STEAM ENGINES AND WATERWHEELS

[Stanley]

May 26th 1937. That a quotation from P D Bilborough dated May 18th 1937 for the supply of coal to both mills for 12 months to June 30th 1938 at 21/4 per ton for either Bentley washed singles or Airedale ditto, delivered at Barlick station less 1/2 per ton when delivered in our wagons be accepted.
June 16th 1937. Reported that a letter had been received re the tender for coal accepted at the previous meeting stating that the Coal Sales committee had refused to agree to it and that a revised tender would be necessary. Res. That the minute of the previous meeting be rescinded and that a contract be approved for the purchase of 1500 tons of Allerton Bywater washed singles at 23/4 per ton delivered at the station and for a supply of Bentley washed singles as required at 24/4 per ton delivered at the station. [The Coal Mines Act of 1930 introduced a system of quotas in the coal industry. Under the legislation companies were only allowed a certain market share in order to restrain competition. Local committees were set up in Lancashire which regulated prices and sources of supply but these were generally ineffective and were superseded by the later war measures (Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939) under which the coal industry was controlled by central government who dictated prices and distribution policy. This was the end of private management of collieries until the Coal Mines Act of 1994 abolished the National Coal Board and led to privatisation of the 15 remaining pits.]
June 16th 1938. Coal contract. A tender for the supply of coal for 12 months from June 30th 1938 was received from P D Bilborough giving a price of 24/11 for Bentley coal and 24/4 for Airedale coal delivered at Barnoldswick station less 1/2 per ton for CH wagons. The contract for 1500 tons of Cortonwood at 24/4 expires on June 30th 1938. That the chairman and secretary settle the contracts for next year on the best terms possible.
July 21st 1938. That 1200 tons of Cortonwood coal at 25/7 per ton be purchased for the year ending June 30th 1939 and the balance required to be Bentley and Airedale at 24/11 and 24/4 respectively. [The Cortonwood contract may be directly with the colliery and not via a merchant.]
June 15th 1939. That the present coal contracts be continued for a further 12 months to June 30th 1940 at the present prices: Cortonwood 1200 tons at 25/7 per ton. Bentley 24/11 and Airedale 24/4.
May 23rd 1940. A letter from P D Bilborough was read re the coal contract, in which he quoted: Bentley washed singles at 27/5 per ton delivered to Barlick station. Airedale ditto 26/10. That the secretary confirm acceptance of the contract.
During the war no coal was purchased for the mills. It seems that one boiler was kept running for heating at Wellhouse fired with coke from the gasworks but this was not controlled by CHSC.
November 15th 1945. The secretary reported that a request had been made for an allocation of coal for Wellhouse Mill in place of coke but from the correspondence it seemed very doubtful that the application would be successful. [Coke was a by-product of the local gasworks and cut down on transport if it was used instead of coal.]
June 19th 1958. It was reported that considerable stocks of coal remained at Wellhouse Mill and it was agreed that deliveries be suspended for the time being. [Last entry on coal, shortly afterwards the engine was stopped.]
Coal must have been bought after 1945 but there is no mention in the minutes. The only evidence of coal costs is from the General Trading Accounts included with the balance sheets for the half yearly general meetings but we only have one: June 1945, £586. The payment of accounts in the minutes has no details so we are left in the dark. I think it's safe to assume that they pursued the same policy as pre-war, annual contracts with a merchant. Nationalisation made no difference to this mechanism as sale and distribution of coal was still done by established merchants acting for the National Coal Board. When I was running Bancroft in the 1970s the fuel was delivered by R Dennison and Son, a haulage contractor working for British Fuel which I think was a semi-official amalgamation of existing coal merchants.
It was a long haul from coal as low as 8/- a ton to modern prices via the amazing peak of almost 55/- during the General Strike. I'll leave it to the economists to produce an adjusted price based on real values, what interests me is what the directors had to cope with and their strategies.

[Stanley]

The first thing that strikes me is their first tentative moves into the coal market and the process of trial and error which led them to trusted suppliers and long term contracts. Along the way the most surprising entry is that of March 28th 1900 when they were considering buying a colliery, shades of William Bracewell and the Ingleton Collieries. I think that as far as they were concerned, the purchase of Silesian coal in June 1926 was probably quite astounding. The original minute referred to 'Sicilian' coal, it had taken the minute taker by surprise!
The overall problem they had was that coal was an international commodity. It's price and availability was governed by the export trade or lack of it after re-valuation of the currency. This in turn affected wage levels in the industry and cuts by the colliery owners led to the strikes which immediately had an effect on supply and price. Uncontrolled recruitment for the army in the early part of WW1 led to a labour shortage and had repercussions on supply. All these factors affected the running costs of the mills and rent levels. Coal price fluctuations were at first badly handled. True there was a coal clause in the rents but we have noted the problem which arose when the tenants thought the penalties of higher prices should be adjusted as soon as the price altered while the board were working on the price paid for the coal currently being burned which of course was a later date than the price change. One is reminded of the constant dichotomy today between world fuel prices and the cost to the consumer, the mechanism seems to be that the retail price rises with market price but lags behind any fall in the market. Reading between the lines, common sense prevailed and an accommodation was arrived at with the tenants.
Criticism based on hindsight is dangerous. Bearing this in mind it still surprises me that it took so long to recognise the benefit of long term contracts at an assured price as opposed to opportunistic cherry-picking of the market based on spot prices. There is a technical matter embedded in this thought. Firebeaters and engineers operated most efficiently with known fuels. The characteristics of coal vary from seam to seam and the strategies needed to burn them efficiently vary as well. We have a good example of this in the minute of April 18th 1917 where bad coal causes one firebeater to vote with his feet and his mate refuses weekend working. One of the consequences of bad coal is more frequent ashing-out which, apart from being a burden on the firebeater is grossly inefficient as regards fuel economy. Notice how, if an engine and boiler pant are hard pressed the board recognises this by giving them the best coal.
I have personal experience of this matter. During the miner’s strike in the 1970s I had to burn all the stock at Bancroft and when I got to the back of the stockpile I found some strange red rusty-looking stuff. It was some of the Lease-Lend brown coal which we imported from America after WW2 and I found out just how bad it was. On normal coal we ashed out twice a day, with this we were cleaning the fires every hour. When Newton Pickles had to burn this at Clough after the war he had to add old motor tyres to get it to burn!
Funnily enough a wagon turned up one day with a load of coal and instead of being the usual six-wheeler it was an eight-wheeler. We had a job getting him into the yard but managed and got him tipped. It was Sutton Manor washed singles from Lancashire, just about the best engine coal you could get and a big change from the rubbish we were burning. When I signed the driver's note I saw that the destination on it was not Bancroft but Bankfield, Rolls Royce. I didn’t say anything but just took the ticket up into the office and never heard anything more about it. I’ve often wondered who paid for that coal, it was lovely stuff and burned like candle ends so we used it with the red muck and it made the job a lot easier. I told Newton about it and we agreed that there must be a providence that looks after drunken men and firebeaters on bad coal.
One more peripheral matter. During my term as engineer at Bancroft I took fuel efficiency very seriously, read all I could on the subject and made significant improvements without major alterations to the plant. If you want to explore this further find my book on Bancroft Shed on Lulu.com, it's a complicated subject. What always struck me was that even in the 1970s the management never took fuel economy seriously, in fact, after I had reported on fuel economy one day the managing director told me that the only thing that would interest him would be when I sent coal back to the pit. The directors of CHSC were aware of these matters in later years and Teddy Wood in particular made significant improvements in the efficiency of the plant but I don't think they ever fully realised the scale of improvement that was possible. Another example of this from my own experience.
In 1978 I put a scheme up to the management at Bancroft whereby we could significantly improve fuel efficiency at no capital cost by burning the 300 tons of stock and using the savings on the coal account plus an available government grant to replace our old stokers with modern under-fired equipment. The result was that having realised the potential asset of burning the stock they told me to go ahead and as soon as it was gone they shut a profitable mill! (You're quite right, I may be biased.)
My point is that the technical blind spot I describe was, and I suspect still is, common. This despite the fact that during WW2 the government put a lot of effort into fuel efficiency, they had got the message. In 1944 the Ministry of Fuel and Power published 'The Efficient Use of Fuel' This was the first authoritative compendium of all the existing knowledge on the subject and it took a world war to initiate the work. My copy was bought by a man called Hilbert Burton, a mill owner in Brierfield, who had evidently seen the light. I allow myself the fantasy of how much money the board of the CHSC could have saved over the years if they had access to this knowledge. Ah well....
The bottom line of my enquiry into the CHSC and its use of coal is that despite all the perceived deficiencies visible with hindsight they paid a dividend almost every year. This was their goal and in those terms they did well.

[BillHowcroft]

I think I've still got a battered copy of The Efficient Use of Fuel in a box in the loft. In the mid-70s I was using it for steel-works energy efficiency studies. A lot of good British technical literature was triggered by the war whereas the Americans seemed to generate it during peacetime as well.

[Stanley]

I have a copy Bill and also 'The Efficient use of steam'. Still worth consulting, the basic physics hasn't changed!

CONCLUSIONS

There comes a point where research and interpretation has to stop. This always happens before you have finished extracting all the available evidence. There is so much more to be found by close examination of the balance sheets and financial performance. Much more could be done on the public perception of the shed companies, to a large extent they were shielded from negative feelings directed towards the 'rapacious' manufacturers as evidenced by the frequent strikes over wages, conditions and structural changes in management. However, anyone who researches Barlick in any depth will come across references to the 'Forty Thieves', a natural human reaction to the group of men who seemed to control the town and the shed company directors do not escape attention. I have evidence that an informal association of capital holders did exist and colluded to maximise their profits. Like any other human enterprise, the development of a town like Barlick is no random walk and contains the full spectrum from honest endeavour to cynical exploitation. The CHSC Minute Books are not a road map to this complex subject, they are a shaft of light on some important elements of the whole and individual readers will draw their own conclusions.
One thing we would do well to bear in mind is that what we have seen in Barlick didn't happen in a vacuum. We should always be aware of outside influence by national events. I have a kite to fly about this. I occasionally allow my mind to wander around the timing of Billycock's original incursion into Barlick to take advantage of what he evidently saw as an opportunity for expansion. Britain had one of its worst economic downturns in 1841/42. Butts Mill was under construction during the recovery of 1844/47 which saw a national boom in railway construction and an optimistic financial climate. There is a curious parallel in 1888 when the CHSC was promoted. There was a severe local crisis but nationally this was a time of peak profitability in the weaving trade. Timing is all and in this respect Bracewell and the CHSC might have much in common.
I have to admit to a sneaking regard for the promoters of the company. On the one hand they are a classic example of 19th century laissez faire capitalism but on the other, they were a group of public minded entrepreneurs who saw a problem, a possible solution and a way to go forward. I don't think anyone can immerse themselves in the story without getting a definite impression that one of their aims was the betterment of the town. Granted, this had implications for them, their status and personal fortunes but at no point do I detect that this was the over-riding goal. Look at the tone of the speeches reported from the christening ceremony at Calf Hall in 1889. Brooks Banks, the chairman said “He would rather take 100 sheep with little wool than one blustering tup with it all.” I'm sure he was making a reference to the dead hand of the Bracewell hegemony and putting himself, the directors and their enterprise firmly in the anti-Bracewell camp. Even a commentator as deferential as William Parkinson Atkinson alluded to the “big dog and little dog” problems. I talked to Stephen Pickles, son of the Stephen Pickles in the minutes, and he confirmed that my feeling that Bracewell and Sons had a bad press was correct. What we don't get from the minutes is that in 1866 the Pickles family gave up on Barlick and moved en masse to New England on the promise of three acres and a cow. They soon realised their mistake and came back but the memory of the failure of the town's industry to support budding entrepreneurs remained strong down the generations. In the end of course, the small manufacturers produced the giants of the Barlick trade and some like the Pickles family outlasted the rest of the industry. The last weaving shed in Barlick was Holden's 90 looms at Wellhouse.
One of my main objectives in publicising the minutes and writing this book was to put some flesh on the bones of what is known generally about the shed companies and their operations. You will be the judge of whether I have added anything to the research. As for the advent of the shed companies in Barlick, we can have no doubt that in at least one respect, the CHSC promoters triumphed completely. The growth of Barlick from 1890 to 1914 is a direct consequence of the impetus given to manufacturing by the low threshold of entry into the trade by room and power provided by the shed companies. The names of the promoters of the new mills built in the town are synonymous with the early tenants in the Long Ing and Calf Hall companies. The additional investment which financed the new builds after 1900 came from the retail trades who had done well out of the general expansion. Barnsey Shed built in 1911 had two nicknames, one was 'Bouncer' and the other was 'Pots and Pans', the latter because one of the major shareholders was Sam Yates the tinsmith from Church Street, his wife christened the HP cylinder. There is only one manufacturer amongst the first directors at Barnsey, all the others were from retail trade and service industries. Economists often cite the 'trickle down effect' of investment in key industries. Nowhere is this more true than in Barlick.
It doesn't end there. House building and population exploded alongside the mills. It was the attraction of the family wage and equal pay under the piecework system that drove inward migration to the mill towns. Many families with children working in the mills had very substantial incomes particularly if the father was one of the working class aristocracy, a taper, tackler or winding master. These families built houses to rent, often with a shop attached to provide employment for the wife. This was seen as provision for old age in the days when the fear of the workhouse was still very real. The consequence was that from 1914 until the council house building post 1945, apart from a few houses built as infill, there was no new housing needed in the town. Visitors to the town, especially from the US often comment that almost every building would be a Landmark building at home.
Despite the vicissitudes of occasional downturns in trade the workers, on the whole, prospered. There was enough money in the town to support three cinemas, at one time a roller skating rink, three orchestras and even, in the middle of the inter war depression, a country club at Bracewell Hall. The basis of this growth in the culture of Barlick was the solid bedrock of money that came out of the mills at all levels. The legacy of well built stone houses serves us to this day, these were not archetypal slums, but sound properties. I live in one myself and wouldn't dream of swapping it for a new house even if I could afford it.
We must take note of one last legacy of the expansion triggered by room and power in the shed companies. This was the availability of large empty mills in 1939 which allowed the Shadow Factories to be located here. After the war these modernised premises attracted the new industries which are still with us today and gave us the Rolls Royce works. Without this sequence of events it's difficult to see what Barlick's course from the death of weaving into the modern world would have been. By an accident of fate the government was forced to inject investment into the town and it's salutary to note that our greatest benefactor was probably Adolph Hitler. There's an unlikely combination for you, the shed companies and an evil dictator. Time to put up a monument? I occasionally wonder what the effect would have been on the inter-war depression if the same principles of rational reorganisation and public investment had been applied to industry still locked into 19th century laissez faire principles.

[Stanley]

So, what's my conclusion? The concept of the shed company which built mills specifically to cater for the small manufacturers while never entering the trade themselves was efficient and enlightened. Efficient because it gave a low threshold of entry and freedom to specialise. Enlightened because the aim was to increase employment and nurture profitable enterprises. They were a natural successor to the concept of partners renting space in the old water-powered mills and it's noticeable that the only firm which prohibited this sharing of opportunity, the Bracewells, was the one which failed. The verdict must be that they were a complete success.
I'll leave you with that thought, a recommendation and a story. Seek out one of my favourite books, Harold Macmillan's 'Middle Way' published in 1938. The story is that one day in 1979 I happened to be on King's Cross station and had occasion to ask the passenger in a car that was causing an obstruction if he could move. I tapped on the rear window and when it was wound down I found myself face to face with our Harold! I was so taken aback the only thing that came out of my mouth was “I've read the Middle Way”. He smiled and said “I wish others would do the same!” My point is that the man seen by many as a right wing reactionary advocated public ownership, government investment in key industries and a middle way between 19th century laissez faire Capitalism and rampant Socialism.
Couldn't resist that. Incidentally, I recently found a quotation attributed to Harold less than a month before he died in 1986. He had seen the figure for unemployment in his old constituency of Stockton on Tees which was 28%, just one percentage point lower than when he was MP from 1924-1929. He said it was “A rather sad end to one's life”.
APPENDICES

These two documents are not directly CHSC related but they put some flesh on the bones of the effects of WW2 on the manufacturers in Barlick and give an idea of the human scale behind the impersonal data embedded in the number of looms. 625 workers in a 1000 loom unit. These are human beings working to feed families and fill bottom drawers ready for a wedding. We do well to remember them.
One example; we can calculate from the Bancroft list an average of four and a half looms per worker. Looking at the totals for looms in 1941 and 1947 we can make the educated estimate that 2,970 workers ran the Barlick looms in 1941 and only 1640 in 1947. A loss of 1,330 jobs.

LICENSED LOOMS IN BARLICK WW2

In the 1930s the government, as part of the measures to correct problems in the textile industry, formed a statutory body called The Cotton Control Board. One of the board's strategies was to make a census of all looms in use and during WW2 they brought in a licensing scheme whereby they could control the number of looms operating and where they were situated. This meant that some mills were forced to go out of production and many redundant looms were stored all over the town in the expectation that the end of the war would bring a revival in the trade.
Like many of these initiatives, we know they existed but have very little reliable local evidence. Luckily, when Bancroft Shed was being demolished I managed to save some papers from the office and one of these was a little gem, the pre-war census figures for looms in the town and a list made by year of those running during the war.
It would be too complicated to give the complete figures but here are enough of them to give an idea of how the manufacturers fared under licensing which came into effect after April 1941.

NUMBER OF LOOMS OPERATING

FIRM March 1940 Nov. 1941 Oct 1947
S Pickles and Son 432 nil nil
Craven Man. Co Ltd 1260 nil nil
Butts Man. Co Ltd 420 nil nil
New Road Man. Co Ltd 432 nil nil
S Pickles and Sons Ltd nil 1680 1722
B&EM Holden Ltd 432 282 240
M Horsfield and Sons Ltd 414 151 163
Cairns and Lang Ltd 635 524 335
Robinson Brooks Ltd 987 731 730
James Nutter Ltd 1183 1152 945
Horsfield (B'field) Ltd 321 120 109
Proctor&Co (Barlick) Ltd 420 250 250
WE&D Nutter Ltd 1125 nil nil
John Widdup & Sons Ltd 1116 700 650
Alderton Bros Ltd 432 293 293
T S Edmondson 432 nil nil
Nutter Bros Ltd 1192 406 325
James Slater Ltd 638 nil 302
H Ellison Ltd 50 88 99
Ellerbank Man Co Ltd 118 110 110
Manock Gill and Co Ltd 660 520 550
Edmondson (F'bank) Ltd 660 520 550

Totals. 13359 7529 7373

In November 1941 the licence fee per loom per annum was 1/3. From February 1942 until the end of licensing in 1947 it was 1/6 per loom per annum.

LIST OF WORKERS AT BANCROFT SHED ON
DECEMBER 5th 1941

Name address occupation age
W E Nutter The Knoll Man. Director 59
F W Mattocks Gisburn Road Salesman
Vernon Nutter 25 Park Road Manager 42
W Bracewell 44 Lower Rook St Clerk 17
Fred Midgley 1 Calf Hall Rd Engineer
Harry Brown 2 Mosley St Fireman 27
W W Wilson 12 Rainhall Rd Motor driver
R Sharples 28 Park Ave Cloth looker 37
J T Isherwood 18 Back Park St Cloth looker 41
George Nutter 61 Park Rd Cloth looker 61
Jn. Greenhalgh 12 Skipton Rd Cloth looker
Walter Naylor 3 Robert St Cloth looker 33
Thomas Roper 12 Frank Street Warehouseman 54
Harold Parker 12 North Parade Warehouseman 46
Cyrus Eccleston 45 Wellington St Night watchman
Fred Naylor 3 Robert St Night watchman 58
John Burrell 42 Rosemont Ave Tape labourer 30
Joe Calverly Taylor Avenue Taper
Rennie Shepherd 28 Victoria Rd Taper 50
W K Whiteoak 146 Gisburn Rd Machine operator 30
Wm Eccleston 15 Beech Grove Machine operator 55
Robert Walker 16 Cavendish St Loomer 46
D Brennand 10 Taylor St Loomer 67
Lawrence Kieron 4 Hollins Rd Loomer charge hand 39
Wm Tomlinson 48 Manchester Rd Head overlooker 38
J Carr 24 Beech Street overlooker
L Steele 2 Essie Terrace Overlooker
Les Beaumont 26 Cobden St Overlooker 51
Richard Lord 17 Sackville St Overlooker 46
Edward Burke 9 Powell St Overlooker 49
Eddie Green 53 Harrison St Overlooker
George Stretch 11 Alice St Weaver 51
Alfred Geldard 7 Bethel St Weaver 57
Sam Ottie 35 York St Weaver 62
Bracewell Stanley 15 James St Weaver 61
Cyril Brown 5 Pleasant View Weaver 38
Clifford Hartley 33 Gisburn St Weaver 41
J W Wellock 23 Bruce St Weaver 63
Arthur Stockdale 6 Park Road Weaver 48
Edward Pickup 8 Essie Terrace Weaver 44
Rennie Brown 34 Park Avenue Weaver
Tom Harrison 37 Lower East Ave Weaver 40
Holbury Metcalfe 19 Clarence St Weaver 62
Sam Wiseman 9 Montrose Terrace Weaver 42
Fred Pearson 27 Beech St Weaver 42
Wm Coppinge 58 M/c Road Weaver 51
Thos Lawson 62 Uppr York St Weaver 41
Clarence Downs 50 Park St Weaver 54
Robert Beckett 6 Gillians Weaver 39
Joe Croasdale 2 Lane Bottoms Weaver 62
Fred Brown Willow Bank M/c Rd Weaver 36
Herbert Brown 4 Rook Street Weaver 52
Alan Preston 8 Cavendish St Weaver 32
Wilfred Preston 19 Earl St Weaver 38
Luther Duxbury 11 Park Street Weaver 45
Craven Waddington 21 Park Rd Weaver 48
Edward Fishwick 74 York St Weaver 53
John Tattersall 47 Park Rd Weaver 50
Harry Cawdrey 10 Cavendish St Weaver 49
Thos Horrocks 13 Colne Rd Weaver 62
J W Dent 17 Turner St Weaver 36
Sid Myers 21 East Hill St Weaver 30
Wm Shuttleworth 4 Rook Street Weaver 54
Jn C Taylor 7 Clifford Street Weaver 58
Walter Smalley Lynfield Tubber Hill Weaver 61
Fred Exley Lynfield Tubber Hill Weaver 49
Rennie Geldard 18 Butts Weaver 44
Harry Moody 55 Lower Park St Weaver 48
Alfred Thomas 5 Lane Bottom Weaver 41
Joe Bentley 59 Cobden Street Weaver 50
Ron Tattersall 47 Park Rd Weaver 18
Les Wilson 19 Colne Road Weaver 16
Thomas Green 9 Town Head Weaver
Chas Watson 71 Lower Rook St Weaver 70
Jim Unsworth 50 Esp Lane Weaver
Henry Preston 8 Cavendish St Weaver 67
James Waygood 6a Hartley St Weaver 68
Thos Taylor 4 Park Street Weaver 65
John Wilson 17 James Street Weaver 66
H Edmondson 60 Skipton Road Weaver 69
Fred Barrett Standridge Farm Weaver 66
Jim Robinson 3 Ribblesdale Ter Weaver 68
Joe Brooksbank 23 Essex St Weaver 65
Wm. Metcalfe Burdock Hill Weaver 72
Rich. Pollard 3 Bank House Flats Weaver 69
K Harwood Twister 16
L Golding 40 Park Road Weaver 33
Henry Brown 28 Valley Road Weaver 54
James Monk 152 M/c Road Loomer
Alice Stell 11 Sackville St Weaver 61
Mrs Schofield 4 Fountain Street Weaver
J Hodgkinson 20 Bracewell St Beamer
M Davy 42 Lower Rook St Winder
M MacDonald 53 Esp Lane Weaver 60
Mary Horrocks 13 Colne Road Weaver 62
Rose Mason 69 Sunset View Weaver 64
Anne MacDonald Winder
Ethel Hartley Weaver 41
Ivy Robinson Weaver 44
Margaret Stretch Weaver 50
Ellen Pate Weaver 19
Evelyn Conboy
Winnie Bennett Weaver 29
Alice Hartley Weaver 42
Hilda Pickering Weaver
Annie Metcalfe Weaver 35
Florrie Geldard Weaver 52
Jessie Pearson Weaver 39
Clarice Moore Weaver 38
Marion Chadwick Weaver 38
Nellie Duxbury Weaver
Bessie Tomlinson Weaver 32
Mary Calverly Weaver 49
Eva Smith Weaver 31
Eliz. Boothman Weaver 36
Ellen Waddington Weaver 29
Ruby Swire Weaver
Mary Sharples Weaver 30
Kath Kiernan Weaver
Dorothy Cawdrey Weaver 48
Hilda Brown Weaver
Gertrude Coppinge Weaver 49
Minnie Wiseman Weaver 55
Nellie Clarke Weaver
Millie Broughton Weaver 29
Alice Sharples Weaver 50
Mary Ashley Weaver 54
Maud Chadwick Weaver 52
Violet Bailey Weaver 45
Edith Edmondson Weaver 43
Nellie Demaine Weaver 42
Doris Brennand Weaver 25
Mary Duckworth Weaver 46
Mabel Pearson Weaver 46
Mona Platt Weaver 30
Gladys Aldersley Weaver 24
Evelyn Ratcliffe Weaver 42
Mary Stockdale Weaver 49
Elsie Pearson Weaver 37
Chrissie Eccleston Weaver 21
Kate Lord Weaver 42
Anne Cope Weaver 49
May Robinson Weaver 53
Marion Turner Weaver 25
Louise Green Weaver 35
Phyllis Parkinson Weaver 31
Edith Brown Weaver 33
Eliza Mason Weaver 55
Chrissie Plumbley Weaver 43
Winnie Parkinson Weaver 26
Mabel Lodge Weaver 52
Ruth Hacking Weaver 41
Lilly Taylor Weaver 52
Jessie Smith Weaver 32
Eva Pateman Weaver 39
Gladys Newbould Weaver 50
Mary Dacre Weaver 50
Alice Cryer Weaver 39
Gwen Moore Weaver 40
Laura Demaine Weaver
Emily Gorton Weaver 39
Polly Fishwick Weaver 53
Eliza Daly Weaver 45
Eliza Chatwood Weaver 28
Elsie Pickering Weaver 47
Doris Stockdale Weaver 40
Daisy Kenyon Weaver
Jane Nutter Weaver 49
Hilda Bailey Weaver 33
Mary Monks Weaver 47
Ethel Holden Weaver 42
Elsie Mason Weaver 34
Annie Burke Weaver 47
Mary O’Neill Weaver 19
Nellie Moore Weaver
Olive Moore Weaver 38
Anne Astin Weaver 39
Maud Reid Weaver 48
Gertrude Gleeson Weaver 42
Elsie Hargreaves Weaver 40
Jennie Waterworth Weaver 24
Winnie Bentley Weaver 46
Annie Exley Weaver 43
Edith Lawson Weaver 38
Emily Waterworth Weaver 35
Evelyn Lee Weaver 34
Eliz. Hayes Weaver
Florence Crerar Weaver 54
Polly Hodson Weaver 33
Mary Downs Weaver 28
Annie Bell Weaver 37
Jane Craddock Weaver 32
Annie Stephens Weaver 24
Nora Titherington Weaver 21
Eva Nutter Weaver 31
Gladys Dobson Weaver 34
Sarah Edmondson Weaver 53
Mary Holt Weaver
Alice Demaine Weaver 32
Sarah Bracewell Weaver 26
Muriel Daly Winder
Lillian Whiteoak Winder
Alice Martin Weaver 40
Elsie Windle Weaver 26
Dorothy Hesketh Winder
Mrs Moss Winder
L Palmer Winder
H Clarke Winder
May Brooks Weaver 40
Ethel Ashworth Weaver 51
Annie Green Weaver 40
Ivy Pickup Weaver 33
Olga Hartley Weaver 19
Ida Brennand Weaver 20
Joan Cope Weaver 19
Doris King Weaver 20
Jean Holmes Weaver 18
Hilda Green Weaver 18
Nora Heyes Weaver 19
Madge Edmondson Weaver 16
Olive Reid Weaver 16
Eliz. Demaine Weaver 17
Greta Holmes Weaver 15
Enid Holden Weaver 16
Nellie Hudson Weaver 24

[Transcribed by Stanley Challenger Graham from the original return made by the management at Bancroft Shed. 225 workers in total, 1000 looms reported as licensed in February 1942. average of four and a half looms per worker.]

[Stanley]

BRACEWELL V BRACEWELL SMITH AND THRELFALL

Transcription of an article in the Nelson Times, Saturday June 9th 1888.


A BARNOLDSWICK CHANCERY SUIT.

Bracewell versus Bracewell, Smith and Threlfall.

On Tuesday [5th June 1888] the case of Bracewell versus Bracewell, Smith and Threlfall came up for hearing in the Chancery Division of the Royal Courts of Justice Keckawich. Sir Charles Russell, QC, MP and Mr O L Clare appeared for the Plaintiff, Mrs Elizabeth Bracewell. Mr Bigham QC and Mr Samuel Hall and Mr Farewell were for the Defendant Mr C G Bracewell and Mr Neville QC, MP and Mr Swinfen Eady appeared for the Defendants Smith and Threlfall.
Sir Charles Russell, in opening the case, said it was an action to recover certain sums of money, about £21,000 odd, from the defendants in respect of her late husband’s share in the business of William Bracewell and Sons. The Plaintiff was the widow of the late William Metcalfe Bracewell who was a partner in the firm of William Bracewell and Sons, Cotton Spinners, Manufacturers and Corn Millers of Barnoldswick and Burnley. About September 1879 a partnership was entered into between William Bracewell, the father, and William Metcalfe Bracewell and Christopher George Bracewell his sons, but no written articles of Partnership were ever executed. It was however verbally agreed that the business and assets should belong to the partners in the proportion of five-tenths to Mr William Bracewell, three-tenths to Mr William Metcalfe Bracewell and two-tenths to Christopher George Bracewell and the partnership was carried on on that footing until 10th of June 1880. He [William Metcalfe] died intestate leaving a widow (the present plaintiff) and three children. His widow took out Letters of Administration to his estate. In May of the following year the amount of capital of Mr William Metcalfe Bracewell’s share was ascertained to be £19,509-9-8 and that amount was entered in the books of the firm to the credit of an account named ‘William Metcalfe Bracewell’s estate in account with William Bracewell and Sons’ . Then the Plaintiff applied to the firm for payment of her share and threatened proceedings against them for the recovery of it. However it was ultimately agreed to that if the Plaintiff would not press the firm for immediate payment Mr William Bracewell personally guaranteeing the payment of the amount with interest at the rate of £3 per cent per annum until paid, and on the 6th of July 1882, four promissory notes payable on demand for £4,335-8-10, £4,335-8-10, £4,335-8-10 and £6,503-3-3 respectively were signed by him and given to the Plaintiff as collateral security for the sum of £19,509-9-8 the amount of her late husband’s share in the business. [Making the total capital of the partnership £65,000] Mr William Bracewell made his will on the 1st of March 1885 and appointed the defendants executors and trustees of his real estate. On the 13th of the same month he died and his will was duly proved by the defendants. Various sums had from time to time been paid by the firm before and since the death of Mr William Bracewell in respect of his deceased son’s shares but all those sums had been insufficient to keep down the accruing interest and over £21,000 was due and owing to the plaintiff from the firm. Since the death of Mr William Bracewell, the plaintiff had repeatedly applied to Mr Christopher George Bracewell as surviving partner and to the defendants Mr Smith Smith and Mr Joseph Henry Threlfall as executors for payment of the above amount. She had also demanded payment of the promissory notes but her demands had not been complied with. Since the death of his father, Mr Christopher Bracewell had continued to carry on the business alone. On 9th April 1886 an action was commenced in the Chancery of the County Palatine of Lancaster by Christopher George Bracewell against Smith Smith and Joseph Henry Threlfall and also Mrs Mary Jane Bracewell (two of the beneficiaries under the will of William Bracewell) for the administration of the trusts of the will and on the 28th of July 1886 an order was made for the trusts of the will and various accounts and enquiries were directed together with a reference to Chambers, to appoint a Receiver. In conclusion the learned council said in point of law he did not think there could be very much controversy or matter for controversy between them. When Mr William Metcalfe Bracewell died it could not be doubted that the firm was liable to his representatives for his interest in the firm, and the interest was fixed by Mr William Bracewell, as he would show by the evidence of Mr Matthew Watson, at the figure of £19,509-9-8. He submitted that the onus was on the defendants to show that this lady, who represented her own interests and the interests of her infant children, had done something which operated as a release of the liability of Christopher George Bracewell.
MRS ELIZABETH BRACEWELL examined by Sir Charles Russell said that she was sent for by her father-in-law in May 1882, in consequence of a letter which Mr Hodgson, her solicitor, had sent to him relative to the money due to her in respect of her husband’s share in the business. He showed her the letter and asked if she had authorised Mr Hodgson to write it. He was in a great rage and offered to give the whole thing up and told her to take it into her own hands and manage the best way she could. She was leaving the office and he called her back and asked her to get ready to go with Mr Eastwood, the book-keeper to Burnley, and they by the next train went to see Mr Matthew Watson with respect to this matter. Mr Bracewell said he was as much responsible for the children’s interest as she was, but she objected to that. It was not so and she was solely interested. She was not present when the promissory notes were signed. She saw Mr Bracewell the following evening and he said she had asked for nothing that was not right, and added that he had made ‘All square’. He would give her the notes. He said he had given her a double surety on his private estate as well as upon the Partnership and said she might have them made up in shares for the children and one for herself and then if she required she could be paid out. Between the time of her husband’s death and the time when she received the promissory notes Mr William Bracewell sent her £5 a week for household expenses.
Cross-examined by Mr Bigham she said that Mr Bracewell advised her to go to Mr Watson.--- Mr Bigham: Do you mean to say that after you got these promissory notes you believed that nobody but your father-in-law was liable to you in respect of this money? Just let me read it to you: ‘I promise to pay on demand to Elizabeth Bracewell on her order the sum of £6,503-3-3, being part of the sum of £19,509-9-9 due from me to my late son William Metcalfe Bracewell on the day of his death which occurred on the 10th of June 1880 the said sum of £6,503-3-3 to bear interest after the rate of five per cent per annum payable half-yearly.’ Did you read it when you got it? The Witness: ‘Yes’ --- Do you mean to tell my Lord that after these negotiations with the father you regarded the firm, or Christopher George Bracewell, who was not the monied man, as in any way liable to you in respect of the money which your husband had left in the firm? ‘Yes, I always considered the firm responsible.’
In reply to Mr Neville the witness said that she claimed the promissory notes as security for what was due to her husband from the firm of William Bracewell and Sons, and also from the separate estate of William Bracewell.
MR MATTHEW WATSON, auctioneer of Burnley said he examined the books of Bracewell and Sons and found that William Metcalfe Bracewell’s share in the concern was three-tenths. No stock was taken at the time the partnership was entered into. He saw Mr Bracewell Senior on the Manchester Exchange and spoke to him about giving security to Mrs Bracewell. He was very indignant and said that all he could do was make his private property available as well as the partnership and he was willing to give the promissory notes as collateral security, and the whole business was carried out along those lines. He (the witness) never heard of such a thing as Mr Bracewell buying his late son’s interest in the firm. He asked for an account to see how matters stood and he received one on the 9th of December 1881. He found £19,599-9-8[sic] due to William Metcalfe Bracewell at the time of his death.
Cross examined he said he was first called in for the purpose of ascertaining the value of the personal estate for administration purposes. He examined the ledger. The ledger was only posted up to the year 1878.
In reply to Mr Neville he said the sum of £22,816-5-6 included £10,000 which the late William Metcalfe Bracewell paid into partnership.
Mr James Hodgson was called and said he acted as solicitor for the Plaintiff. She instructed him to write the letter referred to, to Mr Bracewell, demanding security.
This concluded the case for the Plaintiff.
Mr Bigham, on behalf of the defendant Bracewell pointed out that even on the case presented to the court by the Plaintiff, it was perfectly obvious that an account must be taken. His Lordship agreed with that and observed that he could not say anything which would justify him in holding that there was an account stated binding Christopher George Bracewell.
Mr Justice Keckawich, in giving judgement said that his opinion on the matter of law was that in order to fix the amount due to the estate of a deceased partner from the surviving partners, both those surviving partners must concur in taking the account though one of them might depute the duty to the other. In this case there was no sufficient evidence to make it a right conclusion that Mr William Bracewell, though the senior partner, and holding by far the largest share, and being apparently of a despotic disposition, had authority to bind Christopher George Bracewell, the junior partner. That being his decision however, he hoped the parties would have the good sense to come to some understanding as to what amount they ought to part with because, there having been no stocktaking at the commencement of the partnership and there having been no stocktaking at the death of Mr William Bracewell, but the whole thing as being between relations was conducted in a somewhat loose manner, the expense of taking the account would be very great and would not fall unfortunately on one party alone. Mr C G Bracewell would suffer and Mrs Elizabeth Bracewell would suffer. After some discussion his Lordship directed an account to be taken.
[Transcribed by SCG, 28 January 2004 from a photocopy given to him by Geoff Shackleton.]

[Stanley]

That last appendix, the court case brought by Elizabeth is the closing chapter in the story of the Bracewells and if you search the site you'll find a lot more. She won the settlement and bankrupted Christopher, all due to Billycock's bad management. So important to the rise of textiles in Barlick.



Elizabeth Bracewell (nee Hartley) with her grandchildren in later years. This was a formidable woman!

Well, you've stayed the course and I hope got an insight into the industry that employed the machinery you all obviously love so much. I shall have a think about my encore and find something to interest you. Let me know any comments you have....

[plaques]

Having lived in Burnley for the best part of my life I've always been fascinated with the power and influence of the Dugdale family of Lowerhouse Mills. Compared to them Billycock was a bit actor in the weaving game. Considered at one time to be the wealthiest family in England who would go on to bankroll the Tata India family you can get some idea of their influence.

[Stanley]

A lot of the old cotton money still survives on the Fylde Coast. Look at St Annes and Blackpool. I once watched blue rinsed matriarchs gambling in a casino at South Shore and was told that a lot of them were the widows of old cotton families.

[Stanley]

I'm giving some thought where to go next. I can't emphasise too much that if you want to fully understand the power used to drive the textile industry, whether water or steam, you have to have an understanding of the way the industry was run. You've stayed the course and soaked up this overview but go and look at the full copy of the CHSC minutes which is on the site. Look as well for Clough, or as it was in the beginning, Mitchell's Mill, I think we need to look at that a bit more closely as it is a microcosm of the development of power in the mills.

[Stanley]

CLOUGH SITE IN WAPPING, BARLICK.
1753 and 1756. Josias Parkinson pays land tax for Clough, Barnoldswick. 1760 John Dean pays land tax for Clough. 1800. Hartley, Bracewell and Co occupied the water mill on the site [Note that this is almost certainly neither the Coates or Newfield edge branch. The root for all the Bracewells in Barlick was the Bracewells of Salterforth, all the family members we are interested in stem from there. This Bracewell would have direct lineage to Salterforth but no connection with Coates or Newfield Edge.]. This might have been the original build. 1807. William Mitchell mentioned on electoral roll as spinner of Barnoldswick. [this is Mitchell of Mitchell’s Mill Barlick and not County Brook Mitchells who hadn’t come to the area. Ken Wilson says that Newfield Edge House was built by William Mitchell in 1770. He’s usually accurate but I don’t know what his evidence was.] Insurance for the Hartley, Bracewell and Co occupation was Mill £200. Mill work £10, Machinery £150. stock £40. This was not a big mill judging from these values. This could be the ‘old cotton mill’ insured by William Mitchell in 1812. Mill £500. Machinery £500. Drying house for warps £50. [This indicates dyeing] Stock £250. [These are significantly higher values] Mitchell extended the mill and installed an engine in 1827. In 1831 the insurance values were: Mill, engine house and sizing house, £700. Millwork £100. Machinery £1500. Stock £100. In 1838 John Wigglesworth was a tenant in the mill. 1846. Clough Mill is built next to Mitchell’s Mill by William Mitchell to hold 300 looms. The first tenants were William, Thomas and Christopher Bracewell [of Coates] who also had Old Coates Mill as well as looms in Mitchell’s Mill. Clough was built by Barlick masons but the chimney was by David Carr from Gargrave. [There is solid insurance evidence for an engine by 1827 so was this a new chimney?] The first looms in the new shed were wooden framed and came from Pilling’s at Trawden. This firm removed to Primet Bridge Colne at about this time. In 1860 the Bracewell Brothers cease trading when their partnership fails and Mr Bennett the Baptist minister takes space in Clough. [See below]

SLATERS AT CLOUGH
In 1860 John Slater and Sons are first mentioned as tenants in Clough. John Slater buys the mill in 1867 for £3,000. [£1000 in May 1867, £1000 in November 1867 and £1000 by May 1868.] The full price was paid by November 1867. John Slater also had an interest in the silk mill at Galgate near Lancaster.

1881census gives Joseph Slater as 19 and living on Mitchell Terrace in Barlick. In 1891 Census he is living at Newfield Edge and married Ada Whitaker Bracewell. Almost looks as though Billycock death was the trigger for the marriage. LTP transcript 82/JM/01. John Metcalfe talks about Slaters and says they were all related. All stem back to John Slater who bought Mitchell’s Mill in 1867 (later called Clough) [Actually there are earlier references to the Slaters but as regards cotton manufacturing we are safe in starting with John.]. James Slater at Salterforth Mill was Old John’s son. Henry Slater was another son of Old John and he fathered Fred Harry and Joseph which made them cousins to Clough Mill Slaters. John Slater (Clough) was another son of Old John. Old John ran a silk mill at Galgate before he came to Barlick. One of the reasons he survived cotton famine and was in a position to buy Clough was that he was in silk at Galgate and experimented with worsted and linen at Barlick. 1851 census notes the following at 28 Barnoldswick Lane. [Now Manchester Road] John Slater, head,45, grocer [also known to have a loomshop on Barlick Lane and a carting business.] Mary, wife, 43. Joseph, 22, HLW cotton check. Henry, 20, shop man. Thomas, 17, coal carrier. Clayton, 12, scholar. Susannah, 9, scholar. James, 6, scholar. John Slater died in 1867, Atkinson has him as 69 years but 1851 census says 61.

There is a report in 1860 of Thomas Bennett’s bankruptcy, he was a small manufacturer in Clough Mill. This seemingly minor event in the life of Clough Mill deserves close scrutiny. When the Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662 Barlick already had an illegal Baptist church in the barn backing onto the Parrock in Wapping. This is on the opposite side of the road from the Mitchell/Clough Mill site. It was one of the first places in England to be registered under the Toleration Act of 1689. In 1687 David Crossley and his cousin William Mitchell were both preachers in the district and in 1694 David Crossley was named as the first minister. In 1797 a chapel was built adjoining the barn and still exists, but as a secondhand furniture shop. The crucial fact here is that a William Mitchell was active in the Wapping area as early as the late 17th C. There are land tax assessments for the same time for James and William Mitchell but no indication of the properties. The assumption must be that it was in the same area. The History of the Baptists in Barnoldswick by Winnard (p.39) states that on January 7th 1695 David Crossley, the pastor of the Baptist Chapel purchased the Parrock (or part thereof) from William Mitchell for £25 as it adjoined their place of worship. [Note that this piece of land also contains Parrock Laithe and water mill] The Mitchell family maintained their association with the chapel in Wapping.

The Slaters who followed in the mill were Baptists as well. In 1861 there is an entry in the census for Thomas Bennett, 39, unmarried, Baptist minister of Bethesda Chapel and cotton manufacturer employing 43 persons. By this time the Bethesda Chapel at the bottom of Manchester Road, opposite the police station and now demolished and replaced by David Crossley House, had been built. This was the time of the cotton famine and the story is that Bennett was encouraged by John Slater to start manufacturing in Clough to make work for his parishioners. Bennett goes out of business about 1868, bankrupt, because after John’s death in c.1868 the Slater Brothers foreclosed on him. According to Dennis Cairns, at the same time Clayton Slater led an attack on Bennett to depose him as pastor of Bethesda. [Clayton seems to have been a bit fiery, at about the same time he and a brother were fined £5 for assaulting Levi Widdup who had allowed his donkey to graze on their father’s grave.] In 1870 Thomas Bennett was found to have been not legally dismissed as pastor but by this time the rebel members of the congregation, being trustees of Bethesda, refused to allow him to take over the chapel. For a while, both sides of the schism worshipped in various barns and rooms but eventually resolved the dispute by allowing Bennett to have use of Bethesda but the rebels building a rival chapel in North Street behind Clough Mill. This situation continued until 1971 when the two churches united in a new building next to the police station. This saga demonstrates the close links between the church and the mill and the passions that could be aroused.

After John’s death, c.1868, the firm of John Slater and Sons take over the whole of Clough. The partners were the sons, Joseph, Henry, Thomas, Clayton and James. William Atkinson says that in 1868 Clough was extended again to take more looms and the floor above was used for preparing woollen weft. [We have a tendency to assume that all the firms we look at were processing cotton. What we have to bear in mind from 1860 onwards is that a lot of manufacturers were experimenting with different staple because of the shortage of cotton due to the American Civil War.] This was discontinued after a few years and Stephen Pickles moved in with looms. Robinson Brooks started in Clough about this time. James Nutter was a tenant in partnership with Slater Edmondson. [They had amassed their capital by selling Bibles and Stephen Pickles grandson of original Stephen said that they used to threaten farmers with cattle maiming to get them to buy the family bibles at a guinea a time but this could be apocryphal] The Pickles family including brother Harry moved out to US during the Cotton Famine but came back in 1868. The family started up in Clough with four looms each (16 looms?) and Stephen Pickles (b.1856) was the Manchester man. This was the start of S Pickles and Son Ltd who eventually had the whole of Long Ing and Barnsey Shed.

In 1879 a new shed was built at Clough and it was then that the Furneval engine was installed to replace the 1827 beam engine [which was left in situ and later used again when loom numbers fell]. In 1880 Clayton Slater, 41 years old, one of the partners, left for Canada taking part of the machinery with him. There was space to spare as they had just extended so tenants were the answer. Atkinson describes Clough at this time as being the starting point for many of the firms which were later to dominate textiles in Barlick. He describes Clough as four storeys with weaving on all floors, 144 looms on each floor. Robinson Brooks was on the top floor [evidence of Billy Brooks who learned to weave there and hated going up in the hoist] Billy said the loft was used for warp preparation. Atkinson said the tenants at that time were James Nutter and Slater Edmondson in partnership with 96 looms. Windles, [see article in CH 30/12/1932. William Windle was born in Earby on January 3 1825. The 1881 census shows him aged 56 and living on Newtown with wife Margaret, 52, Owen 22, James T. 15, Edna 24, Sarah T 19. In 1891 William senior is missing but the rest of the family are living at 24 Rainhall Road with the addition of William, 44 years old. His father was Thomas Windle. In his early years William was a HLW and was one of the first PLW to work at Chris. Bracewell’s New Shed. In 1859 he married Margaret Broughton and became a taper at Butts and worked there for many years. In his later years he had 16 looms in Clough and was doing commission weaving. Francis Watson had 16 looms on the same terms and William tackled for both of them. There is a suggestion that Joseph Windle, commonly called ‘Pummers’ was in Clough but this might be a confusion.] Robinson Brooks, 80 looms. [Moved to Long Ing shortly after it opened.], John Brown (moved to Long Ing in 1888 with 98 looms. (Noted in Barrett 1887 as cotton manufacturer and engineer, house Albion Terrace.) and Bowker (All I have for Thomas Bowker is CFT 1890 moving his looms out of Coates Mill and Barrett 1896 noting him as manufacturer in Long Ing Shed. Not sure if this is Bowker mentioned in Clough). Slaters had looms as well. [Not all the brothers working in the partnership, see James. Clayton had already voted with his feet.] John Metcalfe, the former manager said Ormerod’s had looms in Clough as well. He said that ‘Nutters’ had 96 looms in what they called ‘top o’ the hill’. [This was Nutter and Edmondson actually]

In 1888 Craven Herald reported that tenants in Clough were Robinson Brooks, Stephen Pickles, and Messrs H&J Slater. Edmondson and Nutter moved out of Clough in 1888 and went to the new mill at Long Ing with 400 looms. Partnership dissolved in 1890 when James Nutter moved into Calf Hall with 414 looms. Slater Edmondson stayed at Long Ing with 400 looms. In 1905 James Nutter moved from Calf Hall to Bankfield with 900 looms. Eventually took over Bancroft from Nutter Brothers.

Joseph Slater (married Billycock’s daughter Ada Whitaker) Henry and Fred Harry Slater seem to have been the main men in John Slater and Sons at this time. BUDC rate books for 26 March 1894 show Henry, trading as Clough Mill Company as owner of Clough Mill. Half year rates £176. Fred Harry died in 1930 aged 60. [He was also a founding director of Westfield Shed and a past director of the Long Ing Shed Co] Joseph died at Newfield Edge on 22/02/1926. They and their descendants ran Clough until they wove out in 1956. John Metcalfe, the manager said that when they finished they had 280 looms on the ground floor and upstairs they had 20 Universal winders and 20 warp dressing frames as they were doing a lot of coloured work then.

With the rise of the shed companies from 1888 onwards tenancy at Clough seems to have died out. This is entirely understandable as Clough was a very old-fashioned and inconvenient mill. Newton Pickles says there was a fire at Clough about 1938, (1937 actually, see report in Barlick and Earby Times November 12th 1937) B&P replaced a lot of damaged cast iron pipes with steel. John Metcalfe said he went to work for Slaters in Wellhouse Mill in 1915, he said these Slaters were cousins of the ones at Clough [Edwin and John Slater, sons of Hartley later traded as Slater Brothers (Barnoldswick) Ltd.] John also said that in 1900 there was a fire in the four storey section of the mill and it was allowed to go to ‘rack and ruin’. “Joe Slater, Dick Carr Slater, Fred Harry and them” wouldn’t do anything about it but when Fred Harry and Joe died Henry got the mill. Henry had been running Slater Brothers at Wellhouse Mill. The four storey section was started up again and 128 looms brought from Wellhouse and put in the second floor. While the four storey section was disused they were weaving in the new shed in the bottom with 368 looms.

Silentnight bought Clough Mill off the Slaters and used it for bedding manufacture. There was a disastrous fire that gutted the mill and the remains were demolished about 1972 and Tom Clarke gave the site to the Council for a recreation ground.

[Stanley]

Here's another account of Clough.....

EXTRACT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH NEWTON PICKLES. 78/AG/3. (1978)


Let’s pop down the road a little bit, we’ve done Calf Hall, let’s go to Clough. Now according to Billy Brooks, when he was going to school, in about 1888, his mate was called Willy Brown and he lived on Rainhall Road and his father was called Mark Brown and he ran the engine at Clough and it was definitely a beam engine. Because he used to go there after school with Willy and wait while his father washed his hands. He said he always used to have a wash before the engine stopped, then he used to stop the engine and they all used to go out and go home. He said it was definitely a beam engine. We don’t know how long that beam engine was in there, we might find out eventually but you know of another engine that went in there.

R-Now this, I’m going off what I were told now with me father. That before that new Burnley Ironworks went in (1913) at Clough there were another horizontal engine put in. It were a great big numb thing, you never saw anything like it in your life and that engine were sold to a firm in Whalley. The mill in the bottom by the river at Whalley.

Now I only knew the Burnley Ironworks cross compound that were in at Clough. Bonniest little engine that anyone ever made were that and tha can go anywhere, it was a beauty.

That were put in in 1913?

R-1913. It were the bonniest thing Stanley that you ever saw, it run at 93rpm and it just ticked like a sewing machine. But now then, this other engine, you never saw anything as ugly in your life. I forget now who made it, it weren’t a firm that we knew and it went to Whalley. Me father has said that that engine came out o’t Clough (beam?) and they put that engine in and it mustn’t have been in so long, it were absolutely uneconomical and no damn good at all for them, it were miles too big and it must have cost a fortune in coal to run it.

Now I can’t remember, because I wasn’t interested in this job then, but I can’t remember Clough when they pulled it down but Billy Brooks said that the horizontal that they put in after the beam engine was in a building, did he say, at back of the boilers and under the tank?

R-Back o’t boilers and under the tank.

He said there were a building with a tank on the roof, or near t’boiler house under the tank.

R-Well, that would be on t’other side up to the new engine house. Where t’beam come from, there were two doors if I remember.

Aye, now he might have got mixed up, the beam engine might have been under the tank.

R-There were two doors if I remember. Beam were under the tank and then I think this other big thing went under the tank because all the stonework were still in, in there, in that room and it weren’t stone work that were suitable for a beam engine and that’s what I used to ask about and me father came up with this story that there had been another engine in t’Clough, Newton he says, it weren’t in there so long and it were useless. Now then, we hadn’t seen we hadn’t worked at this mill at Whalley then. They didn’t know where it had gone or what had happened to it. Now we goes to work at a flywheel that had come loose on this engine at Whalley and I went to it and I came back and me father asked me what sort of a thing it was. I says It is an object, come with me and have a look at it. When he saw it he says Eh, this engine came out o’t Clough at Barlick. Then George, that’s engine driver at Abbey Mills now, you know, who we were talking about at teatime, says Aye, it did come from Barlick, I’ve heard ‘em say it come from Barlick and that’s how we got to know where it had gone to.

So you’ve actually seen that engine?

R-I’ve worked on it, I keyed the flywheel on a fortnight before it finished, it came loose again before they had woven out, the shaft were jiggered.

What were it like this engine?

R-Oh, it were long and lanky, it were all out of proportion, blooming slides must have been six feet across but it weren’t a big high powered thing. Oh aye, it were the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Oh, and it ran backwards way! It did, it were terrible. And it had a great big fishtail crank on, a cast iron one, it had never been machined, you never saw anything like it in your life. It were more like it had come out of the ark.

Well, I wonder who made it?

R-And it swished round and it were miles out of balance because it were that crank, I allus said, that were bringing the flywheel off. Cause I said to ‘em, if your going to run this shop why don’t you let me put a new crank on, it’ll pay for its keep, keeping the flywheel on.

Were it a rope or a gear drive?

R-Rope, rope drive.

How many horse were it?

R-Speed it ran, oh, I wouldn’t say it’d be more than 6ooihp but it were far too big for Clough of course at that.

What pressure were it running at down there?

I think it were about 120psi or so, it wouldn’t be any more. Oh it were a thing.

Anyway, Slaters took that out, they saw the light?

R-An they put that little Burnley in and it were a beauty. A little Burnley Ironworks cross compound. Ticky-tocky, ticky-tocky….

That were a Whitehead governor weren’t it>

R-That were a Whitehead governor.

What did it run at?

R-93rpm.

That were fairly fast.

R-You couldn’t hardly indicate it on your own but I got used to it eventually and I could do it.

What were the stroke?

R-Two foot six inches.

Fairly travelling then, them pistons.

R-Oh it were travelling and high pressure were twelve inches bore and low pressure twenty four inches bore.

We have a photograph.

R-We have a photograph of it. Oh, I were on it many a time for months and months on end, I used to enjoy going to it.

Now have I heard you say something about it throwing ropes off the flywheel?

R-Aye, if they weren’t careful how they started it, it’d throw ropes off. One of my lads, I were out one day and t’engine driver were poorly so me father sent him to it, I must have been away that morning. He started up at dinnertime and there were a big panic and I rolled in and me father says Get off up to t’Clough Newton, I don’t know what’s happened. When I got there he had three ropes off. What had happened, he’d set on and they’d jumped off and he ran out of the engine house and left it and went to the boiler house to shut the steam off. He didn’t altogether panic, but he left it and went into t’boiler house to shut off the junction valve. Well he got scared about a rope wrapping round the governor and whooping him one because there weren’t much room between the stop valve and the flywheel with being so tiny you know. Anyway I soon barred the ropes back on by hand and we were on again in about an hour and a half. It hadn’t done any damage or made a lot of muck and I were there about three or four month that time.

Right, now then, what were the boilers at Clough?

R-It were an old boiler, it were only seven foot six inches diameter, it weren’t so big.

Were it a reight old one?

R-I wouldn’t say it were very ancient. It were 130psi pressure

Oh well, it wouldn’t be all that old.

R-No, it were 130psi I know it were, I can see the pressure gauge now with a red line on 130.

That wouldn’t be the boiler put in around 1860 then.

R-No, it were probably put in with the Burnley Ironworks engine ‘cause it were all new piping and all. Then of course there were a fire and it broke all’t cast iron pipes and we replaced them with steel t’second time.[1938?]

What were the feed pump?

R-It were a single ram pump down in’t cellar under the engine. It ran off the engine off one of the crank arms that worked the valve gear. There were some rockers, like yours at Bancroft, well, they extended one and it went through a hole in the floor into the cellar. They were a good pump you know.

Run off the eccentric.

R-Run off the eccentric.

And an injector?

R-And an injector as well, that were all.

And apart from the famous incident when they had the timing wrong on it did they have any bother with the engine?

R-Very little. I bored the high pressure valves and put new bonnets on up to t’latter end of its days. Well in fact it were just afore they banked because we never got paid.

Did Clough go banked?

R-Aye it went banked, yes.

Slaters?

R-Oh they did, They went banked at Clough and we never got paid for them valves. I bored them and put new bonnets on which were a fair job of course.

When were that?

R-Oh I can’t say, just after the war sometime, I ran it for six or seven months after the war. It’d be about 1948 or 49 happen.

Were it you and Crabby that were running that?

R-Yes, me and Crabby ran it for about six months. [Harry Crabtree, worked as mechanic for Hy Brown Sons and Pickles. SG]

Tell us about t’coal. [Fuel shortage in 1946 when Newton and Crabby were running Clough. SG]

R-Oh well, there weren’t such a thing as coal, it were just slutch and muck. The wagon used to come and tip it in. I’ll tell the tale me own way. It’d be 1946. coal, out of existence were coal, it were muck they were fetching us from America by sea. When they tipped the wagon up into your boiler house you just stood well back. It didn’t shutter to t’front it just went swish! It were all slutch and you wanted wellies on in’t engine house, it went up to t,tube bottoms, you couldn’t see the mud hole at the bottom of the boiler. Then you got it back into the bunker as well as you could and left it to drain into the flue bottoms overnight. Anyway we went on like this for many a month and one afternoon, me father was getting a bit bothered because you know he wanted me back. There were two of us there you see he wanted me back. He came up one afternoon, we were just cleaning out were me and Crabby, and I can see him now, he just stood in the boiler house door, shoved his hat back on the back of his head and says Now then, what are you doing? He just took one look, the barrow wasn’t in the boiler house you know, we’d nothing, you couldn’t get the barrow under the tubes. You had to pull the fire out on to the floor and then shovel the clinkers into the barrow. Well you know what the sulphur fumes are when you’re doing that. He just turns round to me and says Eh Newton, I know what I’d do if I were here. I says what? He says I’d floor one fire, one shovel up the bloody fire hole and take the bugger up to Arthur Berridge, He were t’manager. I says oh, we aren’t going to do that. Well he says, Tha looks busy, I’ll leave thee,

Well anyway, we’d a blooming big wagon landed with a load of coal on, they must have had twenty ton on. We only used to get it in’t little box cart from the station you know, a little wagon that Mitchell had then in them days. They called him Mitchell that chap that carted the coal from the station. This bloody great wagon came, I’ve never seen anything like it wi’ the coal piled on, piled up to the top. The wagon driver says is this Clough? I says Aye. He says I’ve brought thee this. I says I haven’t ordered that. I says, All my coal comes from somewhere sea side way by t’look of it, I don’t Bother wi’t stuff, I just goes into the office and tells ‘em I have none. Well, he says, tha’s to have this. I says Where’s that frae? Well, he says, I’ve brought it from Doncaster but I’ve been to a mill down the road, they call it Crow Nest I think, there’s a silly old bugger down there and he saw me come down the yard with it, he were out at t’top o’t steps and he just took one look at it over the top sides and he says Take that bloody rubbish away from here, I’m not burning that in my boilers, get it away from here. The driver says So I get back in me cab and then he shouts Oy, just a minute lad, don’t take it back where it came from. I’ll tell thee what to do with it, take it to a mill up the road, they call it Clough, anybody’ll tell you where it is, there’s two silly buggers up there that’ll burn owt. And that were Arthur Dobson, engineer at Crow Nest.

So did you burn it?

R-We burned it, what, burn it? We’d never had coal like that for six month. We never had stuff like that. I said What the heck, we get cleaned out as soon as there were some of that going in. Crabby says Hey! This is good coal Newton! I says Aye, let’s get the damper regulator working again. We were all right, we could sit on our arses with this stuff, we were made up. I mean, we never had us breakfast for two months, till nearly dinnertime. We used to go at five o’clock, we started at six, it were winter, and I’ve seen us go at four in the morning and put steam in the mill and clean out sixteen times afore starting time and that’s as true as I sit here.

Aye, it was shit wasn’t it.

R-[It was a job] To get steam anywhere over 100psi mark to get us going. The manager, the under manager came down to me one morning, I’d just set on, it were just after six o’clock because we started at six then you know, they didn’t work at Saturday morning. He says Newton, will you go up into t’winding room, there’s some lights gone out, there must be a fuse gone. I says, I’ll go up there as soon as I’ve cleaned out and getten steam up. He says I don’t want messing about, I want it doing now, them folk up there’s sat about doing nowt. I says Thee wait a minute while I stop the bloody engine. He never come down no more wanting fuses mending. He didn’t that.

Aye, who was it, when coal got scarce, they thought they’d worked a flanker when they bought all that American coal? Were it at Wellhouse?

R-Wellhouse bought it all. Now then, how much were there, seven or eight hundred tons were out there in’t yard if I remember right and it all went red, it went rusty!

That’s it, it did.

R-It went rusty and there were a lot of it in great cobs that’d weigh above three hundredweight. We used to get them in the boiler house and bash em with the striking hammer afore we could fire ‘em. Oh aye, they were good days were them!

[Stanley]

RECEIVED FROM Geoff Shackleton. 22/11/00


CLOUGH MILL, BARNOLDSWICK


Additional notes GS 22/11/00

Similar early history to SG but obtained from Dr. George Ingles' Phd papers 'The West Riding Cotton Industry 1780-1835' via Bradford University 1980.

I can add:

In 1878/9 a new shed was built and a new engine installed in addition to a beam engine which I believe was the one from 1845. The new engine was a HSC slide valve engine made by Furneval of Haslingden 36" x 66". A rare bird! The engine had a tailrod VAP. I have two separate accounts that the engine was removed in 1900 and taken to Judge Walmsley Mill, near Whalley. Various people saw and photographed this engine at Whalley and at Whalley it had become a HTC by the addition of a Corliss HP cylinder, by Ashton Frost. I cannot say if the compounding took place at Barlick or Whalley but maybe the latter where there were more looms than at Clough. I suppose the debate is whether the old beam and the HSC shared the 600 looms loading or not and if not did the 36" x 66" HSC manage them. At Whalley there were 900 looms. The engine was rated 300ihp , 18" + 36" x 66", 47 rpm, 16' FW with 14 ropes whilst at Whalley.
There is an interesting bit in the Cotton Factory Times October 1891 which infers that the Furneval did the work on its own. It reads that due to looms having been removed from Clough Mill to other mills in the district, the Directors decided to re-commission the old engine (probably the 1845 beam engine) and shut down the newer engine. The old engine failed to run properly due to being 'too tight' and they recoupled the newer engine.
The question is that if the reports of the engine being removed in 1900 are correct, what powered the mill up to 1913 when the BIW's engine was put in ? The BIW's engine was O/N 108 in 1913, and 12 1/2 + 24" x 36" 8 ropes, Corliss both, with tailrod HAP as built.

[Stanley]

MITCHELL’S MILL (LATER CLOUGH MILL)

29 August 2000. Amendments:21/11/00,

- see Clough Mill in conjunction with these notes. Name changed, probably in 1846 when Wm Mitchell extended the old mill.
First mill was probably built as a water powered spinning mill to take advantage of breaking of Arkwright’s patents after 1785.
First mention I have is in YORKSHIRE COTTON (Ingle) who states that in 1800, Hartley, Bracewell and Co occupied a small cotton mill in Barlick, which they insured for £400.
In 1812 William Mitchell insured ‘The Old Cotton Mill’ in Barlick for £1300. This mill was stated to be four storeys high with about 1500 feet of space.
By 1827 Mitchell had extended the mill and added steam power. George Ingle has seen the records of the policy and it definitely mentions a steam engine at that date. The reference is: Sun Insurance Registers Vol 161. CR1060008 – 1827. William Mitchell, Barnoldswick, Cotton Spinner.
Mill £500, Steam engine £200, Mill work £100, Clockwork £1100, Stock £100, Stock in warehouse £100.
The insurance value in 1831 was: Cotton mill, engine house, sizing house etc. £700, Mill work £100, Machinery £1500, stock £100. Total £2,400.
This statement agrees with Atkinson who said that when Mitchell extended mill in 1846 (same time that Wm Bracewell was building Butts) there was already a boiler on site.
In 1846 Mitchell built Clough Mill next to the existing mill. This may have been an extension of the 1827 extension. It was said to be able to hold 300 looms and was driven by steam. This was the engine that Wm Atkinson said was provided by steam from the existing boiler so it looks as though there were two small beam engines running in the mill at that time. Atkinson further states that these ‘pan’ boilers were changed for flued boilers ‘in the slack time’; this would be the cotton famine of the early 1860s.
First tenants in the 146 build were William, Thomas and Christopher Bracewell who also owned Old Coates and had space in earlier Mitchell’s Mill.
Wm. Atkinson states that 1846 build was by Barlick Masons but that David Carr of Gargrave built the chimney. (This raises the interesting point as to what chimney was used before, was it a detached chimney or built into the old mill?)
Atkinson also states that the first looms brought into the 1846 build were by Pilling of Trawden and had wooden frames. They were brought to Barlick by the Clough carter, Aaron Bilsborough. Bob Foulds was the tackler from Trawden who came to gait up these ‘mongrel looms’. Atkinson got this information from William Bailey who was a tenter at Clough Shed in 1848.
In 1860 the Bracewell Brothers ceased trading.
About 1860, Mr Bennett, the Baptist minister started as a manufacturer in Clough Mill but went bankrupt very soon after.
1860, John Slater and his sons started as tenants in Clough Mill
November 1867. John Slater finished paying £3,000 for Clough Mill. (From Liverpool and Martins Bank records.)
Clough Mill extended in 1868 to take more looms and floor above used for preparing woollen weft. This was discontinued after a few years (resumption of American cotton?) and space taken by Stephen Pickles. (See S Pickles tapes in LTP)
1879 a new shed was built at Clough but abandoned shortly afterwards when Clayton Slater migrated to Canada taking his looms with him.
Slater’s let space vacated by Clayton Slater as Room and Power (Atkinson’s words)
Atkinson describes Clough in 1880 as ‘real starting point’ of Barlick prosperity. He evidently regarded Wm Bracewell hegemony as a stifling influence on the town. (Court cases over water rights with Bracewell Brothers at Old Coates? They were his cousins.)
Describes Clough as four storeys with 144 looms on each floor, 576 in all, loft was used for preparation.
C Herald of 1888 described Clough as being tenanted by Mr Brooks, Mr Stephen Pickles and Messrs. Hand J Slater. On 20/10/88 they reported rumours that Clough was to extend by 400 looms.
In 1888 Slater Edmondson and James Nutter who had been in partnership at Clough moved into new shed at Long Ing.
In 1892 Henry Slater was described as owner and tenant of Clough Mill in Urban District Council papers
Clough Mill Co described as cotton manufacturers in Barrett trade directory of 1887.
April 13 1913, Burnley Ironworks ordered packings from Universal Metallic Packing Co of Bradford for J Slater and Sons at Clough Mill. This would be for the new engine. See N Pickles in LTP.
New engine was Burnley Ironworks cross compound, 2’6” stroke, 93rpm, HP 12”, LP24”, Whitehead governor. Boiler was 7’6” Lancashire, 130psi.
There’s a problem with the engines at Clough. Sometime between the original beam engine of 1827 (working with waterwheel) and the new engine of 1913, there was another engine in there. It was far too big and numb, very uneconomical. All I know is that it was about 900ihp and when it was taken out of Clough it went to Clitheroe to the mill near the railway arches.
Newton tells how ropes used to come off flywheel under load. He rebored the HP valves and fitted new bonnets 1947/48 but never got paid as Slaters banked in 1948/49.
Tom Clark bought mill later when he moved his bedding business into the town after the war. It was a Silentnight mill until it burned down in 60’s(?)

[chinatyke]

Your mention of Whalley Abbey Mill reminded me that we used to get copper print rollers, engraved rollers, made there when I worked at CPA Loveclough printworks. Whalley Abbey Mill was part of the CPA group at that time, 1964-ish. Was this the same mill? It closed in about 1972 I think.

[Stanley]

The mill I refer to was still running in 1978 because they offered me the job of running the engine but I had different fish to fry China. I don't know enough about the mills in Whalley to give you a definitive answer.

[I hope you are enjoying this wander through the research on Clough. I want to give you an idea of how deep you have to dig to uncover these stories and the history. If it bores you..... sorry!]

CLOUGH AND MITCHELL’S MILL

30 August 2000


Attached are three maps, 1853, 1892 and 1914.



1853 OS



1892 OS



1914 OS

The 1914 is perhaps the clearest map to show the Clough site. The 1853 is not very clear, not just because of the loss of quality because of the degree of enlargement but because it is actually quite confusing. However, there are some important facts to be gleaned from it.

1853
If you look carefully at the dam behind the mill you can see that there are two lines coming off it towards the mill. One coincides with the existing culvert under the mill and will always have been the by-wash or overflow which allowed water to get away which was not needed for the running of the mill. It is important to realise that this culvert has to deal with flood water which otherwise could damage the mill. If you look carefully in the NW corner of the dam there is a thicker line running into the corner of the mill. This would be the headrace for the waterwheel. At the moment I don’t know exactly where the water wheel was in the mill but the West side looks favourite.

Another thing that this arrangement of the water supply tells us is that this was the logical place for the first mill, Mitchell’s. This site is the logical place to put a watermill on the site and I have little doubt that this was the original build. It might have been smaller when first built but this looks like the site. This is marked ‘C’ on the 1914 map.

‘D’ and ‘B’ on the 1914 map Look like extended versions of the smaller building shown on the 1853 map. The marking for the chimney on the 1853 map is confusing as it seems to indicate a mark in the field due east of the smaller building. However, from the clearer 1892 map and on 1914 as well, the chimney is shown as a square structure close to the north east corner of the small building.

On the 1853 map there is an indication that the tail race surfaced at the north east corner of the main mill, passed under the east corner of the smaller building and surfaced again in the mill yard before passing under the road to the east of what was to be the site of the Chapel. I know that Town Bridge was constructed about 1825 so this fits well. According to the 1892 map, the tailrace inside the mill site had been culverted by this time. There is no sign of Gillians Beck between the back of the mill and the north side of Walmsgate. There is very little change in the site on the 1914 map. I can’t help suspecting that the head race for the wheel passed down the west side of the mill and that the small building on the north west corner was perhaps the wheel house.

I shall be working on these assumptions until better evidence emerges.

[Stanley]

JOHN SAYER METCALFE AND CLOUGH MILL.

On the 23rd of November 1898 Margaret Metcalfe (nee Sayer) wife of William Metcalfe, a sheep farmer at Far Gearstones, above Ribblehead, gave birth to a son who was christened John Sayer Metcalfe. Margaret Sayer was born at Low Grain House, Thoralby on the far side of Street Head pub which at that time was owned by the Thwaite family. 84 years later, Harold Duxbury suggested I should have a talk with John about Clough Mill and the early days in Barlick. What follows is the gist of what he told me.

Life was hard up on the top of the Pennines. When John’s sisters started to go to school in Chapel le Dale they had to go into lodgings for the week and their dad took them down there each Sunday night with enough food for the week. Then William got the chance of a farm at Chapel le Dale so they moved down there. They had a couple of other farms as tenants in the next few years, one of them on Ingleborough. In 1901 when John was three years old they moved again to Paythorne and this was where they came into contact with the Duxbury family because they had farmed there.

William farmed Bank Top in Paythorne until 1908 when John was ten years old and then the family moved to Barnoldswick. We would do well to look carefully at this move and why it happened because the Metcalfe family experience was very common in those days. If you had a family, the big problem on the remote farms was finding employment for the children especially the girls. It was very common for girls to leave home as soon as they could work and go away as domestic servants. One of John’s sisters was in service at Carr Beck in Barnoldswick, the home of Fred Harry Slater, and he pointed out to William Metcalfe that if he declined farming and came down to Barlick he could get work in the mill for himself and all his family. In 1908 they made the move.

John stayed in school until he was thirteen and in 1911 started work in the mill. I’m smiling as I write this because John was a bit reticent when it came to the exact date. I got the impression that he may have left school earlier than was legal and didn’t want to disclose this. He was very straightforward and if I asked him something he didn’t want me to know he just said ‘I’m not telling you that!” So we’ll have to stick to my estimate. All I am certain of is that by 1915 John was working for Slaters who had warping frames and looms down at Wellhouse Mill.

I think one of the reasons why John was so cagey was the fact that there was friction in the Slater Brothers partnership. This was why James went to run his own firm at Salterforth and Clayton emigrated. I have no doubt that John knew quite a lot about this but he wasn’t saying anything.

He could remember being told about the fire at Clough Mill in about 1900 and said that the four story portion went to rack and ruin until in about 1913 when they decided to put a new Burnley Ironworks engine in and reopen that part of the mill. He told me that this was when the old beam engine was taken out, he could remember the name of the man who split the bed stone of the engine and took it out, he was called Theodore. Briggs and Duxbury put in the foundations for the new engine and Henry Brown and Sons installed it. Ted Tillotson bought the old engine. By 1924 Slater Brothers were looking for more space in Clough and so they had the old mill surveyed and it was decided it would be strong enough for looms. So 128 looms were brought out of Wellhouse and installed on the second floor of the old mill.

John knew all about the water rights on Gillian’s Beck and confirmed something I had suspected for years. When I was engineer at Bancroft I was always intrigued by the fact that there was a by-pass round the dam and an arrangement of sluice boards in a deep well whereby water could be diverted round the dam and straight down to Ouzledale and Clough. The reason for this was that if there was a drought and very little water flowing down the beck, the water in Bancroft dam would heat up and not have cooled by the time it reached Clough. When Bancroft was built there was an agreement between the Nutter interests and Slaters at Clough which stipulated that if Clough requested it, Bancroft would divert the water coming into the dam so that Clough got the benefit of the cooler water for their condenser and therefore could run their engine more efficiently.

By the late 1920s Slaters still had space at Wellhouse let from the Calf Hall Shed Company but they had 368 looms in the single storey section at Clough and 128 looms on the second floor of the old mill. All these were run by the new Burnley Ironworks engine installed in 1913.

John remembered the 1932 flood well because that was the year he moved up to Clough from Wellhouse and eventually became manager for Slater Brothers. He told me that it was Nutter’s rubbish washing down the beck that blocked the culvert under the mill and caused the end wall to come in. The weaving shed was flooded to about five feet deep. I didn’t argue with John but I’ve always thought that Bancroft got a bad deal over the flood. It wasn’t their skips and weft boxes that washed down the beck but Wild Brothers’ who had their garage above Bancroft and directly in the path of the flood.

More from John next week and for my picture I can’t resist using the one of George Hoggarth and the new engine again. Sorry about that but it’s too good to waste!



George Hoggarth with the 1913 Burnley Ironworks engine at Clough Mill.

[Stanley]

I hope you liked that wander through the tickets of research. Let's do the same for Butts Mill.

BRACEWELL AND BUTTS

In 1845 William Bracewell (‘Billycock’) made what was in those days an enormous investment when he built Butts Mill, the first purpose-built steam cotton mill in Barnoldswick. In the process he radically altered the area. To make room for the mill he had to cut away the hillside at what is now the Taylor Street end of the site and carted all the spoil from there up Calf Hall Lane to an old quarry beyond the present cattle grid where Pickles Hippings joins the lane. From the look of the ground he also landscaped the area between the quarry and the cattle grid and in the process perhaps covered evidence of the short-lived 12th century Cistercian monastery there.

His new mill needed water for the condensers on his engines in order to make them economical to run and the obvious source is Calf Hall beck which comes down off the moor to the west and at that time actually ran through the land he was building on. There was a disused water driven twist mill at what we now know as Parrock Laithe where the scout headquarters are. He must have gained control of the rights to use the beck beyond this point because it looks as though he installed a weir there to divert water under his mill. I’m not certain about this because so much has been changed but if you look into the beck where it emerges from the culvert under the road at Parrock you can see the stonework of a substantial weir in the far bank. This is in exactly the right place to divert the water he needed and I am almost certain that it is associated with the new mill. Harold Duxbury was manager of the Calf Hall Shed Company which owned Butts Mill in the 20th century and he told me that he once went under the mill to inspect the underground lodge that held the water supply for the condensers. Any overflow from the weir into the beck followed roughly the same course we can see today. We should take note here that Butts was notorious in the early days for being short of water. Billycock investigated every avenue to alleviate this problem and one thing he did was build Springs Dam to manage the water flow. In the course of this he diverted water, sometimes illegally, from other springs to augment the supply.

Once the water had been used in the mill it flowed out underground into the middle of the road outside the mill and joined the overflow from the weir at Parrock and Gillian’s Beck which came down behind what was the school. This confluence was in a sump surrounded by a wall which must have looked a bit like a roundabout. From there, the combined flows became Butts Beck and flowed on down the valley. There was no road down Butts, just a footpath and from what we can see on the 1853 OS map, the course of the beck was the same as it is today. The confluence in the sump is no longer visible, at some point it was covered over to get rid of the obstruction. There’s a cast iron manhole in the road slightly nearer the Pigeon Club and if you listen carefully you can hear the water running beneath the road. About two hundred yards down the beck there is another weir just upstream of the footbridge leading into the park. This is an ancient structure first built in the late 16th century (but later improved) as part of the works to supply water to the Corn Mill. We’ll come back to that later.

What I want to try to puzzle out is what Butts was like before all these alterations took place. We know that the land on the south side of the beck from Parrock Laithe down to Butts was a small farm known as The Parrock because we have records of it being owned by the Trustees of the old Baptist Chapel in Wapping. We also know that in 1853 there were no buildings in Butts below the mill. The next farm down the valley was Hen House on Gisburn Road and if you followed the beck Dam Head Farm was the first you came to. What you would have seen in Butts in 1850 was the ancient landscape of the town. However, if you look at the pattern of building around Butts Top it seems as though there was a well-used thoroughfare, important enough to leave its mark on the modern townscape. The question I have in my head is why? There was no through route to anywhere, it wasn’t for access to the lower part of the town because our ancestors weren’t daft, they didn’t go downhill to climb back up again to what is now Commercial Street, they walked on the level. What was so important down Butts?

The most widely-held explanation for the name ‘Butts’ is that it was where archery practice took place. In many towns this is true. However, I don’t think this was the case in Barlick. One thing that was essential to all medieval villages was a common field system. We have evidence of this land use in Bracewell as late as the 18th century. My picture this week is a section of the 1717 Bracewell Estate map which shows strip systems at Haber and Mither Close to the west of Stock village. On Mither Close there are strips called Horton Butts and on Haber there are three small parcels of land called Butts. This field name is not used anywhere else on the map.

There is only one place in Barlick where there is any clue that indicates where our field system was. The name ‘butts’ was most commonly used to describe pieces of land within the strip system. In addition there are records of cottages described as ‘Herriff Butts’, Herriff is the archaic name for a weed called Goose Grass or Cleavers. The individual plots in a strip system had names and you have to ask yourself whether there was one of them infested by the weed, hence the name Herriff Butts. None of this is conclusive proof of course but I think that access to a field system would be more likely to leave a permanent mark on the landscape than an archery ground.

The field system was an important economic asset and was a customary right of the townspeople dating back to at least 600. Even the advent of the monks and their ownership of the manor from the 12th century onwards couldn’t extinguish such a privilege. Butts is the right place for common fields and on balance I think that this is the most likely origin for the name. Next week I’ll have a look at Bracewell and his green field site, Butts wasn’t the limit of his ambitions.

SCG/16 October 2009

[Stanley]

 
BUTTS MILL. SHACKLETON/GRAHAM CORR.



From: Stanley Challenger Graham
To: Geoff Shackleton
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 7:09 AM
Subject: Re: Butts Mill

Morning Geoff,
 
Glad we are feeding each other!  As soon as I have tidied up the loose ends of the LTP I shall plunge into Calf Hall Shed Company matters.  This will throw up a lot of info on Calf Hall, Butts, Wellhouse and eventually Viaduct Shed at Colne.
 
To answer the question of Butts as a shadow factory; I permitted myself a small foray into the material.....
 
CHSC directors meeting 15th January 1942.  ' The meeting was informed that the MAP had requisitioned the three large weaving sheds on the ground floor of Butts Mill together with the boiler house, coal store etc. and the plans showed an entrance to the premises in Butts.  The requisition was dated 12th January 1942 and described three sheds of 20,000, 18260 and 17521 square feet.'
 
Subsequently CHSC removed all the shafting and gearing, Ouzledale Foundry tendered £455 for it and this was accepted. 
 
Subsequent to the end of weaving at Butts various small tenants took space; a Mr Lister  for making caravans, Craven Electricity had some space and Hartley's furnishers had storage space.  It looks as though these carried on alongside the MAP occupation.  Also, an old Firewatcher’s telephone directory shows Butts as being used by 'The Nigerian Tobacco Co. Bond' for storing tobacco during the war. (Wellhouse was a tobacco bond as well, reputedly for the Navy). 
 
16/01/35 Dobson’s Dairies approached CHSC about taking space in Butts but this came to nothing as they took Coates.  See the attached article I did, Eddie says Butts was used for reconditioning Pratt and Whitney engines.  By 1945 Grove Engineering were in Butts as tenants of the MAP.
 
More will follow, but here's a bit more from 'Vikings at Waterloo' by David S Brooks.
 
'Advertisement in the Manchester Guardian, 12/09/1940.  'MILLS, MANUFACTORIES, WORKS ETC. WANTED:  Factory premises wanted, ground floor, about 300,000 square feet in North Lancashire.  Information to AB Smith c/o County Hotel, Lancaster.'
 
The advertisements elicited a reply which led to a meeting between Mr Smith and his respondent at the Black Horse Hotel in Skipton, where he had set up a new base after moving on from Lancaster.
 
He had already discovered that there were a number of weaving sheds available in the area but had found them too small for the Rover Company's requirements. When his communicant revealed that he knew of a suitable weaving shed, he felt that his time was about to be wasted. However his visitor drew his attention to the Bankfield Shed at Barnoldswick which was a double unit and therefore much larger than other factories in the area. Better still, it had been bought by Messrs British Celanese Ltd, and had just been cleaned up and re-decorated for their own use. With a floor area of some 165 000 sq ft it was somewhat smaller than originally envisaged, but, in most other respects, proved to be the ideal factory - being ready for occupation and having extra room for extension. Thus it was that a requisition order, dated 25 September 1940, was formally signed for the Bankfield Shed.
 
Initially, the premises were said to be needed for the piston aero-engine work being carried out by the company, but this aspect of Rover's work was soon transferred to other sites and Bankfield became the centre for the proposed production of the Whittle gas turbine engines. The newly-acquired site was officially referred to as 'Number 6 Shadow Factory' in company minutes. This reflected the Ministry's preference for the work to be carried out on a 'Shadow' basis, i.e. with the factory being managed by Rover but with all expenses paid by the Ministry. Later internal documentation tends to refer to it simply as the 'No 6 Factory' but it was more commonly referred to in day-to-day correspondence etc, by simply using its name 'Bankfield Shed', frequently shortened to just 'Bankfield'.
 
With the establishment of a Rover base at Barnoldswick, a check was made of other buildings in the area for use as dispersal premises for the other war work which was being undertaken by Rover. As a result, a number additional units were set up for the company's other war contracts which included the production and repair of Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah aero engines and the manufacture of airframe parts for the Armstrong Whitworth Albermarle bomber.
 
The 'North West group of factories', as they were later referred included Grove Mill and Sough Bridge Mill in Earby, Calf Hall Mill and Butts Mill in Barnoldswick and Carleton Mill near Skipton. Bracewell Hall between Barnoldswick and Gisburn was taken over to serve as the administrative centre for the group, and Waterloo Mill, in Clitheroe, was also to become a member of this cluster.
 
Meanwhile, the events of the night of 14 November 1940 demonstrated the importance of Spencer Wilks' earlier moves to secure alternative factory accommodation in safer areas. On that night, the city of Coventry was the target for an eleven-hour raid by German bombers causing widespread destruction and during which the Rover factory was severely damaged. The situation was such that there was now an immediate requirement for new premises to re-locate the Rover Company's work from Helen Street. The management, administration and engineering department staffs were moved out to a pre-arranged emergency site at the Chesford Grange Hotel, a large country-house between Kenilworth and Leamington, where many of the departments were to stay for the remainder of the war. Assembly of the first Rover-built W2 engine was completed here, prior to delivery to Power Jets, but the recently requisitioned 'safer locations' in the North West were now needed for the jet engineering and production teams.'
 
As I say, there will be much more next year when I get my teeth into CHSC minutes.  My interest is of course to sort out the story of these mills but more important to tease out exactly how Room and Power worked.  Nobody has really addressed this one.
 
Right, off to do some work!
 
Best, S.
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Geoff Shackleton
To: Stanley Graham
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 8:03 PM
Subject: Butts Mill


Stanley,
              Thanks for recent stuff on Butts and Barnsey.  I had most of
this but the dates that cotton ended at Butts was new to me.  Was it
actually occupied as a shadow factory and if so what was it used for do you
know?  I have it as Carlson Filtration from post War.

Regarding engines at Butts there is much that remains to be bottomed here!
What I do know is:

The main driving engines for the spinning mill were a pair of large beam
engines.

The new boilers from Sandbeds were delivered in March 1862 (ref Keighley
News)

In 1885 there were three steam engines.  The large double beam engines for
the spinning mill, a pair of horizontal engines reported as having
stopped a large portion of the mill due to a 'countershaft failure' and a
McNaughted beam engine of 150ihp that drove a sizable pair of double
diagonal ram pumps. It was this latter engine that was auctioned in 1890.
I can't fathom what the ram pumps were for, unless it was for a large
water extraction from a well.  That sort of engine only seemed to exist
for water supplies to dyeworks and the like so I am confused.  The ram
pumps were made by William Bracewell in 1872 which is probably the date of
the beam engine too because the engine and pumps were a sort of integral
design.

In August 1888 the mill closed due to the chancery proceedings and
Billycocks' executors then tried to sell the mill.  It was reported as
let to Messrs Eastwood and Bradley in October 1889 and in February 1890 it
was reported that the spinning mill was being pulled down.  In May 1891
the mill was reported as being converted to a weaving shed and that
Messrs. Eastwood and Maudsley were about to move their looms from Long
Ing Shed to Butts.

In April 1895 it was reported that tenants had been found for the 'two new
sheds at Butts Mill'.  (These seem to have been built where the spinning
mill stood.)

In May 1897 'the engine broke down stopping all 2000 looms'. (Now which
engine is that?  Not the Musgrave because.........lots of other types of
breakdowns followed and ......)

June 1899  'A new engine is being put in at Butts Weaving Shed
Barnoldswick.  Some alterations in the shafting have have been found
necessary and consequently the whole of the 2000 looms have been stopped'.
(This I think must be the Musgrave.)

July 1899  'Butts Mill with 1700 looms.  The new engine has arrived and
got into position.  Last Thursday morning week the place was restarted.
( This even sounds like a second hand engine was being delivered.)

December 1899  'Butts Mill has passed into the hands of Thomas Hodgkinson
who for many years was manager and secretary of Butts Mill Company.'

September 1900 'Messrs. S. Pickles have taken over the business at Butts
Mill which is understood will be conducted co jointly with their business
at Calf Hall Shed'.

Regarding the Musgraves engine, there is a Burnley Ironworks record of
supplying a High Pressure Corliss cylinder to the Calf Hall Shed Company,
Butts Mill in 1921 which was 26ins. dia. and 6ft. stroke which proves the
stroke.  Unfortunately there were around 24 6ft. stroke cross-compound
engines by Musgrave.  Half went abroad so that leaves about 12 to track
down!  All these engines were made between 1880 and 1889.  Most were
stated to be 50 or 54 rpm but the one with the largest cylinders seems to
be the only one stated as 40 rpm and I think that Butts ran at 38 rpm.  If
this was the engine then the cylinders were 32 + 56 and the air pump was 39
x 32.

Thats what I've dug up for now, does any of this help?

Feeling proper educated since the trip to Oxford.  Managed a trip around
the Bodlian Library....5 million books!

More soon.  Geoff



 
----- Original Message -----
From: Stanley Challenger Graham
To: Geoff Shackleton
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 8:24 AM
Subject: Re: Butts Mill

Geoff,
 
I was thinking about the pump at Butts.  My crap detector is whining about this one. 
 
There is a manuscript history of Barlick by Atkinson and experience has taught me that he is generally very accurate.  He marvels at one point that a '6" cold water pipe' was laid between Butts Beck and Wellhouse Mill.  This was Bracewell's answer to the water shortage at Wellhouse, he was diverting water from Butts Beck to Wellhouse and piped the overflow in such a way that it couldn't be used by his cousins at Old Coates.  So he was taking water out above their mill and returning it below.  This contributed to the abandonment of Old Coates around 1860.  In the same paragraph Atkinson says 'The same (the 6" pipe) was used for a few years after the latter (Wellhouse Mill) was completed but were abandoned after the engines at Butts were supplied with a new invention' 
 
Why should a 'new invention' at Butts have any effect on drawing water off Butts Beck at the Corn Mill for Wellhouse?  The only thing I can think of is that Bracewell was attacking the problem of the water supply at Butts by pumping water back from below the mill upstream and recirculating it.  There would be a penalty in that the temerature would be raised and the efficiency of the engines lowered but I suspect that on balance it would work.  Now then, this would also raise the temperature of the water running down Butts Beck to the Corn Mill.  Suppose this rise in temperature made the Corn Mill supply uneconomical?  The Bowker Drain which Bracewell had made before this was undoubtedly proving to be a better supply than he had expected and it may be that this was what persuaded him to abandon the pipe to the Corn Mill. 
 
Years later CHSC tried the water supply from the Corn Mill again but soon abandoned it. They decided it was cheaper to sink a borehole at Wellhouse and this leads me to suspect that the problem was temperature of the supply. Remember that by this time Calf Hall was warming the water as well.  In point of fact this never worked properly and they survived on the Bowker Drain.
 
On balance, the use of the pump at Butts to recirculate condensing water seems to be a feasible answer and it fits in with what was happening further down the beck.
 
Billycock was ferocious and there is recurring evidence that success or failure depended on control of the water supply.  He has a track record in these matters.  I think we can regard this as a working hypothesis until something better turns up.
 
How about that?
 
Best, S.
 
 
 

[Stanley]

GILLIAN'S AND WELLHOUSE FARM

I think most of my readers will have realised how much time I spend in the undergrowth of fragmented evidence available about Barlick. At the moment the particular thicket is the Calf Hall Shed Company minutes and it has thrown up some more pieces of the jigsaw. You know of my interest in water rights on Gillian's Beck and I'm happy to report that things may be becoming clearer.
The evidence so far has pointed clearly to the fact that Mitchell, at what became Clough Mill, gained control of the water rights on Gillian's right back to the moor excepting of course the customary rights of Ouzledale Mill which must pre-date Mitchell's Mill. It looks as though whoever first built a water mill at Ouzledale for whatever reason, I think it was originally a saw mill, didn't see any reason to buy the water rights above the mill because at that point, sometime in the mid 18th century, there was no competition. We can date the water-powered mill at Gillians at sometime just after 1780 and by that time we know that Mitchell owned the water rights up on to the moor because the new mill at Gillians had to use the little stream flowing down from Lane Bottoms instead of the far better flow in Gillian's Beck, directly behind the back wall of the mill. So far so good, we are on firm ground.
However, I kept coming across hints that in some way Butts Mill had an interest in the Gillians water. The first clue I got was the fact that William 'Billycock' Bracewell of Newfield Edge bought the Ouzledale estate some time early after starting to build the first purpose-built steam mill in the town at Butts in 1845. I can think of only one reason for this, he had in his mind augmenting the inadequate water supply to Butts. I can't tell whether he knew about the ownership of the water rights on Gillian's Beck but he certainly had it in his mind that in some way he could divert water down to his mill. There was one further clue that I found years ago which supports this theory, in September 1932 Butts was finished as a weaving shed and there was no further use for the engine and therefore no need for condensing water. The minutes of the CHSC report that the Lea water meter, jointly owned by them and Slaters at Clough was to be removed and sold. Now a Lea meter is a device for measuring flow in a watercourse or pipe and there can be only one reason why it existed, it was to measure how much water Butts was taking from Gillian's Beck so that Clough Mill could be compensated. The next question is where was this meter situated and what water flow was it measuring?
Once Gillian's Beck had entered the tail race from the wheel at Clough it was of no further interest to the Slaters. It was at too low a level to be useful at Butts without pumping it back up into Calf Hall Beck alongside Butts and this would be expensive. I don't discount that fact that a pump might have been used at one time, there are small clues about pumps at Butts in Atkinson's 'Old Barlick'. What would be more useful and cheaper would have been the right to draw water off at the level of the lodge behind Clough and below Ouzledale because this is above the level of the Calf Hall Beck. If a pipe for this purpose existed the most logical point for the intake would be at the head race to the Clough waterwheel because this is nearest to Butts. Until a fortnight ago this was as close to a theory I had, all logical but no hard evidence.
Then I found a reference that in 1907 the CHSC were paying £2-10-0 per annum to the Trustees of the Baptist Church for the rent of 'The Dam' in the Parrock. There is evidence in the plan of Butts used in the 1887 sale document when the Craven Bank was liquidating the Bracewell Brothers' holdings of a branch of the Calf Hall Beck having been made into the Parrock, presumably to connect to this dam. When I found it I assumed that this was simply extra storage capacity for the head waters of the Calf Hall Beck to give better cooling of the condensers at Butts but then I began to think about it more carefully. Assuming I was right about there being water drawn off the Clough lodge, what was the shortest and most economical way to pipe water from there to Butts? If I was asked to do the job now I'd install a draw-off point at the clow into the culvert under Clough and lay the pipe in the bed of the beck until I had reached the open air again on the boundary of the Parrock. Remember that this is a pipe and at that point there would be enough pressure in it to carry the water to a point slightly above the level of the Calf Hall Beck and arrange a small dam and a feeder into the beck. I can't see any other reason for the dam in the Parrock.
Then another clue surfaced, in March 1915 there is an entry in the minutes: 'That Messrs Nutters, who propose to build a shed at Gillians [Bancroft Shed] be informed of the company's position re water rights'. At first sight CHSC doesn't have any rights to Gillian's Beck water beyond their customary rights at Ouzledale. I have sound evidence that the factor which enabled Bancroft to be built was an agreement on the use of Gillian's Beck between Nutters and Slaters triggered by a marriage linking the two families. This 1915 entry seems to confirm that Butts Mill drew some water off the Gillian's Beck by arrangement with Clough and it may be this which is referred to. If this is so, we are looking at an arrangement made by Billycock with either Mitchell or the Slaters before 1885.
As I always say, research changes the conclusions, this seemingly minor matter of the water from Gillians is a case in point. The jigsaw is becoming a recognisable picture. My position now is that Butts definitely did draw water off at the level of the Clough mill dam, most likely at the clow to the culvert under the mill. This water fed into a balance pond in the Parrock and from there into the Calf Hall Beck. The water meter would most likely be in the pipe at the inlet at Clough where it could be easily read by the Slaters to assess any payments. There is an occasional payment to Slater Brothers mentioned in the minutes, perhaps this was for water used to run Butts. Now all we need is the chance discovery of the pipe into the Parrock. Perhaps if and when the proposed scheme for Clough Park becomes reality? Watch this space, one of these days we may get confirmation!
Stp press. On July 21st 1915 CHSC instructed Harley and Pilgrim who were acting for J Slater and Sons to protect their interest in Gillian's water to act for CHSC as well in the matter.]



Is this where the water for Butts was drawn off? 'A' would be the draw off point on the Clough Lodge and 'B' the balance pond in the Parrock.

[Stanley]

One of the puzzling things about the big Musgrave engine at Butts is that it was hated by Johnny and Newton Pickles as being a big numb wastrel. There is no doubt that the jack gear and flywheel gave a lot of trouble over the years but if you took note of the minutes it was consistently the most economical engine in the company. The lineshafting gave trouble because of the vibration from the flywheel but in terms of friction loss was always good. Wellhouse was a bad shafting layout mainly because of the never ending extensions. You couldn't just stick another shed on the end, in some cases the whole run of shaft had to be moved forward and the gap to the engine filled with heavier shaft to take the increased load. Just one example of the problems the millwrights had to solve.

[Stanley]

Lineshaft systems can be surprisingly efficient in terms of power loss but one aspect of them that is often missed is the effect of torque. Even on a heavy main shaft there is an appreciable lag between when the engine end of the shaft starts to move and the start at the end, the shaft has to torque or twist as it transmits the power. This applies to the cross shafts being driven off the bevels as well so there is an even greater lag on these thinner shafts. Further, due to the intermittent load from the looms this torque is changing all the time. Newton Pickles told me of an occasion when Johnny was approached by Bancroft to see if he could solve a problem they had with looms at the far end of the cross shafts weaving unevenly to variations in shaft speed. His solution was to fit a flywheel at the end of the shaft and this cured the problem by acting as a damper and smoothing out the harmonics in the drive. This was never acted on, instead they moved the more sensitive cloths on to looms nearer the main shaft where there was least variation.

[Stanley]

In the later years of the industry Uniflow engines came on the scene. Theoretically they are more efficient than conventional engines and there is no doubt that on applications like driving an alternator they can be very effective. However they are harder to bore, they have to be barrel shaped to allow for the temperature difference between the ends of the bore and the centre where they exhaust. A 'normal' engine can be adjusted to give full steam for the whole of the stroke allowing for overloads. The Uniflow can never have more than 45% cut-off because of the central exhaust ports. The main disadvantage was that on starting and stopping the Uniflow is very 'lumpy' because of the high compression and the central exhaust. This was very bad for long main shafts with bevels on and in bad cases they broke bevel gears with distressing regularity.
They came late in the industry and never really got hold. Newton told me that going over to Uniflow engines bankrupted some engine manufacturers.

[Stanley]

It's a common concept that the most efficient engines were the more modern ones but the reality can be quite surprising. Newton had as good an understanding of the local engines as anyone and had run many of them for extended periods when the tenter was sick or disabled. He was quite adamant that the most efficient engine in the district was one of the oldest, the big McNaughted beam engine at Victoria Mill in Earby. Heavily modified over the years it ran the most looms on a very long transmission system and had the best fuel efficiency figures in the district.

[Stanley]

The transmission system was so big at Victoria that, especially in winter, it was necessary to turn the shafts slowly with the barring engine in the pic above for half an hour before start time to break the stiction in the bearings and get the lubricants moving. If that danger exists it's easy to shear off the crank pin on the first stroke as a steam engine develops maximum torque on the first stroke. That's why they don't need a clutch or gear box. Direct drive ruled!