownie and Girl Guide pack there in the early 1920s.

Lucy Dales on top of 1919 Peace Day float.Lucy Dales on top of 1919 Peace Day float.
Lucy Dales on top of 1919 Peace Day float.

Her interests extended far beyond Bedfordshire. Part of her education had been at a finishing school in Belgium where she became friendly with a girl who became the future Queen of the Belgians. In later years Lucy was a frequent visitor to the Belgium Royal Palace.

She had a cousin in the British Secret Service who was arrested in Russia in the year before the First World War. She is said to have travelled there to make discreet inquiries – she could speak a little Russian – and succeeded in obtaining his release by bribing his captors. The story is now part of local folklore but so far historians have been unable to find documentary proof of the tale.

Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society.

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