The neighbouring town of Bradford, the "wool capital of the world", took the lead in trying to elevate industrial Yorkshire towns with stately, grand architecture by building St George's Hall in 1851–53. It was a new status symbol, and as there was perpetual competition between Leeds and Bradford, calls grew within Leeds for its own town hall. The physician and social reformer Dr John Deakin Heaton became a major advocate and campaigner for a town hall, having visited Europe and enviously remarked on the "famous old cities whose Town Halls are the permanent glory of the inhabitants and the standing wonder and delight of visitors from a distance". His, and other supporters', belief was that "if a noble municipal palace that might fairly view with some of the best Town Halls of the Continent were to be erected in the middle of their hitherto squalid and unbeautiful town, it would become a practical admonition to the populace of the value of beauty and art, and in course of time men would learn to live up to it".