Following significant population growth, largely associated with the
linen and
rope-making industries, the town became a
municipal borough in 1842. Council meetings were initially held in a small rented building in Victoria Square which later became part of the premises of
Cantrell & Cochrane. By the mid-19th century the town council found this arrangement inadequate and decided to commission a purpose-built town hall. The site they selected was a former pork market in Victoria Street. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nineteen bays facing onto Victoria Street with the end blocks of three bays each projected forward as
pavilions; the central section of five bays, which also projected forward, featured a central porch formed by two pairs of
Ionic order columns supporting a gabled
canopy. On either side of the central block, there were connecting blocks of four bays each. The building was fenestrated on both floors by round headed windows with
voussoirs and, at roof level, there was a
balustraded parapet across the whole frontage. The central and end blocks featured moulded
pediments containing
oculi and these blocks were surmounted by
mansard roofs. Internally, the principal rooms were the municipal offices, the recorder's courtroom and the police courtroom. After Belfast was awarded
city status by
Queen Victoria in 1888, the new city leaders formed the view that the Victoria Street building was not imposing enough and decided to commission a
new building in
Donegall Square which opened in August 1906. The old town hall then became solely dedicated to the operation of the recorder's courtroom and the police courtroom. It briefly served as the premises of printers, David Allen & Sons, from 1910 to 1912, when it became the home of the newly formed
Ulster Unionist Council:
Sir Edward Carson presided over a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in the old town hall on 7 September 1912 at which it committed to signing the
Ulster Covenant in protest at the
Third Home Rule Bill. Carson also made the old town hall available for use as the barracks of the
Ulster Volunteer Force under the command of Lieutenant General
Sir George Richardson. Many members of the Ulster Volunteer Force were recruited for service in the
36th (Ulster) Division in the old town hall and were then deployed to the
Western Front during the
First World War. although, by 2020, it was vacant. ==References==