the diary records that Musgrave "objected to the dressing of so much of the face of the rubble walling generally and the expensive manner in which [he was] required to execute the wall". In March 1855 "Mr Brodrick was so dissatisfied with the Rawdon Hill stone being used that he took a hammer and destroyed a cornice stone to prevent it being used". Various other problems beset the project, which faced deadline pressures arising from Queen Victoria's agreement to open the building. Atack fell out with Brodrick early in the construction due to Brodrick's constant redesigning of details and disputes about work not being up to his specifications. Army recruitment for the Crimean War, which began in October 1853, caused a shortage of workmen and a rise in wages. Due to this and it being a period of full employment, the labour force fluctuated throughout the Town Hall's construction, slowing it, much to the architect's and Town Hall Committee's frustration. These problems ultimately led to Atack's bankruptcy in March 1857; several other local contractors were appointed to complete the project. Whatever the council's doubts in the early days, it now appeared determined that nothing was too good for their Town Hall. They provided finance on an unprecedented scale, for mayor's reception rooms described by the historian Derek Linstrum as "splendidly furnished", portraits of William Wilberforce and Charles James Fox, and a marble medallion of Napoleon III and Eugénie. Brodrick participated in all the details of decoration in the public rooms, which each had their own character, though the richest effects were reserved for the Council Chamber in the southeast corner (now known as the Albert Room), which, in addition to the coupled fluted pilasters and ornamented frieze, has an elaborate ceiling incorporating delicately painted glass panels. Though Brodrick's red Morocco upholstered furnishings and the original gallery were removed in the 1930s, the room is a characteristic example of a Classical form of decoration which evidently appealed to Brodrick. Unique variations to the decorative capitals of the interior were devised by Brodrick to express the town's history, including such motifs from the coat of arms of Leeds as pairs of owls, and the ram's head, symbolising the golden fleece on which the prosperity of Leeds was based. The dominant criticism during the hall's construction was its cost – the council originally granted £39,000 for construction (increased from the 1851 grant of