Back to back Housing and The Brigg Family, Keighley Mill Owners

November 14, 2024November 15, 2024Bradford Libraries Leave a comment

Back-to-back housing was the topic of Jude Rhodes’ talk this week, the second in the series of illustrated presentations by this wonderful speaker and although these houses are still all around us in their later improved incarnations, back-to-back history continues to surprise us.

Back-to-backs were first mentioned in Bermondsey as early as 1706 and were built in Birmingham and Nottingham in the 1770s, Manchester and Liverpool in the 1780s. Leeds began to build them in 1787 and has the most back-to-backs in the country. Keighley’s own early workers’ housing was centred around West Lane at Westgate, including the Pinfold area, its terraced early back-to-backs include Leeds Street and Turkey Street, see illustrations.

The early back-to-backs houses usually consisted of a kitchen room with 2 bedrooms on the floor above and a cellar place for coal. Houses at the rear were usually accessed by tunnels from the street. They were popular for cheap rents and running costs but were unsanitary with shared middens and water supply, small windows and generally a lack of ventilation with subsequent damp. There was much overcrowding and Jude illustrated this with 40 Birmingham houses sharing 3 privies, that’s potentially 160 people. Piles of human and other waste were added to make “midden heaps” that were cleared into the rivers, becks or streams by the Night Soil Man or left to pile up in the yard before spilling into open sewers, basically ditches with water running through if the gradient was good, if not then waste was left to stagnate, producing poisonous and noxious fumes. Water from rivers, becks and streams could so easily carry typhoid and dysentery, such was the pollution before proper sewerage systems.

Bye-laws and the Public Health Act of 1875 tried to improve workers’ housing and improved back-to-backs were built. These were referred to as “byelaw terraced” housing. These houses had to meet minimum standards of build quality, ventilation, sanitation and population density. Significantly, this type of housing made up over 15% of the United Kingdom’s housing stock in 2011 and gentrification has taken place for some, as at Chimney Pot Park in Salford.

The overcrowding, insanitary conditions and deterioration of much early housing caused concern, not least amongst employers who required healthy workforces to fill their factories and mills. The Brigg family of Calversyke Mill in Keighley built better back-to-back housing in Lynum Street, however their hopes to build a model village like Sir Titus Salt in Saltaire was prevented due to the inadequacy of the water supply there. Later they sold extensive land around Guard House that enabled the building of Keighley’s first 136 Corporation houses at Guard House in 1928 with gardens, space, light and sanitation. James Lund of North Beck Mill built houses near his gift to the town of Lund Park and some of his houses, post 1878, remain in Calton and Chelsea Streets. Robert Clough of Clough Mills built houses in what is known today as the “Jewel Box” area of Keighley, called after the names of five streets: Opal, Diamond, Ruby, Pearl and Emerald. The list of house planning millowners goes on though not for model villages.

Slum clearance began in the 1930s and went through stages up to the 1970s. In Keighley, much early housing was cleared when the Housing Act of 1930 allowed for compulsory purchase of the proven inadequate housing for demolition. Jude highlighted the destruction of community in the process, however, and some members of the audience noted Parkwood in the 1960s. Not everyone wanted to leave their homes, improvement yes, not demolition and rehousing. Stories from the audience included a de-lousing procedure for inhabitants of “slum dwellings” before access to alternative housing was permitted. Dr Ian Dewhirst MBE in “A History of Keighley”, page 132, highlights the loss of “landmarks in the folk-geography of generations: the Bay Horse Inn and the Angel… the picturesque Quaker meeting-house in Mill Street; the pinfold where stray livestock had been impounded; hump-backed Quebec Bridge, scene of many a Saturday-night brawl…”

Time marches on sometimes leaving shock waves in its wake as in the final fact Jude noted, that her “all time dream home”, her former grandparents’ back-to-back in Leeds, where they struggled to live comfortably, is today not even affordable to her. How things change.

Jude Rhodes is an Associate of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA), specialising in Yorkshire history. She is she explains, “passionate about using local history with family history, this provides the exploration of who our ancestors were, why they lived in a particular place and how they were part of their community at a given time”.

Thank you to all who attended, please find an earlier blog with future talks listed into next year. Please note these are free events and also a place booking is required for that on the 11th December 2024, Christmas Family Traditions and Crafts, contact Keighley Local Studies. Poster with details is with this blog.

Jude highlighted some resources and museums during her talk, here are some mentioned below revealing the back-to-back history experience:

For building plans, OS maps, photographs, town plans, Borough records, and at least 2 in depth studies on the housing of workers and employers, please see Keighley Local Studies Library, North Street, Keighley keighleylocalstudies@bradford.gov.uk

National Library of Scotland online collection of town maps and plans for England and comparative recent aerial photographs for study
https://maps.nls.uk/os/

Bradford Industrial Museum for nicer back-to-backs and the mill owner’s house
https://bradfordmuseums.org/venue/bradford-industrial-museum/

Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds for the Night Soil Man and the history of sanitation generally https://thackraymuseum.co.uk/

Black Country Living Museum in Dudley and Beamish Museum in Durham for more living history in back-to-backs
https://bclm.com/

Birmingham’s Back to Backs Museum
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/birmingham-west-midlands/birmingham-back-to-backs

The Asylum and Related Records

October 28, 2024Bradford Libraries Leave a comment

The first of a series of talks on family and local history topics was launched on Wednesday, 23^rd October in Keighley Local Studies Library with Jude Rhodes as speaker. Jude is an Associate of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA), specialising in Yorkshire history. She is “passionate about using local history with family history, this provides the exploration of who our ancestors were, why they lived in a particular place and how they were part of their community at a given time”.

The topic this time was Asylums, looking at their history, categories of patients, care provided and life in an asylum, followed by location and access to records. From the start the audience was advised that some of the terminology was difficult to hear and would never be used today but that these terms were mentioned to accurately depict the historical times and attitudes.

Jude began before Henry VIII and noted how monasteries and nunneries had been a support outside London which was the only place that actually had a hospital, Bethlem, later known as Bedlam. There were private “madhouses” but generally and for those of limited means, care for mental health would be entirely dependent on family and friends and this was the case under the old poor law, when the only alternative was the workhouse or prison. The Lunacy Act of 1845 under the new poor law stated that asylums, “Union Asylums”, had to be built but it wasn’t until the 1930s that asylums started to be called mental health institutes.

Historic categories were quite astonishing and could include: “refusal to pray”, “inability to feel pious”, “weeping”, “talking too much” (known as “excitement”) and even “hatred of spouse”. Syphilis was rife at this time, it ravaged the body but in time, the brain too and there were many innocents infected along the way. According to statistics, industrial areas, ports, the military and some mining towns were especially prone to the spread of this infection also known as “Ladies Disease” for women infected. Jude readily acknowledged the dangers of misdiagnosis in the past, with single pregnant women committed, menopausal women and those with post- natal depression, similarly those people with epilepsy or with bipolar and with dementia in old age. The early years after WW1 saw many former soldiers admitted with the effects of shell shock. It was also agreed during the discussion with the audience after the talk that many people in less supportive historical periods may have suffered circumstantial stress that if continuous had led to total breakdown in mental health.

However, Jude also pointed out the advances made at such as Wakefield’s Stanley Royd (1818-1995), formerly known as the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, that was one of the world’s most famous and active research institutions and led to global scientific changes in the treatment of the mentally ill. Its collection is held at Wakefield District Archives and there is a digital archive at www.wakefieldasylum.co.uk and an online tour at https://museumofthemind.org.uk . Similarly, Clifton in York (1847-1994), under the Medical Superintendent, Dr John Ivison Russell, pioneered in the field of occupational therapy. These larger institutions such as Menston (High Royds) were run as self-contained communities with their own farms, churches, cricket grounds and in Menston’s case, its own railway line connected to the Midland Railway to carry supplies, mainly coal for the boilers. Menston (1888-2003) site was 300 acres and opened with a capacity of 800 beds. There is a digital archive at www.highroydshospital.com and records are held at Wakefield District Archives.

Other local asylums include Scalebor Park, Burley in Wharfedale, a private asylum, and also with records at Wakefield Archives, with an illustrated history on the Burley Archive’s web site at https://burleycommunitylibrary.weekly.com and Storthes Hall, Kirkburton and you can find more about all the hospitals and see images at https://historic-hospitals.com .

Jude finally spoke about her own personal journey through the archives, having had a great grandfather who was an attendant at High Royds and a grandfather who was a also a patient. She now believes that her grandfather was admitted suffering from the effects of shell shock after the First World War that he never recovered from. Nevertheless, he was allowed to practice the organ and became the main organist for all weddings and funerals in Wakefield. He was also taken to the AGM of the Organist Society in London.

We would like to thank Jude for a very informative talk, handled well on a what is still today but especially as you look into its history, a complex and sensitive subject area. Library staff produced handouts and information sheets and if you would like to see them, please call into Keighley Local Studies library on the first floor of Keighley Library and ask for the file at the counter. We also have a small collection of books that cover the history of asylums and how to trace records for loan and for reference.

Our next events are listed below this blog, they are free as part of the 120 Year Celebrations of the free Keighley Carnegie Public Library (1904-2024), all welcome.

Jude Rhodes – History talks

storiesofourgenerations@gmail.com

Wednesday 13^thNovember, 10.30am -12.30am
‘Back-to-back Housing and The Brigg Family, Keighley Mill Owners’

Wednesday 11^th December, 2.15pm – 4.00pm
Family History & Christmas Crafts

Saturday 25^th January 2025, 10.30am – 12.30pm
One place study with the Mechanics’ Institute as an example.

Saturday, 22^nd February 2025, 10.30-12.30pm
‘The Workhouse’

Friday, 7^th March 2025, 2.30-4.30pm
‘Nursing History’ (part of the International Women’s Week Celebrations)

Treasure of the week no. 26: Hedgehogs, polecats and churchwardens.

March 16, 2020Bradford Libraries Leave a comment

This week we resume our popular ‘Treasure of the Week feature by our volunteer ‘Stackmole’. These treasures are from 19th Century Publications which give a varied insight into the Bradford of the 19th Century – history as it happened. We hope these articles will encourage people to study these items and to pursue this interest into other aspects of Bradford’s history.

Natural History Notes from the Bradford Churchwarden’s Accounts by Herbert E. Wroot. Offprint of pages 183-187 from The Naturalist, June 1895. Contains a transcript of the entries relating to payments for catching wild animals from 1668 to 1748.

JND 18/12 (Please quote this number if requesting this item)

Tres 26 image

The Churchwardens were very much the local officials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and were responsible for the administration of the law. Interesting are the payments made for catching vermin and wild animals. The entries in The Accounts of the Bradford Churchwardens date from 1668 to the end of 1748. From these, journalist and naturalist, Herbert Wroot, transcribed the entries that relate to wild animals. They give evidence that in and near Bradford there were:

Hedgehogs (or ‘Urchins’)
Wild Cats
Foxes
Otters
Badgers (or ‘Greys’)
Polecats (or Foumarts)

Image from ‘Eileen Aroon’ by Stables, Gordon, 1884 https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary Flickr Commons

Most common of these were hedgehogs, the deaths of 180 being recorded. Superstition against this harmless creature was strong – they were supposed to seek the milk from the udders of cows as they lay on the ground. The existence of the wild cat in the district is especially interesting; the animal being long ago extinct in England. Four specimens are referred to – two were caught in 1676, one in 1678, and the last in 1680. The badger or ‘gray’ seems to have been scarce or rarely seen. The sole specimen referred to was killed in 1676 at Shipley. Although polecats are several times noted, there were no martins, weasels or stoats. Otters were not uncommon, five having been killed, the last mentioned in 1731.

No payment was made for any of the birds whose destruction was prescribed by the Acts; birds such as hawks, kites, the buzzard, magpie, jay, rave or kingfisher. Likewise, there is no record of smaller vermin such as rats, mice or moles. The rewards paid, one shilling each for foxes and greys, and two pence each for hedgehogs, otters, wild cats and polecats, were in conformity with the scale prescribed by the Government.

The struggles of the illiterate churchwardens with spelling of the words ‘urchin’ and ‘hedgehog’ are amusing. Two examples are:

1670, April 23 Paid to Thomas Roe for Catshing two heg hoges ..… 4d.

1679-9 Aloud to the Churchwarden of Shipley for 6 uerchanes & for a wild cat ….. 2s. 02d.

Stackmole

Image from ‘Eileen Aroon’ by Stables, Gordon, 1884 https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary Flickr Commons

Bradford’s Police History

July 26, 2018Bradford Libraries 2 Comments

During July, Bradford Local Studies Library hosted a display on Bradford’s Police History. The display has been co-produced by the Ripon Museums Trust and the Bradford Police Museum and has been well received by customers in the Library.

Treasure of the Week No. 16: ‘Rhodes’s Lump Butter is Always Unique’

August 31, 2017November 21, 2017Bradford Libraries 2 Comments

JND 233/1 (Please quote this number if requesting this item)

RHODES & SONS. Bradford: Past & Present. A Sketch of the Progress of the Town from the Earliest Period. Bradford: J. F. Rhodes & Sons, 54 Kirkgate, 1890. 98 pages.

jnd223 1 c 001

This is a remarkable book. So also was 98 pages for 1d.! It is a publication marketed by a grocery shop which is a full and well-illustrated history of Bradford. The text and illustrations are excellent, with engravings of old street scenes and line drawings of local celebrities of the time. Of particular interest today is the information about the products advertised by the publishers, J. F. Rhodes & Sons, Grocers. Every page has a strap line featuring one of the shop’s grocery products, of which the following are a few:

Rhodes’s Lump Butter is always unique
Rhodes’s 2s. Teas, is the Tea Drinker’s Favourite
Rhodes’s are Agents for Armour Ox Tongues
Rhodes’s Coffee is roasted daily
Rhodes’s White Cheshire Cheese

There are several full-page adverts for such products as Reckitt’s Starch, Brown & Polson’s Corn Flour, and Kilvert’s Pure Lard. The engravings are a little faded, but full of historical interest, with horse-drawn and steam trams, a balloon ascent and a boy in the hand-stocks in Kirkgate! Illustrated are: