Beasley Weir Hydro, River Barle, Dulverton

Beasley Hydroelectric generating plant and Weir were constructed on the River Barle half a mile downstream from Dulverton c1909-12 by the Dulverton Electric Lighting Company.  Its purpose was to supply electricity to Dulverton.  It used two Armfield River Turbines housed in a corrugated iron Dutch barn style building.  It was requisitioned by the government during the First World War.  In 1930 the Dulverton Electric Lighting Company merged with the Exe Valley Electric Company and the original turbines were replaced with a single vertical shafted Escher Wyss turbine.  This was used until 1938 when the National Grid reached Dulverton but it was retained as an emergency back up during the Second World War. It was decommissioned in the early 1950s and the Rivers Authority installed fish tanks on the site.  These were used until the 1980s.

The current 78Kw Archimedes screw turbine was installed in 2015 by a Stroud based company called Renewables First Ltd.  It was completed in November of the same year.  The Archimedes screw is located at the side of the river adjacent to a large pool above the weir. The timber turbine house is located above the Archimedes screw.  A new fish pass was constructed at the same time.  The new turbine generates around 320,00 kWh per year, which is enough to power over 100 homes.

Beasley Weir, fish pass and Turbine House

Beasley Weir and Archimedes screw turbine

Sir George Williams, founder of the YMCA

George Williams was born at Ashway Farm near Tarr Steps on 11th October 1821.  He was the youngest of the 7 sons of tenant farmer Amos Williams and his wife Ann Betsy.  He went to school at Miss Timlett's dame-school in Dulverton and then later at Gloyn's private grammar school in Tiverton.  He left school at the age of 13 to work on the family farm.  In 1836 he was apprenticed to draper Henry William Holmes in Bridgwater. 

George became a Christian in 1837 and in 1839 he became teetotal.  In 1842 he moved to London to work for a large retail drapers called Hitchcock, Rogers & Co at 72 St Paul's Churchyard.  He attended the old King's Weigh House Chapel in the City of London. He worked for their domestic mission and Sunday school and also for Surrey Chapel's ragged school and Craven Chapel's open air preaching and tract distribution. Many of his colleagues at Hitchcock's were also Christians.

On 6th June 1844 George and 11 other shop assistants, most of them employees of Hitchcock's,  held a meeting at Hitchcock's to set up the Young Men's Christian Association because they were concerned about the lack of healthy activities for young men in major cities:  

“Our object is the improvement of the spiritual condition of the young men engaged in houses of business, by the formation of Bible classes, family and social prayer meetings, mutual improvement societies, or any other spiritual agency.”

They initially offered prayer and Bible study groups, lectures, education classes, reading rooms and refreshment areas to the large numbers of young men who were moving from rural areas into London at that time, to help them to adjust to urban life.  The organisation grew rapidly in London. In 1845 branches of the YMCA were set up in Manchester and Leeds.

In 1851 international links were made at the Great Exhibition and as a result, YMCAs were established in Europe, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India. 

In August 1855 YMCA Paris organised the first YMCA World Conference. An agreement about the mission and purpose of the YMCA was reached at this conference, which became known as the Paris Basis. A Central International Committee was set up as a result of the conference. This later became the World Alliance of YMCAs. George Williams attended 4 of the 6 international YMCA conferences between 1855 and 1880. 

In 1853 George Williams married Helen Hitchcock, daughter of George Hitchcock, the owner of the drapery firm he worked for, and he was made a partner of the firm. They had 5 sons and a daughter. George Hitchcock died in 1863 and George Williams became the sole proprietor of the firm. He became Treasurer of the London YMCA the same year. Three of his sons and a nephew later joined him in his drapery business, which changed its name to Hitchcock, Williams & Co in 1892.

In 1873 the YMCA opened its first holiday centre in England - at Ryde on the Isle of Wight.  In 1876 George toured around North America. In 1878 a permanent headquarters for the YMCA was established in Geneva.

George Williams helped to develop the National Council of YMCAs by raising money to buy Exeter Hall in London, where the YMCA often met, to prevent it from becoming a music hall.  In 1881 it opened as the headquarters of the London YMCAs and the new National Council.  George became the first president of the National Council in 1882.  He also supported numerous other societies financially and was president of many of them.

In 1894 George Williams was granted freedom of the City of London and was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1894.  In April 1905 he attended the YMCA's international jubilee in Paris.  He died at a hotel in Torquay on 6th November 1905, aged 84. He was buried at in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral on 14th November 1905 and is commemorated with a stained glass window in Westminster Abbey.  

George Williams is still remembered in Dulverton: a stained glass window in All Saints' Church is dedicated to him and there is a YMCA themed kneeler on display; a plaque on the Congregational Church commemorates his visit to the town to open the church on 26th August 1897.

Sir George Williams Memorial Window, All Saints' Church, Dulverton

YMCA kneeler in All Saints' Church, Dulverton

Plaque on Dulverton Congregational Church commemorating the opening of the building by Sir George Williams on 26th August 1897