Harry Speight on
Sir Titus Salt

The Yorkshire historian Harry Speight (1855 - 1915) published this description of Saltaire in his guidebook Airedale from Goole to Malham (1891). It is a succinct expression of what the village meant even a decade and a half after Sir Titus Salt's death.
to Harry Speight bibliography

"A charming diversity of hill and dale, of woodland, water-side, and moorland walks, easily accesible to even feeble pedestrians, have made this undoubtedly the chief open-air resort to half-holidayists of Bradford and district. But if Nature is mainly responsible for so much health-and-pleasure-giving popularity, human achievement has given to it even a wider fame, for citizens of all parts are annually attracted to the 'model town' which has in reality become, through the genius and philanthropy of its noble author, a famous industrial shrine.

Saltaire forty years ago was not known by its present name. The site and surroundings of the town were all in field , and moor, and forest, remaining pretty much as it was in the days when the now forgotten Priory at Esholt,three miles lower down, was in its prime. A quickset lane led down to the river there was an old ford and stepping stones that led into the thick woods opposite, , where reminding us not a little of the beautiful Wharfe at Bolton Abbey at the present day. Where the mills now stand was a waving corn-field, and there was also an old corn-mill, also used as a fulling-mill, on the piece of ground now occupied by the dyeworks and spinning-mill of the Saltaire firm. This locality was known as Dixon's Land and Mills, from the family of that name, who built the old Hall at Shipley 1593, and were living at Heaton Royds in the reign of Elizabeth. So 'out of the way' was the , in place considered, that up to the removal of the old mills in 1850 there were two houses suggestively known as the 'Whistle Jacket House,' where malt liqour was brewed and sold without a license, or if there was one it was of the old type of the 'pious smuggler' age....................................................

The estate comprises about fifty acres, the first purchase (some 6½ acres) having been made by the late Sir Titus Salt then Mr Salt, of the proprietor of Esholt Hall, the late Mr W.R.Stansfield, in 1850. About 26 acres are now occupied by some 900 dwellings and other buildings; the mills have absorbed 9½ acres, and the remainder is laid out in a public park. The lofty-mindedness, good taste, and unsparing philanthropy of the noble founder of this model working-town are indeed apparent on every hand. Sir Titus did nothing mean or by halves, and his architects, Mesrs Lockwood and Mawson, of Bradford, acting upon his instructions, had the fullest liberty given to them in the carrying out of the appointed work. The town is built in the Italian style, and is marked by a symmetry, breadth and chasteness of design, conjointly with a solidity, which the excellent natural stone has given it, certainly unique in this country. The colossal mills......comprise a block six stories high, having a maximum length from east to west of 548 feet, being 50 feet wide, and having a total hight from the Midland line of 73 feet. The Warehouses are each 330 feet in length and adjoining the canal are 90 feet high. On the east and west sides are the weaving and combing sheds, the former cointing at one time 1200 looms, and when in full work producing 18 miles of alpaca or mixed goods per day or equal to 57000 miles per year! To drive the machinery of these enormous works there are two miles of shafting, and engines with a register of 1800 horse power. The chimney is a solid and ornamental structure in the form of an Italian campanile, 250 feet high, the same height as the one at Manningham Mills. Since the decline of the alpaca trade the firm, which is now designated Sir Titus Salt Bart., Sons & Co Ld. and employs some 3500 workpeople, has been producing soft-wool goods, plushes, velvets and a variety of "specialities."...................

Sir Titus Salt,Bart
(1803 - 1876)

Sir Titus Salt had an especially quiet, gentle, and unassuming disposition, and found his greatest pleasure in doing good. His benevolence was unbounded, and it is said that during his lifetime he distributed in public and private charity not less than half-a-million of money. Though raised to the baronetage in 1869, and urged by his admiring townspeople to a seat in Parliament, (from which he soon retired) he sought neither titles, honours nor fame. of him it might be said as Virgil.....said of his flocks in the Pastorals, Sic vos, non vobis, i.e. not for yourselves but for others you live. His pious, just and generous spirit is perceptable in his dedication of the Saltaire almshouses, "In grateful remembrance of God's undeserved goodness, and in hope of promoting the comfort of someone who, in feebleness and necessity may need a home." ............................................some two years before (Salt's) death a costly statue of him was unveiled in Bradford; but though we may there scan his portrait and outward semblence shaped in marble in the busy heart of the town, yet if we would see the monumented character of the man (of far greater import) we must go to Saltaire. It was the noble wish and desire of the founder that if there could be anything elevating or improving inerections combining structural beauty with utility it was to find expression here. There was to be nothing mean or cramped, nothing scamped. On the little town he expended over £120,000, exclusive of cost of land. Amongst the chief buildings may be mentioned the Institute and High Schools...the Baths and Washhouses, the 45 Almshouses, with their neat Chapel and Infirmary, an the handsome Congregational Church, to which is added the family mausoleum. The latter, built in 1859, is an example of pure Italian art, and there can be such a thing as poetry in stone it is surely expressed here. In grace and elegance of composition this building would be hard to surpass. In addition there is the new Science and Art Schools., erected at a cost of £7,000 in 1886, as a memorial to the late baronet. They were opened by the Princess Beatrice on May 6th 1887 and are modelled after the best schools of their kind in England. The Park, beautifully situated on the north bank of the river, was opened in 1871, and occupying, as it does an open yet sheltered and unvitiated site, many kinds of trees and botanical rarities flourish here uncommonly well. a portion of the fourteen acres comprised is set aside for cricket, lawn tennis, &c. The gates are open daily from sunrise to sunset.

Saltaire is a favourite starting point, as we have said , with the half-holidayist, and whether in the direction of the Glen, Gilstead or Eldwick,Baildon,Cottingley,Heaton, or Bingley the walks are always interesting, and there is besides ample provision for boating here. Saltaire is in Shipley township; the two stations being a half-mile apart. There is also tram service from Bradford to Shipley(3d)" - "Johnnie Gray"(Harry Speight) Through Airedale from Goole to Malham Leeds 1891
pp 157 - 160

Harry Speight 1855 - 1915 "the great Yorkshire peregrinator of his generation" - (Yorkshire Daily Observer) author of the most sought-after works of Yorkshire topography. He managed to combine,detailed and groundbreaking historical research with a knowledge of nature and an eye for scenery.
Speight worked for many years as Assistant Cashier at Ripley's Dyeworks in West Bowling Bradford then the largest such establishment in the world. However following his marriage he moved to Crow nest, Bingley where he was able to publish very large books of topography by subscription.
"Many of (his) volumes are out of print and command considerably advanced prices." - publisher's advertisement in the 4th edition of Speight's Bingley. This is still the case since few of them have been reprinted.

Harry Speight Bibliography

"Half -holidayist" = person spending half a day in vacation pursuits. Saltaire being so close to Bradford and having such comprehensive transportation links to the rest of the conurbation was an ideal point from which to begin.Saltaire was still popular in the post-Second World war period when John Braine wrote of it.
I have been asked by the Saltaire Village society to point out that a full day is now necessary to enjoy everything the area has to offer
Fred Jowett on walking in the 1870s

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Lockwood and Mawson were responsible for most of the public buildings erected in Victorian Bradford. They were unsuccessful in getting commissions outside of Bradford however except when Sir Titus Salt was involved so they were responsible for the Congregational Church at Scarborough and the rebuilding of the Church at Morley . Cuthbert Broderick, who designed Leeds Town Hall (1858), Leeds Corn Exchange (1863), Leeds Institute (1865), and Scarborough's Grand Hotel (1867) was articled to Henry Lockwood from 1837- 1844.

A list of Lockwood and Mawson's buildings can be found on the Bradford timeline site (together with details of other Bradford Architects).
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Esholt Priory was founded as a Cistercian community of nuns in the 12th C and continued in existence until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th C. The grave stone of Elizabeth Pudsey the last Prioress still exists near the Hall..In 1706-1709 Sir Walter Calverley built Esholt Hall on the site incorporating part of the Priory in the new building. In 1775 Sir Walter Calverley-Blackett sold the land to Robert Stansfield. He gave the estate to his sister and it passed to her daughter and then to her son William Rookes Crompton who took the name Stansfield. It was from him that Titus Salt bought some of the land on which Saltaire was built.

History of the Stansfield family

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Cereals in Bradford
Bradford Dale and the surrounding area have always been marginal for cereals. The soil is too acid for commercial arable farming.and since the growth of the west Yorkshire conurbation the 'pull' of an extensive local market for milk has been too strong to resist.
Writing of the township of Morley, to the south of Leeds and the birthplace of Titus Salt, local historian William Smith said that: "Oats were at one time a favourite cereal, and the crops were for home consumption, as oatcakes or 'haverbread' was the staple article of diet." (the History and Antiquities of Morley in the West Riding of the county of York, p51)
This would have been the case in Bradford Dale also and the name 'Whetley' in the former township of Manningham may well be a memory of the medieval field devoted to the cultivation of cereals; certainly the position of Whetley on a south facing slope protected by the ridge along which Toller and Duckworth lanes run would have been suitable for arable farming. In the 19thC the area changed the Highfield of Manningham being developed as estatates for the newly-rich manufacturers and some of the area being built on by the Bradford Freehold Land Society of which Titus Salt was the chairman, in an attempt to create housing for workers which would relieve the terrible conditions in the town centre.
At the end of the 19thC the township of Bolton to the east of the Beck below Bradford was described by William Cudworth thus: "Until comparatively recently, a large proportion of the farming land ....was under the plough...............
At an inquiry instituted in the year 1846 the following represented the cultivable area of Bolton,viz: -Arable land, 226acres; meadow and pasture, 450 acres; woodland 40 acres; highways and waste, 20 acres; total area 736 acres. In place of the golden grain which once nodded in the summer's breeze, the eye may now wander far before it detects even a patch of either corn or barley. Year by year field after field has been 'sown down'; in the first place because the "Stygian throats" of Wostedopolis poured their poisonous vapours upon the struggling corn, blighting the ears; and in the second, because milk and beef were in ever-increasing demand in the growing town of Bradford, and the farmers of Bolton were among the first to supply it. (William Cudworth History of Bolton and Bowling(townships of Bradford)pp3-4) By the end of the century the land one third of which had been given over to arable was used for meat and milk.
The important decade appears to have been the 1850s precisely the date when the cornfield beside the Aire was bought by Titus Salt and there were no more adventurous farmers like Edward Bilton of Bolton Lane recorded by Cudworth as having grown wheat in a low lying area of his farm within two miles of the centre of Bradford.

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Statue
The Salt statue has since been removed from its original position outside Bradford Town Hall and is now at the north end of Lister Park, Manningham near Emm Lane and behind the pastiche of a 15thC gateway known, for some reason, as the Norman Arch.

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the walks Fred Jowett, writing in the ILP News, described a long walk from this area which he undertook with his father in the early 1870s:
"A day I shall never forget is the first long Sunday walk I had with my father. I had not started work then, so I was certainly under eight years old . We walked from Saltaire or Shipley over the moors to Ilkley. After the moorland walk , which seemed as if it would never end, there came suddenly into view the most wonderful picture I had ever seen. The beautiful Wharfe Valley and neighbouring hills spread beneath and before us. Ilkley was little more than a village; its charm as part of the landscape was unaffected then, as it is today , by an extensive built area,where once Middleton Hall and Park were part of the picture." 27th January 1939 quoted in Fenner Brockway Socialism over Sixty Years the life of Jowett of Bradford (1864-1944) 1946 p26

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John Braine's fictionalised account of Saltaire and Shipley Glen

bibliography of Harry Speight
as published in Harry Speight - an Appreciation by Butler Wood in the Bradford AntiquaryThe Journal of the Bradford Historical and Antiquarian society VolVI (New Series VolIV)1921 pp190-193 but slightly adapted.

1886 - " " Johnnie Gray" A Tourist's View of Ireland Written following a visit to Ireland at the suggestion of W.E.Foster
1887 - "Johnnie Gray" In the Land of the Pipe and the Kilt
1890 - "Johnnie Gray" Pleasant Walks around Bradford
1890 - "Johnnie Gray" Pleasant Walks around Bingley,Baildon, Shipley, &c
1891 - "Johnnie Gray"Through Airedale, from Goole to Malham

All later books published under his own name
1892 - Craven and North-West Highlands ( issued in demy 8vo and "large-paper"( demy 4to) forms )
1894 - Nidderdale and the Garden of the Nidd ( issued in demy 8vo and "large-paper"( demy 4to) forms )
1895 - Tramps and Drives in the Craven Highlands
1897 - Romantic Richmondshire ( issued in demy 8vo and "large-paper"( demy 4to) forms )
1898 - Chronicles and Stories of Old Bingley( 3 editions including a large paper form)
1900 - Upper Wharfedale( issued in demy 8vo and "large-paper"( demy 4to) forms )
1902 - Two Thousand Years of Tadcaster History
1902 - Tramps and Drives round Skipton,Grassington and Malham
1902 - Lower Wharfedale( issued in demy 8vo and "large-paper"( demy 4to) forms )
1903 - Kirkby Overblow and District( issued in demy 8vo and "large-paper"( demy 4to) forms )
1906 - Nidderdale from Nun Monkton to Whernside
1906 - Upper Nidderdale, with the Forest of Knaresborough

Papers in the Bradford Antiquary
July 1903 - Hawksworth Hall and its Associations.
October 1909 - The Bradford Manor Court Rolls
October 1910 - Ancient Streets and Lanes of Bradford as pourtrayed(sic) in the Manor Court Rolls

Speight also contributed book reviews to the Press. In my possession is a book Gerald Fothergill A List of Emigrant Ministers to America 1690 - 1811 London 1904 once the property of Bradford Libraries and later of Philip Rushworth a Bradford genealogist. Laid down at the front is a letter from Walter Smith then the editor of the Yorkshire Weekly Post dated 27 June 1904 It reads in part: "Dear Mr Speight Your copy to hand............Is this book of any use to you. It might be worth 20 lines or 30" Laid down opposite, on the front-free-end-paper, is a cutting, annotated in manuscript the "Yorkshire Post Aug 3/04", consisting of a 28 line review.(db)

Harry Speight on the Web
As yet there is little of Harry Speight on the WWW but the following two links show that he is still remembered and is thought of some use.
Bilton Historical Society
Wharfedale Naturalists' Society


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W.E.Forster - Burley-in-Wharfedale manufacturer, friend of Jane Welsh Carlyle and Liberal MP for Bradford, is widely remembered for the Education act of 1870 although like all Britsh politicians there are other sides to him and we should not forget his role as chief secretary for Ireland when he was responsible for the imprisonment of Charles Stewart Parnell in Kilmainham Jail

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Butler Wood was the Bradford Chief Librarian from 1884 to 1925. The son of a bookseller in Westgate he was educated first at the school attatched to Wood and Walker's mill, on the site now occupied by the Transport Interchange and just behind the Union St Mills which had been Titus Salt's headquarters in the town. He later enrolled at Potter's Academy at Lidget Green and then attended the Mechanics' Institute nightschools. ( as Horace Hird pointed out: "In each of these steps he trod a path which was taken by many people who made a name for themselves in Bradford.") He became an assistant librarian at the Bradford Free Library in 1875.
His office at the Public Library seems to have been a gathering place for local historians and it was there that the work was done to set up the Brontë Society of which he was the first Bibliographical Secretary and editor of the Transactions
Butler Wood died in 1934.
There is a biographical note on Butler Wood, from which the above is drawn, in Horace Hird Bradford Remembrancer twenty-six essays on people, or incidents in their lives which are worthy of remembrance. Bradford, The McDonald Book Company Ltd, 1972 pp217-223

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