Titus Salt
Titus Salt | |
---|---|
![]() Illustration of Salt, 1872 | |
Member of Parliament forBradford | |
In office 19 May 1859 – 1 February 1861 Serving withHenry Wickham Wickham | |
Preceded by | Thomas Perronet Thompson |
Succeeded by | William Edward Forster |
Personal details | |
Born | Morley,Yorkshire,England | 20 September 1803
Died | 29 December 1876 Lightcliffe,Yorkshire,England | (aged 73)
Resting place | Saltaire Congregational Church |
Political party | Liberal |
Spouse |
Caroline Whitlam (m.1830) |
Children | 11 |
Education | Batley Grammar School |
Occupation | Manufacturer, politician |
Known for | Founding ofSaltaire |
Sir Titus Salt, 1st Baronet(20 September 1803 – 29 December 1876) was an English manufacturer, politician and philanthropist inBradford,West Riding of Yorkshire,England,who is best known for having builtSalt's Mill,a large textilemill,together with the attached village ofSaltaire,West Yorkshire.
Early life
[edit]Titus Salt was born in 1803 to Daniel Salt, adrysalterand then a sheep farmer, and Grace Smithies, daughter of Isaac Smithies, of The Manor House, Morley. His father sent him to a school in Batley,[1]identified in some sources asBatley Grammar School,[2]and then to another near Wakefield, named in some sources as Heath School.[3]Between 1813 and 1819 the Salt family lived at The Manor House in Morley, before moving to Crofton, near Wakefield.[4]
Career
[edit]After working for two years as awool-staplerinWakefield(between 1820 and 1822),[2]Salt became his father's partner in the business of Daniel Salt and Son. The company used RussianDonskoiwool, which was widely used in thewoollenstrade but not inworstedcloth. Titus visited the spinners in Bradford trying to interest them in using the wool forworstedmanufacture, with no success so he set up as a spinner and manufacturer.[3]
In 1833, he took over his father's business and within twenty years had expanded it to be the largest employer in Bradford.[5]
In 1836, Salt came upon some bales ofAlpacawool in a warehouse inLiverpooland, after taking some samples away to experiment, came back and bought the consignment. Though he was not the first in England to work with the fibre, he was the creator of the lustrous and subsequently fashionable cloth called 'alpaca'.[3](The discovery was described byCharles Dickensin a slightly fictionalised form in the magazineHousehold Words).[6]
Salt wasChief Constableof Bradford before its incorporation as aboroughin 1847 and afterwards a senioralderman.He was the second mayor in office from 1848 to 1849 and was later Deputy Lieutenant for theWest Riding of Yorkshire.Smoke and pollution emanated frommillsand factory chimneys, and Salt tried in 1842 unsuccessfully to clean up the pollution using a device called the Rodda Smoke Burner.[7][8]
Around 1850, he decided to build a mill large enough to consolidate his textile manufacture in one place, but he "did not like to be a party to increasing that already over-crowded borough"[9]and bought land three miles from the town in Shipley next to theRiver Aire,theLeeds and Liverpool Canaland theMidland Railway.In 1851, he began building themodel villageofSaltaire.He opened Saltaire Mills, now known asSalt's Millwith a grand banquet on his 50th birthday, 20 September 1853 and set about building houses, bathhouses, an institute, hospital, almshouses and churches. In 1857, Salt was President of the BradfordChamber of Commerce.In 1858–59, he built thecongregational church,which is now Saltaire United Reformed Church, at his own expense and donated the land on which theWesleyan chapelwas built by public subscription in 1866–68. He forbade 'beershops' in Saltaire,[3]but the common supposition that he wasteetotalhimself is untrue.[10]He was a countyJustice of the peaceand also a DeputyLord Lieutenant.[11]
Salt was a private man and left no written statement of his purposes in creating Saltaire, but he told Lord Harewood at the opening that he had built the place "to do good and to give his sons employment".[12]
In David James's assessment:
"Salt's motives in building Saltaire remain obscure. They seem to have been a mixture of sound economics, Christian duty, and a desire to have effective control over his workforce. There were economic reasons for moving out of Bradford, and the village did provide him with an amenable, handpicked workforce. Yet Salt was deeply religious and sincerely believed that, by creating an environment where people could lead healthy, virtuous, godly lives, he was doing God's work. Perhaps, also, diffident and inarticulate as he was, the village may have been a way of demonstrating the extent of his wealth and power. Lastly, he may also have seen it as a means of establishing an industrial dynasty to match the landed estates of his Bradford contemporaries. However, Saltaire provided no real solution to the relationship between employer and worker. Its small size, healthy site, and comparative isolation provided an escape rather than an answer to the problems of urban industrial society".[13]
From 1859 until he retired through ill health on 1 February 1861 Salt served asLiberalMember ofParliamentforBradford.[3]On 30 October 1869, he was created aBaronet,of Saltaire and Crow Nest in the County of York.[14]
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Sir_Titus_Salt_Has_Plans_%288387938946%29.jpg/170px-Sir_Titus_Salt_Has_Plans_%288387938946%29.jpg)
In 1867, Salt provided the funds to pay for the firstRoyal National Lifeboat Institutionlifeboat to be stationed atStromness,Orkney.The boat was duly namedSaltaire,and served from 1867 to 1891.[15]
Personal life and death
[edit]On 21 August 1830, Salt married Caroline, daughter of George Whitlam, ofGreat Grimsbyand had they had eleven children, six sons and five daughters.[16]The children of Salt all have a street named after them in the village of Saltaire.[17]
- Sir William Henry Salt, 2nd baronet (11 December 1831 – 1892), married in 1854 Emma Dove Octaviana Harris (d1904), only child of John Dove Harris and Emma Shirley of Knighton, Leicester
- George Salt (22 April 1833 – 8 May 1913) married in 1875, Jennie Louisa Fresco of Florence
- Edward Salt of Bathampton House (3 April 1837 – 24 October 1903) married firstly in 1861, Mary Jane Susan, eldest daughter of Samuel Elgood, of Leicester; and secondly, married in 1871, Sarah Amelie, elder daughter of William Rouse, of Burley House, York
- Herbert Salt (17 April 1840 – 21 July 1912) married firstly, in 1889, Elizabeth, daughter of John Douglas Ferrell; and married secondly, in 1899, Margaret, widow of Christopher Robert de Lacey
- Titus Salt DL JP (28 August 1843 – 19 November 1887) married in 1866, Catherine, eldest surviving daughter of Joseph Crossley of Broomfield, Halifax, niece of Sir Francis Crossley, 1st Bt.
In 1876 Salt died at Crow Nest,[18]Lightcliffe,nearHalifaxand was buried atSaltaire Congregational Church."Estimates vary, but the number of people lining the route [of the funeral] probably exceeded 100,000."[19]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^Balgarnie 1970,p. 16.
- ^abJames, David. "Salt, Sir Titus, first baronet".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24565.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^abcdeHolroyd, Abraham (2000) [1873].Saltaire and its Founder.Piroisms Press in collaboration with Falcon Books.ISBN0-9538601-0-8.
- ^Balgarnie 1970,p. 20.
- ^Dishman, Andrea (2020).Seeking the Hidden Histories of the Victorian Child-millworker as Offspring, Worker and Pupil in Saltaire, West Yorkshire 1853 – 1878(Thesis). Sheffield: University of Sheffield. p. 60.OCLC1255865553.
- ^Greenhalf, Jim (8 February 2012)."Dickens's creative take on Bradford's mill success".Bradford Telegraph and Argus.Retrieved25 October2022.
- ^Simkin, John (17 November 1992). "Education: Cleaning up Bradford's textile industry - Bright Spark / Innovators and those behind them. This Week: the British industrialist Salt (1803-1876)".The Guardian.p. 12.ISSN0261-3077.
- ^Adams, Guy (24 September 2010). "Philanthropists past and present".The Independent.No. 7, 473. p. 11.ISSN1741-9743.
- ^From Titus Salt's speech and the opening banquet, 20 September 1853. (from Holroyd)
- ^Guardian Staff (16 September 1999)."Corrections and clarifications".The Guardian.Retrieved25 October2022.
- ^"Obituary: Sir Titus Salt".Journal of the Society for Arts.25(1, 259). Royal Society for the Arts: 123. January 1877.ISSN1852-1908.
- ^Introduction (2000) by Derek Bryant to Piroisms reprint of Holroyd, op. cit.
- ^James, David (23 September 2004). "Salt, Sir Titus, first baronet (1803–1876)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24565.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^Burke's Peerage & Baronetage (106th ed.) (Salt of Saltaire)
- ^Morris, Jeff (June 1999).The History of the Stromness Lifeboats(2nd ed.). Lifeboat Enthusiasts Society. pp. 1–46.
- ^Balgarnie 1970,pp. 78, 108.
- ^"Biography Sir Titus Salt"(PDF).saltsmill.org.uk.Retrieved25 October2022.
- ^Our History, Crow Nest Park, crownestgolf.co.ukSalt bought the Crow Nest property in 1867 for £26,500.
- ^Greenhalf, Jim (1998).Salt & Silver: A Story of Hope.Bradford Libraries.ISBN0-907734-52-9.
- Bibliography
- Balgarnie, Robert (1970) [1877].Sir Titus Salt, baronet.Settle: Brenton Publishing.ISBN0902847007.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png)
- Burnley, James (1885).Sir Titus Salt and George Moore.London: Cassell & Co.( "The World's Workers" series).
- Kidd, Charles; Williamson, David (1990).Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage.London and New York: St Martin's Press.
- James, David (2004)."Salt, Sir Titus, first baronet (1803–1876)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24565.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
- "Titus Salt".Archived fromthe originalon 24 June 2007.Retrieved20 June2007.
- Valentine, S. R, Sir Titus Salt: The Founder of Saltaire and its Mill, Themelios Publishing, London, 2021.
- "The vision of Titus Salt 1853"(video in 5 sections).A history of Britain: Changing lives.Timelines.tv.Retrieved26 March2008.
- Kidd, Charles (2003).Burke's Peerage and Baronetage(106th ed.). London.
{{cite book}}
:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - New International Encyclopedia.1905. .
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)
- 1803 births
- 1876 deaths
- Businesspeople from Bradford
- British textile industry businesspeople
- People from Morley, West Yorkshire
- Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
- People educated at Batley Grammar School
- Salt baronets
- UK MPs 1859–1865
- Mayors of Bradford
- Burials in West Yorkshire
- English Congregationalists
- 19th-century English businesspeople