The story so far
From the farms to a hall
Community historyMost of what follows comes from the hall’s own history, and we say so in the text.
Hungarian families were part of the wave of newcomers who took up work on the tobacco farms of the Norfolk sand plain. The hall’s own history records that about 1,000 Hungarians answered a 1933 newspaper call for tobacco workers, an advertisement placed by Paul Rapai, a tobacco farmer and businessman who had come to the district in 1931.S8 We have not yet found that advertisement, so the claim stays attributed until we do.
What is certain is the date the community made its mark on the town. The Canada Tobacco District Hungarian House opened on 15 May 1949.S8 It was one of several halls built in and around Delhi in the same few years, as the Belgian and German communities did the same.S9S24
- 1933A newspaper call for tobacco workers, as the hall’s history tells it
- 1949The Hungarian House opens, 15 May
- TodayThe hall’s story continues on its own website
- Hall
- Canada Tobacco District Hungarian House
- Opened
- 15 May 1949
- Earliest date
- 1933, in the hall’s own history
- In the story
- Chapter 7, A Town Transformed · Chapter 8, The Halls of Delhi
- Website
- delhihungarianhall.com
The other halls
More communities of Delhi
1948BelgianA drama club formed in 1943 became the Belgian Club, whose hall opened in 1948. For nearly seventy years it hosted archery, feather bowling, pigeon racing and dances.S9Read more →1950GermanGerman-speaking settlers founded the German Association Club of Delhi on 20 April 1936. Their German Home was built in 1949 and held its first dance in November 1950.S24Read more →1930LithuanianLithuanians were working Delhi-area tobacco farms by 1930–31, and some grew their own crop from 1932. By the Second World War, about a hundred Lithuanian families and individuals lived around Delhi.S29Read more →&And many morePolish, Ukrainian, Portuguese and others still to be researched.Tell us yours →