Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #9

 

Burling & mending:

The final stage of the worsted manufacturing process was burling and mending. This involved highly skilled workers inspecting the finished cloth by sight and feel, for imperfections and knots. These were then teased out and invisibly mended, to leave a perfect length of cloth. This photograph, hung on the wall of Bradford's Industrial Museum, captures the process - and the concentration required - very well.

It reminds me of when I was first a student at Bradford University in the early 1970s. I rented a room high in the attic of a house in Bradford. From my window I could look down into a room in the building across the road where workers sat with huge rolls of cloth. Not being from this area, I was rather puzzled - until a fellow student, Bradford born and bred, explained that the workers were highly skilled burlers and menders in the textile industry, which in those days still survived as a major business in the area.

HERE  is a photo of the Burling and Mending Shed at Salts Mill. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #8

Weaving:

Once the yarn was spun it was woven into a fine, wool worsted cloth, used for suiting and other clothing. The quality of worsted produced by Saltaire's Salts Mill, especially that made with mohair and alpaca as part of the mix, was highly regarded. It had a cotton weft and was fine and lustrous, which made it very suitable for the crinoline dresses that were popular with Victorian ladies. It is said that Queen Victoria, who kept two alpacas in Windsor Great Park, sent their wool to Salts to be made into cloth for her dresses.

Some of the cloth made was kept in the natural shades of the wool, and the various different wools twisted together gave pleasing variations. But there was also a dye-house in Salts Mill where cloth (and probably yarn, I don't know) was dyed to order, before being dried, pressed and packaged ready for despatch to the customer. It seems the dye-house had a particularly unhealthy atmosphere and was a dangerous place to work.

Seeking escape

Gosh, it's really not the weather for outdoor photography at the moment. It's not so much the damp as the fact that there is just no 'light' at all. Bad weather can be atmospheric but drizzly, dark days with not much wind are neither one thing nor another. It's not stopping me going out, but it is militating against interesting photos. I went with a friend to Bolton Abbey and we had a walk upriver to the Strid (above), the point where the Wharfe plunges into a narrow chasm. Despite the recent snow, there has not been much rain so the river level was very low and the - often thrillingly turbulent - Strid was ... well, pretty boring really! 

I didn't find much to point my camera at. Not that it mattered, as we were chatting away and not always focusing on the scenery. My friend did point out a curious blemish on a tree trunk that we both agreed looked like a female figure... perhaps the Spirit of the Tree?

Or perhaps I could conjure up a line of dancing girls...! 

 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #7

Cogs and wheels:

These are the huge cogs and wheels on one end of a spinning machine. You can see from this how big an issue health and safety would have been in a Victorian mill. There don't appear to be any guards on the machinery. Workers, especially women and children, were frequently injured or killed by the machinery - hair, clothes and scarves got caught, fingers trapped and limbs crushed, and there were reports that some children - who worked long hours until factory reforms were eventually brought in - were scalped when they crawled under the machines or killed when they went to sleep and fell into the machinery.

Thankfully, Titus Salt was not at all uncaring about his workers. In 1868, he built Salts Hospital (see HERE) - originally as a two-storey building with a casualty ward for accidents at the mill. In time, this grew into a cottage hospital for the whole community. 

It's interesting to see that the manufacturer of the spinning machine in the photo was a company in Keighley (pronounced Keethley!), a few miles up the Aire Valley from Saltaire. When textile production in this area died out, it affected many more than those who actually worked in the textile mills themselves.

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #6

       

Spinning:

Spinning was the final stage in converting wool to worsted yarns which could be woven. The machines drew out the roving to its final thickness (count) and added twist for strength (just like a hand spinning wheel does). There are three main types of spinning machine (flyer, cap and ring) but they all work on similar principles and mainly differ in the way the twist is made and the yarn wound onto bobbins. 

When I think of a textile mill, I suppose it's the spinning machines that I imagine. They would have been tightly packed together and the noise from them would have been incredible. From the picture of the mill on the wall above, you can see how narrow the aisles between the machines were. I imagine that the children, for so long employed in these mills, would have been very useful - their smaller bodies would have more easily been able to move under and around the machines.

The industry gave rise to some wonderful names for the different trades. One of my favourites is a 'bobbin ligger' - the person who put the bobbins on the spinning frame that filled them with thread. The 'bobbin doffers' would take the full bobbins off the spinning machines.  

There are some of Ian Beesley's wonderful photos of people doing these jobs HERE. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #5

 

Bobbins:

Drawing was the process by which the combed 'tops' were gradually reduced from thick slivers of wool to a 'roving' from which yarn could be spun. The wool passed through a series of machines with rollers, each designed to play its part in the gradual drawing-out process. You can see the difference in the thickness of the wool between yesterday's top balls and the bobbins in this picture. To give some idea of scale, each of these bobbins is about a foot (30cm) high. (Isn't 'bobbins' a lovely word..?) But the wool is still way too thick for weaving and has no twist to make it strong.

The world in a muddy puddle

Rapid snow melt leaves everywhere looking so mucky and muddy. It also leads to a lot of puddles, to be hopped over or splashed through depending on your personality (or perhaps age!) I'm glad I don't have a dog... every day must be a bath day after a walk in these conditions! I tried to capture Saltaire's church (and its Advent window, still illuminated) in the puddle on the cobbled drive but the pool wasn't really big enough to show very much of the church's reflection. I might have done better with my camera but I only had my phone. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #4

 

Top balls (!):

The next stage of the worsted manufacturing process was Top making or Finishing. The wool slivers were further treated to make them a uniform thickness and moisture was added to enhance the suppleness of the wool. The Top ball produced was the woolcomber's finished product and the Tops could be packed and transported like this. 

Many of the textile mills in Bradford specialised in just part of the overall manufacturing process - woolcombers or spinners; whereas Salts Mill was such a huge enterprise that it saw the complete process through from end to end - from raw wool to the finished worsted cloth. 

That had been Sir Titus Salt's vision for Salt's Mill and village, to concentrate all the processes from his various mills in Bradford into one enormous factory. He bought the land, on a greenfield site well away from the filth of disease-ridden central Bradford, and, in the 1850s, set about creating a much healthier place for his employees to live and work. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #3

The Noble Comb:

The sorted wool was scoured and washed to get rid of dirt and impurities. It was then prepared (the equivalent of carding, which couldn't be used because it would break the long fibres needed for fine worsted). By this means the fibres were disentangled and aligned more or less parallel, in long 'slivers' of wool. These were then ready for combing, a process which further straightened the fibres and sorted out the long ones (tops) used for worsted, from the short ones (noils) which couldn't be used. There were various types of combing machine. The one in my photo is called a Noble comb and Salts Mill would have had many of these.

Funnily enough, the Shipley pub where we sometimes used to have get-togethers from work is called The Noble Comb. Until I went to the museum, I hadn't realised where the name originated. I think there must be a lot of pubs in this area whose names relate to the wool industry. There is, of course, the famed Woolpack in the TV soap Emmerdale. (Maybe I'll go on a pub name hunt one day!)

When Salts Mill was opened in 1853, a grand banquet took place in the Combing Shed - there were over 3,500 guests, so you can imagine how big the room is. 

Snow melt

With temperatures jumping from below freezing to just under 10ºC (50ºF) virtually overnight, the snow melt came quickly. Hooray... at least in many ways. I made it to the supermarket on Monday to replenish my food stocks, though at that stage there was still plenty of snow and ice lying about. Even the supermarket car park was a bit tricky to negotiate in parts. By Tuesday morning, however, all the snow had virtually disappeared, a welcome, if rather surprising, sight when I opened my curtains. 

Rapid snow melt does, however, lead to rapid rises in river levels. The Aire was churning over Hirst Weir and just beginning to flood the riverside footpath. A couple walking ahead of me turned back, saying the path was underwater further along, at the bridge where a small stream joins. So I only ventured as far as the Rowing Club HQ. I think it will get worse before it gets better, though I don't think much rain is forecast. Snow melting off the fell sides in the Dales will no doubt make its way down to us in the next few days. 

 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #2

Wool sorting:

The processes of producing worsted cloth in a factory are essentially the same as those carried out by the local cottage producers - preparing and cleaning the wool, carding, spinning, weaving and finishing the cloth. The difference lies in the industrial scale of the operation and the huge size of the machinery used. Bradford's Industrial Museum has examples of many different types of machine with displays explaining the processes. Since the museum building, Moorside Mill, was once a small worsted spinning mill, it's easy to imagine how Salts Mill might have looked inside - though Salts was massive in comparison.

But even in the big mills, until as recently as the second half of the 20th century, the initial processing was done by hand. When the raw wool fleeces were brought in, the wool was first hand-sorted by quality and condition. The sorted fleece was tossed into huge wicker skips beneath the workbench. Wool sorting was a highly skilled trade using sight and touch. Woolsorters were proud to pass their unique knowledge down from father to son, often through several generations.

The wool textile trade locally has diminished significantly since the latter part of the 20th century, but there are a handful of mills still producing specialist cloths. A few years ago I worked near a mill and noticed these large sacks of raw wool still being delivered. 

Repost: A history of the wool textile trade in Yorkshire #1

Given the weather recently, I haven't been getting out to take photos. It seems a good opportunity to revise and repost a series I compiled in my early days of blogging, about the history of the wool textile trade, which underpins the creation of Saltaire.

A history lesson:  

When I was wandering round Salts Mill recently, I got thinking that - much as I love the mill and Saltaire in its present incarnation, and enjoy uncovering its history - I really know very little about the processes that went on in the mill during its time as a worsted manufacturer. There are the paintings by Henry Carr (see HERE) which give some idea, but hardly the full picture. In the interests of research therefore, I took myself off one day to visit Bradford's Industrial Museum, to find out more about the woollen and worsted industry, upon which the fortunes of this area rose and fell. Their displays are fascinating and I learned a lot.

Bradford was originally a small town, granted a charter in 1251 by King Henry III that enabled it to have a weekly market. This was an important development as it became a meeting place where people could buy and sell cloth. Poor conditions in the area for growing crops meant that local farmers subsidised their income by weaving cloth. People could now buy local wool to card, spin and weave it into cloth to be sold for a profit at the market. Initially this was a cottage industry carried out in people's homes. Many of the old weavers' cottages hereabouts have large windows in the upper storey, as good light was important for handloom weaving. The area is criss-crossed with packhorse routes along which people from the moorland villages would carry their cloth down to the markets. Eventually some of the local corn mills, powered by streams coming down from the moors, were adapted into small mills for making cloth.

Snow days

It's beginning to feel a bit like lockdown, since this last week of snow, ice and below freezing temperatures have made me disinclined to venture out of my cosy little apartment. I've run out of chores. (It doesn't take a lot of effort to keep this place clean and tidy.) I've been feeling incredibly blessed that I don't have to go anywhere and have nothing better to do than play. 

I have books, of course, and time to process a few photos on my computer. I completed an incredibly detailed and therefore absorbing jigsaw (below) called 'London from Above', which included most of the major London landmarks. I thought it would be easy (not much blank, blue sky) but, although I didn't have to source pieces just from the shape like you sometimes do, it did require meticulous attention to tiny details like lamp-posts. It took me all week, on and off, so it was most enjoyable. 

Then I decided I'd get out my watercolours. It's a long time since I did any painting and I'm still learning how to use them - to mix colours, get the right amount of water versus pigment and so on. It is another of those 'whole brain' activities that are so good at keeping one's mind off the dreadful state of the world. I was just playing with random patterns and these are not 'keepers', just experiments - but I really had fun messing about. 

Now the snow appears to be melting a little. I was able to go out and clear the dumped snow off my car without too much effort. It may freeze again overnight but hopefully I'll be able to drive to the supermarket and stock up. I've been living off what I have in the freezer and cupboards - thankfully plenty of stored home-cooked meals, as when I cook I usually make a few more portions than I need and then freeze them. I nearly always keep some bread and milk in the freezer too. I am so fortunate. 

Lister Lake abstract

I enjoy noticing reflections and trying to find a balanced composition. Rather liked the colours here. It was Lister Park's lake, on my last visit, quite a while ago now (when the trees still had leaves!)

I'm going stir-crazy being confined to home. Since it snowed last weekend it has barely got above freezing so there is sheet ice everywhere, on the side roads and pavements (though the main routes have been gritted). I can't get the car out as our drive slopes uphill and is icy. I've been reluctant to go out on foot in case of a fall. Our NHS is in a bad way. They've been on a shaky footing since Covid and now there's a winter flu surge. Ambulances, hospitals and Emergency Departments are struggling so, if you do have an accident, the prospect is a long wait for an ambulance (even if you're lying in the snow!) and then an hours long or even days long wait in A&E. So the best option is not to take risks, I feel! 

Elsecar village

This surprisingly tranquil scene was just a few hundred yards from Elsecar Heritage Centre. It is the beginning of the Elsecar Canal, a branch of the Dearne and Dove Canal. The canal network was created to carry coal and other cargo (including pig iron) from the mines and ironworks. The coming of the railways and subsidence from the mining meant that their viability was short-lived. It is only in recent years that they have been restored. 

Across the canal, the spire of Holy Trinity Church stands tall over the village. Built in the early 1840s, it was part of Earl Fitzwilliam's investment in the area. Like Sir Titus Salt in Saltaire, his Christian paternalism meant that he wanted his workforce to have good housing and facilities like schools and a church. 

I wondered if it might be the church that my ancestors attended but I've since researched some of their children's baptisms and it seems they were non-Conformist chapel-goers. The church itself was locked up but there was a pretty angel on a grave in the churchyard. (I love to see Victorian angel statues.) 

From the churchyard you could see an old corn mill, now a craft centre, at the side of the canal. Through a gap in some houses, there was a good view over the lower part of Elsecar village. 

Old Row (below) appears to be one the few remaining terraces of houses that Earl Fitzwilliam had built for his coal miners in the late 1700s. Plain but substantial, stone-built with slate roofs, they must have been rather superior dwellings in those days, each with a private walled yard at the front and back, and an allotment. They are now Grade II listed, reflecting their importance to the history of this area.  I bet they're still quite nice houses to live in.