Walter White

Keighley—Men in Pinafores—Walk to Haworth—Charlotte BrontË’s Birthplace—The Church—The Pew—The Tombstone—The Marriage Register—Shipley—Saltaire—A Model Town—Household Arrangements—I isn’t the Gaffer—A Model Factory—Acres of Floors—Miles of Shafting—Weaving Shed—Thirty Thousand Yards a Day—Cunning Machinery—First Fleeces—Shipley Feast—Scraps of Dialect—To Bradford—Rival Towns—Yorkshire Sleuth-hounds—Die like a Britoner.

Keighley is not pronounced Kayley, as you might suppose, but Keatley, or Keithley, as some of the natives have it, flinging in a touch of the guttural. Like Skipton, it is a stony town; and, as the tall chimneys indicate, gets its living by converting wool into wearing apparel of sundry kinds. You meet numbers of men clad in long blue pinafores, from throat to instep; wool-sorters, who thus protect themselves from fluff.

The factory people were going to work next morning—the youngsters clattering over the pavement in their wooden clogs—as I left the town by the Halifax road, for Haworth, a walk of four miles, and all the way up-hill. The road runs along one side of a valley, which, when the houses are left behind, looks pretty with numerous trees and fields of grass and wheat, and a winding brook, and makes a pleasing foreground to the view of the town. The road itself is neither town nor country; the footpaths, as is not uncommon in Yorkshire, are paved nearly all the way; and houses are frequent, tenanted by weavers, with here and there a little shop displaying oaten bread. An hour of ascent and you come to a cross-road, where, turning to the right for about a furlong, you see Haworth, piled from base to summit of a steep hill, the highest point crowned by the church. The road makes a long bend in approaching the acclivity, which, if you choose, may be avoided by a cut-off; but coming as a pilgrim you will perhaps at first desire to see all. You pass a board which notifies Haworth Town, and then begins the ascent painfully steep, bounded on one side by houses, on the other—where you look into the valley—by little gardens and a line of ragged little sheds and hutches. What a wearisome hill; you will half doubt whether horses can draw a load up it. Presently we have houses on both sides, and shops with plate-glass and mahogany mouldings, contrasting strongly with the general rustic aspect, and the primitive shop of the Clogger. Some of the windows denote an expectation of visitors; the apothecary exhibits photographs of the church, the parsonage, and Mr. BrontË; and no one seems surprised at your arrival.

The Black Bull stands invitingly on the hill-top. I was ready for breakfast, and the hostess quite ready to serve; and while I ate she talked of the family who made Haworth famous. She knew them all, brother and sisters: Mr. Nicholls had preached the day before in the morning; Mr. BrontË in the afternoon. It was mostly in the afternoon that the old gentleman preached, and he delivered his sermon without a book. The people felt sorry for his bereavements; and they all liked Mr. Nicholls. She had had a good many visitors, but expected “a vast” before the summer was over.

From the inn to the churchyard is but a few paces. The church is ugly enough to have had a Puritan for architect; and there, just beyond the crowded graves, stands the parsonage, as unsmiling as the church. After I had looked at it from a distance, and around on the landscape, which, in summer dress, is not dreary, though bounded by dark moors, the sexton came and admitted me to the church. He points to the low roof, and quotes Milton, and leads you to the family pew, and shows you the corner where she—that is, Charlotte—used to sit; and against the wall, but a few feet from this corner, you see the long plain memorial stone, with its melancholy list of names. As they descend, the inscriptions crowd close together; and beneath the lowest, that which records the decease of her who wrote Jane Eyre, there remains but a narrow blank for those which are to follow.[E]

[E] This stone, as stated in the newspapers, has since been replaced by a larger one, with sculptured ornaments.

Then the sexton, turning away to the vestry, showed me in the marriage register the signatures of Charlotte BrontË, her husband, and father; and next, his collection of photographs, with an intimation that they were for sale. When he saw that I had not the slightest inclination to become a purchaser, to have seen the place was quite enough; he said, that if I had a card to send in the old gentleman would see me. It seemed to me, I replied, that the greatest kindness a stranger could show to the venerable pastor, would be, not to intrude upon him.

On some of the pews I noticed small plates affixed, notifying that Mr. Mudbeck of Windytop Farm, or some other parishioner of somewhere else, “hath” three sittings, or four and a quarter, and so forth; and this invasion by ‘vested rights’ of the house of prayer and thanksgiving, appeared to me as the finishing touch of its unattractive features.

The sexton invited me to ascend the tower, but discovered that the key was missing; so, as I could not delay, I made a brief excursion on the moor behind the house, where heather-bloom masked the sombre hue; and then walked back to Keighley, and took the train for Shipley, the nearest station to Saltaire.

It was the day of Shipley feast, and the place was all in a hubbub, and numbers of factory people, leaving for a while their habitual manufacture of woollen goods out of a mixture of woollen and cotton, had come together to enjoy themselves. But no one seemed happy except the children; the men and women looked as if they did not know what to do with themselves. I took the opportunity to scan faces, and could not fail to be struck by the general ill-favoured expression. Whatever approach towards good looks that there was, clearly lay with the men; the women were positively ugly, and numbers of them remarkable for that protruding lower jaw which so characterizes many of the Irish peasantry.

Saltaire is about a mile from Shipley. It is a new settlement in an old country; a most noteworthy example of what enterprise can and will accomplish where trade confides in political and social security. Here, in an agreeable district of the valley of the Aire—wooded hills on both sides—a magnificent factory and dependent town have been built, and with so much judgment as to mitigate or overcome the evils to which towns and factories have so long been obnoxious. The factory is built of stone in pure Italian style, and has a truly palatial appearance. What would the Plantagenets say, could they come back to life, and see trade inhabiting palaces far more stately than those of kings? The main building, of six stories, is seventy-two feet in height, and five hundred and fifty feet in length. In front, at some distance, standing quite apart, rises the great chimney, to an elevation of two hundred and fifty feet; a fine ornamental object, built to resemble a campanile.

The site is well chosen on the right bank of the Aire, between the Leeds and Liverpool canal, and the Leeds and Lancaster railway. Hence the readiest means are available for the reception and despatch of merchandise. A little apart, extending up the gentle slope, the young town of Saltaire is built, and in such a way as to realize the aspirations of a sanitary reformer. The houses are ranged in parallelograms, of which I counted sixteen, the fronts looking into a spacious street; the backs into a lane about seven feet in width, which facilitates ventilation, admits the scavenger’s cart, and serves as drying-ground. Streets and lanes are completely paved, the footways are excellent; there is a pillar post-office, and no lack of gas-lamps. The number of shopkeepers is regulated by Messrs. Salt, the owners of the property; and while one baker and grocer suffices to supply the wants of the town others will not be allowed to come in. A congregational chapel affords place for religious worship, and a concert-hall for musical recreation, or lectures, The men who wish to tipple must go down to Shipley, for Saltaire, as yet, has no public-house. If I mistake not, the owners are unwilling that there shall be one.

My request for leave to look in-doors was readily granted. The ordinary class of houses have a kitchen with oven and boiler, a sink and copper; a parlour, or ‘house’ in the vernacular, two bedrooms, and a small back-yard, with out-offices. The floors, mantlepiece, and stairs, are of stone. The rent is 3s. 1d. a week. Gas is laid on at an extra charge, and the tenant finds burners. The supply of water is ample, but the water is hard, and has a smack of peat-bog in its flavour. A woman whom I saw washing, told me the water lost much of its hardness if left to stand awhile. Each house has a back-door opening into the lane; and every stercorarium voids into the ash-pit, which is cleared out once a week at the landlord’s cost. The pits are all accessible by a small trap-door from the lane; hence there is no intrusion on the premises in the work of cleansing. The drainage in other respects is well cared for; and the whole place is so clean and substantial, with handsome fronts to the principal rows, that you feel pleasure in observing it.

The central and corner houses are a story higher than the rest, and what with these and the handsome rows above referred to, there is accommodation for all classes of the employed—spinners, overlookers, and clerks. After building two or three of the parallelograms, it was discovered that cellars were desirable, and since then every house has its cellar, in which, as the woman said, “we can keep our meat and milk sweet in hot weather.” What a contrast, I thought, to the one closet in a lodging in some large town, where the food is kept side by side with soap and candles, the duster, and scrubbing-brush! And though the stone floors look chilly, coal is only fivepence-halfpenny a hundred-weight.

No one is allowed to live in the town who is not in some way employed by the firm. Most of the tenants to whom I spoke, expressed themselves well satisfied with their quarters, but two or three thought the houses dear; they could get a place down at Shipley, or Shipla, as they pronounced it, for two-and-sixpence a week. I put a question to the baker: “I isn’t the gaffer,” he answered.

“Never mind,” I replied; “if you are not the master, we can talk all the same.”

He thought we could; and he too was one of those who did not like the new town. ’Twas too dear. He lived at Shipla, and paid but four pounds a year for a house with a cellar under it, and a garden behind; and there he kept a pig, which was not permitted at Saltaire. There was “a vast” worked in the mill who did not live under Mr. Salt; they came from Bradford, and a train, called the Saltaire train, “brought ’em in the morning, and fetched ’em home at night.”

The railway runs between the town and the factory. You cross by a handsome stone bridge, quite in keeping with the prevalent style of architecture. The hands were returning from dinner as I approached after my survey of the colony, and the prodigious clatter of clogs was well-nigh deafening. My letter of introduction procured me the favour of Mr. George Salt’s guidance. First, he showed me a model of the premises, by which I saw that a six-story wing, if such it may be called, comprising the warehouses, projects at a right angle from the rear of the main building, with the combing-shed on one side, the weaving-shed on the other. In that combing-shed 3500 persons sat down in perfect comfort to a house-warming dinner. The weaving-shed is twice as large. Then there are the workshops of the smiths, machinists, and other artisans; packing, washing, and drying-rooms, and a gasometer to maintain five thousand lights; so that in all the buildings cover six acres and a half. Include the whole of the floors, and the space is twelve acres. Rails are laid from the line in front into the ground-floor of the building; hence there is no porterage, no loading and unloading except by machinery; and the canal at the back is equally convenient for water-carriage. In front the ground is laid out as an ornamental shrubbery, terminated at one corner by the graceful campanile.

Then I was conducted to the boilers, a row of ten, sunk underground in the solid rock, below the level of the shrubbery. They devour one hundred and twenty tons of coal in a week; but with economy, for the tall chimney pours out no clouds of dense black smoke. The prevention is accomplished by careful feeding, and leaving the furnace-door open half an inch, to admit a full stream of air. I was amazed at the sight of such a range of boilers, and yet they were not enough, and an excavation was making to receive others.

Then to the engine-room, where the sight of the tremendous machinery was a fresh surprise. Here are erected two separate pairs of engines, combining 1250-horse power, by Fairbairn, of Manchester. You see how beauty of construction consorts with ponderous strength. Polished iron, glittering brass, and shining mahogany, testify to the excellence of Lancashire handicraft in 1853, the date of the engines. The mahogany is used for casing; and here, as with the boilers, every precaution is used to prevent the escape of heat. As you watch the great cogged fly-wheels spinning round with resistless force, you will hardly be surprised to hear that they impart motion to two miles of ‘shafting,’ which weighs in all six hundred tons, and rotates from sixty to two hundred and fifty times a minute. And this shafting, of which the diameter is from two to fourteen inches, sets twelve hundred power-looms going, besides fulfilling all its other multifarious duties.

Then we went from one noisy floor to another among troops of spinners, finding everywhere proofs of the same presiding judgment. All is fire-proof; the beams and columns are of cast-iron; the floors rest on arches of hollow bricks; and the ventilation, maintained by inlets a few inches above the floor, and outlets near the ceiling, where hot-water pipes keep up a temperature of sixty degrees, is perfect, without draughts. The top room in the main building, running from end to end for five hundred and fifty feet without a break, said to be the largest room in Europe, is an impressive sight, filled with ranks of busy machines and busy workers.

In the weaving-shed, all the driving gear is placed beneath the floor, so that you have a clear prospect over the whole area at once, uninterrupted by the usual array of rapid wheels and flying straps. Vast as is the appetite of those twelve hundred looms for warp and weft, it is kept satisfied from the mill’s own resources; and in one day they deliver thirty thousand yards of alpaca, or other kinds of woollen cloth. Multiply that quantity, reader, by the number of working days in a year, and you will discover to what an amazing extent the markets of the world are supplied by this one establishment of Titus Salt and Co.

Some portions of the machinery do their work with marvellous precision and dexterity,

and it seemed to me that I could never have tired of watching the machine that took the wool, one fringe-like instalment after another, from assiduous cylinders, and delivered it to another series of movements which placed the fibres all in one direction, and produced the rough outline of the future thread. Another ingenious device weaves two pieces at once all in one width, and with four selvages, of which two are, of course, in the middle of the web, and yet there is no difference in appearance between those two inner ones and those on the outer edges. The piece is afterwards divided along the narrow line left between them. Even in the noisome washing-room there was something to admire. The wool, after a course of pushing to and fro in a cistern of hot water by two great rakes, is delivered to an endless web by a revolving cylinder. This cylinder is armed with rows of long brass teeth, and as they would be in the way of the web on their descent, they disappear within the body of the cylinder at the critical moment, and come presently forth again to continue their lift.

In the warehouse, I was shown that the wool is sorted into eight qualities, sometimes a ninth; and the care bestowed on this preliminary operation may be judged of from the fact, that every sorting passes in succession through two sets of hands. There, too, I learned that the first fleece of Gimmer hogs is among the best of English wool; and, indeed, it feels quite silky in comparison with other kinds. The quality loses in goodness with every subsequent shearing. The clippings and refuse are purchased by the shoddy makers, those ingenious converters of old clothes into new.

Where alpaca and other fine cloths are so largely manufactured, the question as to a continuous supply of finest wool becomes of serious importance. Mr. Salt has done what he can to provide for a supply by introducing the alpaca sheep into Australia and the Cape of Good Hope.

On my coming, I had thought the counting-house, and offices, and visitors’ room too luxurious for a mere place of business; but when I returned thither to take leave, with the impression of the enormous scale of the business, and the means by which it is accomplished fresh on my mind, these appeared quite in harmony with all the rest. And when I stood, taking a last look around, on the railway bridge, I felt that he whose large foresight had planned so stately a home for industry, and set it down here in a sylvan valley, deserved no mean place among the Worthies of Yorkshire.

I walked back to Shipley, and there spent some time sauntering to and fro in the throng, which had greatly increased during the afternoon. There was no increase of amusement, however, with increase of numbers; and the chief diversion seemed to consist in watching the swings and roundabouts, and eating gingerbread. Now and then little troops of damsels elbowed their way through, bedizened in such finery as would have thrown a negro into ecstacies. “That caps me!” cried a young man, as one of the parties went past, outvying all the rest in staring colours.

“There’s a vast of ’em coom t’ feast, isn’t there?” replied his companion; “and there ’ll be more, afore noight.”

“Look at Bobby,” said an aunt of her little nephew, who had been disappointed of a cake; “Look at Bobby! He’s fit to cry.”

“What’s ta do?” shouted a countryman, as he was pushed rudely aside; “runnin’ agean t’ foaks! What d’ye come poakin yer noase thro’ here for?”

“Ah’m puzzeld wi’ t’ craad” (crowd), answered the offender.

After hearing many more fragments of West Riding dialect, I forced my way to the railway-station, and went to Bradford. Few towns show more striking evidences of change than this; and the bits of old Bradford, little one-story tenements with stone roofs, left standing among tall and handsome warehouses, strengthen the contrast. Bradford and Leeds, only nine miles apart, have been looked upon as rivals; and it was said that no sooner did one town erect a new building than the other built one larger or handsomer; and now Bradford boasts its St. George’s Hall, and Leeds its Town Hall, crowned by a lofty tower. But what avails a tower, even two hundred and forty feet high, when a letter was once received, addressed, “Leeds, near Bradford!”

Your Yorkshireman of the West Riding is, so Mrs. Gaskell says, “a sleuth-hound” after money. As there is nothing like testimony, let me end this chapter with a brace of anecdotes, and you, reader, may draw your own inference.

Not far from Bradford, an old couple lived on their farm. The good man had been ill for some time, when the practitioner who attended him advised that a physician should be summoned from Bradford for a consultation. The doctor came, looked into the case, gave his opinion; and descending from the sick-room to the kitchen, was there accosted by the old woman, with,

“Well, doctor, what’s your charge?”

“My fee is a guinea.”

“A guinea,—doctor! a guinea! And if ye come again will it be another guinea?”

“Yes; but I shall hardly have to come again. I have given my opinion, and leave the patient in very good hands.”

“A guinea, doctor! Hech!”

The old woman rose, went upstairs to her husband’s bedside, and the doctor, who waited below, heard her say, “He charges a guinea. And if he comes again, it’ll be another guinea. Now what do ye say?—If I were ye, I’d say no, like a Britoner; and I’d die first!”

Though very brief, the other illustration is not less demonstrative. A friend of mine, whose brother had just been married, happening to mention the incident to a friend of his, during a visit to the town, was immediately met by the question:—

“Money?”

“No.”

“Fool!” was Bradford’s reply.