SIDEBOTTOM TENANCY AT WELLHOUSE MILL

[Stanley]

SIDEBOTTOM. G.I LTD. TENANCY AT WELLHOUSE
H D Sheldrick.


Manchester Royal Exchange directory 1952.

List of members of the exchange:
Sheldrick. H D. (G I Sidebottom and Co. Ltd) D4. (D4 signifies where he stood for business in the exchange; square 4 next to pillar D. This was the method they used for making it possible to find firm’s representatives.

List of manufacturers.
G I Sidebottom and Co Ltd. 12 Chorlton Street [Manchester] tel. CENtral 1285.
Cotton Manufacturers, Wellhouse Mill, Barnoldswick. Telegraphic address; ‘Fosco’. Eugene Hartley D4; HD Sheldrick, D4. [These last two names are the company’s representatives or ‘Manchester Men’.

There is no mention of Sidebottoms in Worrall’s ‘Lancashire Textile Industry’ for 1957.

No mention of H D Sheldrick or Sidebottoms in MRE directory for 1957.

No data for numbers of looms in MRE for 1952. This was not unusual if the firm was of fairly recent foundation.


Calf Hall Shed Company (Owners of Wellhouse Mill)
Extracts from the company minutes referring to Sidebottom.


Jan 15th 1948
Mentioned that G I Sidebottom were to take up space at Wellhouse that would be free when Messrs John Widdup and Sons vacated the premises on March 31 1948.
June 17th 1948
Report that G I Sidebottom had started installing looms and were paying rent.
April 20th 1950
Sidebottoms request more space at Wellhouse.
22nd June 1950
Sidebottoms mentioned in connection with a complaint from the Factory Inspector about the state of the entrance to their portion of Wellhouse Mill.
Sept 21 1950
Sidebottoms mentioned in connection with increased space at Wellhouse
March 15th 1951.
Approved the transfer of 250 shares from the executors of E Ormerod (deceased) and 52 shares from Freda Ratcliffe to G I Sidebottom and Co be approved.
May 17th 1951.
G I Sidebottom and Co Ltd enquired about the provision of extra warehouse accommodation at Wellhouse Mill. They were told that due to their financial position [owing rent?] the CHSC could not authorise further expenditure. Sidebottoms offered to build the extension themselves and that it should be the property of the CHSC if Sidebottoms were allowed a rebate on their rent of £200 for first five years and £150 for the next five years.
June 21st 1951.
No reply had been received from Sidebottoms re. the proposals of May 17th.
Feb 21st 1952
Report that part of the wall of Sidebottom’s shed was bulging and would have to be rebuilt.
March 20th 1952
Sidebottoms applied to take over space now occupied by WE and D Nutter.
April 17th 1952.
Sidebottom takeover of Nutter space vetoed because they were only prepared to pay storage space rent and not loomspace as at present.
September 18th 1952
Factory Inspector has pressed for re-building of Sidebottom’s shed wall or he will close that portion of the premises under section 40 of the Factories Act 1937. Sidebottom’s protested that this would interfere with production.
Oct 16th 1952
Factory Inspector agrees that repairs to wall can wait until Spring 1953.
Feb 19th 1953
Sidebottoms are replacing some narrow looms with broad looms and complain that floor is sloping. Agreed that this was true and due to subsidence. CHSC would repair if Sidebottom’s bore part of the cost.
March 19th 1953
No reply from Sidebottoms re floor.
March 17th 1955
Discussions with Sidebottom’s re provision of an extension to their space.
21st April 1955
Sidebottom’s say that due to poor trade they wish to put the matter of the extension on hold for the time being.

There is no further entry regarding Sidebottoms in CHSC minutes after this date. This is unusual as normally six months notice would be given on either side to vacate the premises.

The bottom line is that they started at Wellhouse on March 31 1948 and sometime after April 1955 and before the beginning of 1957, they finished at |Wellhouse. It looks as though this was because of bad trade,

SCG/24 January 2002

[Ruth]

I was very interested to read this and another post about Wellhouse Mill based on the CHSC's Minute Books.

My family's firm (Edward Midgley & Sons Ltd) were also tenants at Wellhouse Mill. I don't know when they moved there - the obituary of my grandfather, Edward Midgley, who died in 1954includes a reference to the fact that they were previously in Laneshawbridge. The family went into business together in the late 1920s. They were certainly at Wellhouse Mill during the Second World War - my father, Norman Midgley, nicknamed his car (reg. CTB) the Colne to Barlick as that was the only journey possible at a time when use of petrol was controlled. They closed down in 1960 - apparently there was a scheme whereby firms could receive compensation to close, or borrow money to modernise. My grandfather had already died by this time and my father and uncle, Fred Midgley, decided that it was time to give up.

I visited the mill occasionally as a child in the 1950s. I still remember: being given sweets by the weavers; being weighed on the big scales used to weigh cotton; being shown by my grandfather what to do when a thread broke during weaving; using a jam jar to catch huge goldfish in the mill dam (and putting them back); climbing up onto rolls of cloth (at the weekend, not when the mill was running); being shown that a bit of soap, or just spit, and a fingernail would remove most marks from a piece of cloth; spinning around on the office chair in the upstairs office; using the intercom between offices; learning to count picks (threads) using a brass instrument comprising a magnifying glass on legs (which I still have!); aged 11, riding my small, second-hand bike from Barnoldswick to Colne after it had been stored at the mill over the winter - and what a very long way it seemed to be!

I now have a more mature interest in my Lancashire heritage - and wonder if the CHSC's Minute Books also contain information relevant to my family and their business.

Ruth

[Stanley]

Ruth, welcome to the site. If you look ion Rare Texts you'll find the complete Calf Hall Minutes and you can copy and download to your hard disk and then use the 'find' function in your WP to find any names you like. Enjoy!

[Stanley]

I had a dig. Here are the addresses for the two parts of the Minute Books:
Book 1 http://oneguyfrombarlick.co.uk/viewtopi ... =58&t=7342
Book 2. http://oneguyfrombarlick.co.uk/viewtopi ... =58&t=7343

[Ruth]

Many thanks for giving me the site links to the main postings based on the Calf Head Shed Company Minute Books - and for transcribing them and putting them online in the first place!

I spent a happy few hours yesterday reading great chunks of them. It was interesting to see the week by week preoccupations of the board with practical matters – such as the condition of the mill fabric, rents, insurance issues and fear of fire – against the background of an industry that for most of the period was struggling against foreign competition and inevitable decline. I also recognised the names of people my father, Norman Midgley used to mention as business associates and friends: Eugene Hartley Charlie Aldersley and Blackburn (Blackie) Holden.

I now know when Edward Midgley and Sons moved into Wellhouse Mill but still don't know when they moved the firm from Laneshawbridge to Barnoldswick, having discovered from the CHSC minutes that they moved into Wellhouse from Long Ing Shed.

On the subject of foreign competition, I remember us having a sticker BUY BRITISH COTTON on the back window of our car, when such things were something of a novelty. However, even my mother was tempted by cheap children's clothing from abroad (carefully cutting out the Made in Hong Kong labels, which my father said actually meant Made in China)!

Another memory from my childhood was talk of a fire at the mill. I wasn't able to identify when this was from the minutes - most of the entries on a fire seemed to relate to a fire at Butts Mill. One result of there having been a mill fire was that we had a phone installed at home, which was fairly unusual at the time.

Thank you again for making all this information available.

Ruth

[Stanley]

It's a Pleasure Ruth and warms the cockles when someone actually says thank you. (It's only 700 pages of A4.....) If you look on Lulu you'll find I wrote a book 'The Calf Hall Shed Company' which analyses the Minutes and puts some of the entries in context.
One of the great advantages of OG is that rare texts which would never otherwise get wide distribution can be published free to air.