The content which makes this little known book
the essential source for facts about 19thC Saltaire


Though they are ascribed to different
authors, most of the material
was a direct reiteration,
generally without any acknowledgement,
of the pamphlet by Abraham Holroyd



When the Rev Robert Balgarnie wrote the official biography of his late friend Sir Titus Salt and he needed to describe his subject's achievement at Saltaire he turned naturally to the most complete source available a pamphlet of 90 pages published a few years earlier by the then newsagent and bookdealer in the village Abraham Holroyd.
He took passage after passage from Holroyd's work clearly feeling that no more needed to be said about the physical reality of the model village.
There had been 3 editions making up a combined print run of 3500 copies but it is surprisingly little known. Now the Piroisms Press in collaboration with Falcon Books of Saltaire has reprinted the third edition of 1873.
Holroyd provides the earnest Victorian tourist with information about the mill - its machinery, and its workings - the principal buildings of the village and reproduces documents such as regulations for their use which cannot be found elsewhere - the list of societies and institutions itself would justify the price to the scholar.
Abraham Holroyd was the grateful recipient of Salt's benevolence and his characterisation of the man verges on hyperbole.This is not an objective study of Salt's personality or his ideology yet this should not deter the 21stC reader for what Holroyd has produced is a celebration of a particular moment of Industrial History and indispensible compendium of otherwise unobtainable facts on Saltaire

"Formerly, the worsted trade in Bradford and neighbourhood was confined to camlets, russets, serges, jammies, calimencoes, (etc)woven by the handloom, the weavers doing the work at their own homes.Go where you would about Bradford, even to the confines of Lancashire, and ask the weaver who he or she worked for, and the answer was sure to be, "Richard Fawcett" or "Jonathan Akroyd. "Now all this is changed, and all the work is done in factories or mills. Instead of the worsted manufacture now being confined to these coarse fabrics, it embraces at the present day, lastings, crapes, orleans,casinetts, twills, French figures,Parisians, damasks, camlets, merinoes,challis,mouselline-de-laine,cobourgs, parrmattas,shaloons,duroys,taminets,khybereens,poplins, bombazines,figured satteens,cubicas,fancy waist-coatings, robes for ladies dresses, and last, but not least, mohairs and figured and embroidered alpacas" (pp30-31)

In this process, which had destroyed Holroyd's family trade and forced him into emigration and unaccustomed occupations, Saltaire stands out because the thought which lay behind it.

Bradford with its still increasing manufactures was becoming over-crowded, dirty, and smoky beyond all precedent. Its streams and canal were every year becoming more and more sinks of filth and pollution, and hotbeds of foul diseases, and Mr Salt wisely determined to be no party to its further increase.Looking around him he saw a better spot on the banks of the river Aire, above Shipley, and purchasing a tract of land there, he at once began to erect such a palace of industry as England had never seen, with dwellings for the workpeople contiguous. (pp.13-14)

Reading this book it becomes clear that what Salt was trying to create was a dream of a Liberal England. It is true there was still the rich man in his castle or rather in a stately home - a Crow Nest or a Methley Park but he is there because of his honest labour and inventive and business abilities which have allowed him to buy what was fomerly the property of the landed classes. The poor man still exists but is not at the rich man's gate but working, productive, educated and with space to play - all these benefits provided by the rich man with his honest wealth and as a duty to his fellow human beings.
A dream of a Liberal England then is Salt's dream of what the bourgeoisie - or at least the super rich section of it - could be had it a mind to be so; it was not for nothing that the Rev. Balgarnie subtitled his biography "his life and its lessons" and took for his thesis: Salt as an example of practical Christian witness.
Such a dream is obviously not that of classic Liberalism for which human beings are individuals linked by the market and by contract. In some senses Salt was a classic liberal a supporter of free trade and not an enthusiast for trade unions but he was also the religious man and a member of a religious tradition - Congregationalism - which stressed the collective nature of church organization. Perhaps the brief moment of Saltaire - the twenty-three years from the building of the Mill to Salt's death was the conflict between these two ideas made into stone.


Contents of Saltaire and its Founder
Introduction with brief life of Abraham Holroyd - pp v -xiii
Bibliography pp xiv -xvi

Text

Brief life of Sir Titus Salt pp 7 -9

Charles Dickens' humorous account of the discovery of Alpaca (from Household Words)
pp 9 - 12

The opening of the works at Saltaire pp 13 -17
including 2 poems written for the occasion ( the second The Lord of Saltaire is by Holroyd pp 17 -18

He has reared up a palace to labour! Will equal the Cæsars of old; The Church and theSchool and the Cottage! And lavished his thousands in gold - Where the workman may live and be happy, Enjoying the fruit of his hand; In contentment, and comfort, and plenty, Secure as a peer of the land Then let us all join in the chorus, And sing of the qualities rare, Of one who by nature is noble! And hail him the Lord of Saltaire! Holroyd The Lord of Saltaire(p18)

Sir William Fairbairn's speech at the banquet p 19
and account of Saltaire in his The Application of Cast and Wrought Iron to Building Purposes p 20

Detailed description of the works pp21-22

Detailed description of the machinery pp23 -24

Lockwood and Mawson's account of the Works and village given to the Imperial Commissioners for the Paris Exhibition 1867 pp 25 -27

List of the contractors pp27-28

Working processes of the Alpaca pp 28 -31

Details of the houses pp33 -34

But when the works were finished and opened, much still remained to be done in furtherence of the original designs of the noble owner and his architects. Houses must be erected for the accomodation of the 4,000 workpeople who were thus drawn together. (p30)

Description of the Church pp 34 - 38

As a whole this Church may safely be said to be the most exquisite example of pure Italian architecture in the kingdom. (p36)

Description of the baths and the washhouse pp 38 - 39

Description of of the Wesleyan Chapel pp 40 -41

It was erected at a cost of about £5,400 raised chiefly by subscriptions, collections,and the proceeds of a bazaar and teaparty held at the time, for the purpose of raising funds. (p40)

Description of of the Factory Schools pp 41 -43

Whatever art could invent or money buy has been brought together here, and every possible aid has been lent to the sacred cause of education. Outside the ensemble reminds the beholder of some oriental temple and the accomodations in the interior are as noble as is the object to which they are devoted. (p41)

Description of the Almshouses including the regulations of those establishments pp43 -50

In front are asphalted walks and green parterres, and flower beds; and underneath the windows are open spaces where the honeysuckle,the rose and the sweetbriar may be trained and cultivated (p44)

Description of the Club and Institute pp50 -62 including details of construction and decoration

After careful enquiry into the constituion and working of various Mechanics' Institutes, the conclusion has been arrived at that they do not meet the wants of the working classes during their hours of leisure, mainly from the fact that of their being almost purely educational societies, and of presenting to only a very limited extent, means of social intercourse and healthy relaxation. In the belief that 'it is gude to be merrie and wise' provision is being made...... for innocent and intelligent recreation, which it is intended should occupy a place almost as prominent as that accorded to the means of mental culture Titus Salt Jr1870 (pp51-52)

Description of Saltaire Park pp 62 -70 including regulations

The part now formed into a cricket ground....was subject to innundation....To obviate this,the river, as it approaches the park, has been widened by some sixty or seventy feet, and an embankment beginning at the old river course, has been built with a gentle slope upwards towards the new bank. The object....is to give an opportunity to the mill-workers, big and little, of bathing in the river with safety. (p63)

Presentations to Sir Titus Salt pp 70 - 78

Visitors -Lord Palmerston
pp 78 - 79

The visits of the Burmese and Japanese Ambassadors pp 79 - 80

Saltaire and its surroundings. pp90 - 91

Salt's public career pp 81 -83

Salt's pedigree

List of Societies and institutions in Saltaire pp85 -89

Holroyd's Song of Saltaire pp 90 -91



Friday,28th July 2000 Nancy Pullan, Abraham Holroyd's great-grandaughter is
presented with a copy of Saltaire and its Founder and
a certificate recording those living in Holroyd's shop in 1871.
In the background (left) Holroyd's former shop


Abraham Holroyd's
bookplate

Saltaire and its Founder
is printed by Hart and Clough

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The book can be ordered through all good booksellers
but is stocked by the following bookshops:

Saltaire: Tourist Information Centre 2 Victoria Rd tel:(01274) 774993 fax:(01274) 774464 7 days per week Falcon Books 13/13a Victoria Rd tel:01274 584 275 Wednesday to Sunday 1.30 - 5.00 West Yorkshire Bradford Daleys Bookshop 1Grove Terrace BD7 1AU e-mail tel:01274 308545 01274 739312 Map on Great Horton Rd opposite Bradford and Ilkley Community College Hebden Bridge: Hatchard and Daughters 56 Market St HX7 6AA tel: 01422 845717 e-mail Map The Architecture Bookshop The Mill Bridge Gate at the corner of St George's St Website e-mail tel:+44 (0)1422 844232 Map on website Keighley: Reids 87 Cavendish St BD21 3DG tel:01535 603713 Map Ilkley: Skyrack Books 20 Skipton Rd LS29 9EJ tel:01943 601598 Map Tuesday - Saturday 2 - 6 Leeds: Bookside off Midland Rd Hyde Park LS6 1BQ tel: 0113 2744021 Map Monday - Saturday 10 - 6 and Sunday afternoons Midland Rd is parallel to Hyde Park Rd near the Hyde Park Corner end The bookshop is down a side street at the lower end The Kirkstall Bookshop 10 Commercial Road LS5 3AQ tel:0113 278 0937 Map on what is now an island site at the junction of Kirkstall Rd and the approach to Kirkstall Bridge Shipley Shipley Stationery Centre 14 Market St BD18 3QD tel: 01274 599288 Map Greater Manchester Littleborough: The Bookshop 22 Church St OL15 9AA tel: 01706 370244 Map near the junction of Halifax Rd and Todmorden Rd

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