[2] Between 1889 and 1927, the house was owned by Thomas Skarratt Hall, a bank manager who had made a fortune from being a founding investor in the Mount Morgan Mine in Queensland, Australia.

The Ministry of Labour opened a residential training centre in 1926, aimed at helping unemployed men - particularly war veterans - to acquire basic agricultural techniques.

High unemployment in the Dominions led to a sharp decline in demand for freshly trained British workers, and the collapse of mining and heavy manufacturing at home had produced new pressures.

Weeting Hall was redesignated as an Instructional Centre, taking in young long-term unemployed men from the depressed areas and giving them a three-month exposure to heavy manual work.

Weeting was one of a number of work camps opened by the Ministry rising to a total of 35 by 1938; by the summer of 1939, with unemployment falling as war became imminent, all were closed, and several were turned over to other uses.