For most Victorian workers, the factory was less a gateway to progress than a daily collision with danger, exhaustion and dirt.
Ten- to sixteen-hour shifts, six days a week, were common in the early and mid-19th century. Textile mills were hot, humid and thick with lint that clogged the lungs; machinery operated with little or no guarding, and a brief distraction could mean a crushed limb or worse.
Against this background, a small group of manufacturers tried to improve conditions for their workers, including Sir Titus Salt, who is perhaps best known for establishing the Saltaire industrial village near Bradford, West Yorkshire.
Few can be said to have done so much unmixed good for his country’s welfare, from what was a useless material he has built up a great industry
His obituary in the January 7, 1877 edition of The Engineer read like a eulogy, such was the esteem held for the innovative textiles manufacturer, baronet, MP and mayor.
“By the death of Sir Titus Salt, which took place on December 29 [1876] , another of the founders of our manufacturing prosperity, and of the few to whom England is for her greatness so largely indebted, has passed away,” wrote The Engineer. “Few can be said to have done so much unmixed good for his country’s welfare, from what was a useless material he has built up a great industry which has, for years, in his own model town, supported several 1000 people whose life has been made the happier by comforts and institutions which many a far larger community would gladly boast of. He has given rise to various smaller industries, has helped to clothe millions with an excellent material, and has assisted many 1000s by his great generosity.”
Following his schooling, Salt was taken into partnership in his father’s wool dealing business and, with a factory established in Bradford, he found success with Donksoi, a type of wool that comes from Russian sheep. Salt realised that the harsh, oily fibre – written off by most manufacturers as poor quality and hard to work - could be turned into a commercially viable textile. Salt experimented with cleaning, combing and spinning it at scale, blending it with other fibres, and showed it could produce attractive, durable cloth.
According to our Victorian predecessors, his large fortune was made somewhat fortuitously.
The Engineer wrote: “In the year 1836 a Liverpool broker showed him some bales of shining hair which had been sent to him and which nobody would look at. They were from the fleeces of the alpaca, a creature which had been brought by the Spaniards from Peru. Young Mr. Salt took home one bale and soon returned and bought as much more as the Liverpool merchant could supply.
READ THE ENGINEER'S ARCHIVE COVERAGE FROM 1877
“After much persistent effort, he invented a method, not merely of utilising the alpaca wool in the manufacture of stuff, but in producing an entirely new substance which had in it all the elements of commercial value.
“The new stuff speedily became a vast article of commerce, and the inventor was rewarded by a great increase of his business.
“He had, in fact, increased the resources of the country and brought a new trade to the Yorkshire district where he lived. He had made an article which was before useless, valuable to the producers abroad, to the manufacturer at home, and to the consumer all over the world. His firm became, of course, the head of the alpaca manufacture and the centre of the wealth and activity of a prosperous district.”
Around the time of the Great Exhibition, Salt decided to take his works and workers into the country. A strip of land was bought at Shipley near the Midland Railway and the River Aire, and a building was erected on it, ‘which was then regarded as the largest and handsomest factory in the world.’
The works site covered nine and a half acres, and the ventilation, the warming and the sanitary precautions were described ‘as perfect as they could be made’.
The Engineer said: “The work people, some 4000 in number, were housed in good cottages, and the village thus created was supplied with park, cricket ground, public institutions, lecture halls and places of worship by its founder.
“At the last census, it contained 820 houses and 4389 persons. And probably there is no other community which is so young and which has already possessed itself of so many public institutions.”
The Engineer continued: “One of his latest deeds was the offer of a piece of land for a school board. He had previously built a handsome Congregational Church, to which only last year a new Sunday school was added at a cost of £10,000.”
Salt had long since provided baths and wash houses, large school rooms and a hospital and infirmary, and also added 45 almshouses for widows and aged couples with an endowment of 10 shillings a week for the latter, and seven and sixpence for the former.
“This care for the welfare of the work people who were carrying on his own manufacture did not limit Sir Titus Salt’s munificence, for Bradford owes a park, a club, Institute and library to his generosity.”
Salt’s busy life also involved assisting in the procreation of 11 children, with several of his sons becoming partners in the firm that had become Sir Titus Salt (Bart) Sons and Company, ‘specialising in alpaca and mohair dress goods, plain and fancy coatings, and suitings for men’s wear.’