Neglected Bradford Industries: Glass making

August 31, 2018Bradford Libraries 3 Comments

Bradford is famous for spinning and weaving but textile production was only one of a group of important industries which ‘Worstedopolis’ supported. Since several are now almost forgotten by contemporary citizens I should like to draw attention to those which seem unreasonably neglected in a series of short articles.

In the nineteenth century Hunslet, Rothwell & Knottingley were noted West Yorkshire glass making centres. I was very surprised to find a reference to a much more local, and earlier, source of glass production in Francis Buckley’s book Old English Glass Houses, originally written in the 1920s. The best evidence he provided was an item taken from the Leeds Mercury of 1751:

To be lett: a very good glasshouse adjoining to Wibsey Moor, three miles from Halifax and two from Bradford with a very good farm-house and 22 acres of good land belonging to it. Also eight cottages for workmen to dwell in…….There is plenty of very good stone upon the place that grinds to a good sand, and is as proper as any that can be bought to make flint and crown glass with. Also very good coal within 300 yards of this glass-house at two pence per horse load.

At this time Wibsey formed part of North Bierley. Places, which by the nineteenth century were called Morley Carr, Wibsey Slack, Wibsey Low Moor or Odsal Moor, could then be described simply as Wibsey Moor or Wibsey Moorside. Low Moor itself didn’t exist as a location until after the famous iron works was established.

A glasshouse, which I suppose we would now call a glass-works, included a furnace for making glass from basic ingredients at high temperature. Glass is basically fused silica obtained from the mineral quartz, for which sand is a cheap and convenient source. Silica alone can make a glass but it melts at 1700°C which is difficult to reach. Since ancient times it has known that the addition of an alkali flux, such as natron (soda ash) or plant ashes, considerably lowers the temperature of fusion to a more attainable 1100°C. To give the glass stability lime or magnesia were also incorporated. Finally substantial portions of cullet, that is scrap glass, would also be included in the mix to help the other ingredients blend together. This was achieved in a fireclay ‘glass pot’. Firclay extraction is an industry I shall discuss on another occasion.

Crown glass was used to make windows; a crown was a flat disc of glass, produced by spinning a gather of glass on a blowing iron. From a crown small panes or quarries could be cut. Flint glass was used for bottles; it did not actually include flint as a raw material. The bottles would be hand blown into a wooden mould. Usually the two type of glass-making were kept separate by law, partly for taxation reasons but also because window glass was considered to be of greatly inferior quality. At various times glass furnaces were heated by wood or coal, although furnace design differed significantly depending on which fuel was employed. By the eighteenth century, in this part of Yorkshire, the availability of cheap coal was clearly an incentive for the potential purchaser of a glass-works.

The glass cone at Catcliffe, South Yorkshire.

Since we know that the Wibsey Moor glass works was constructed by 1751 we can be reasonably certain about its contents and appearance. In Britain the period 1730-1830 was the era of the brick glass cones which were built to enclose a central furnace, and the space in which firms of glass makers worked. The provision of internal working space is an important distinction from pottery kilns, which glass cones superficially resemble. In the UK only four cones now survive with the nearest being at Catcliffe in South Yorkshire, considered to be the finest example in Europe.

At Wibsey Moor (Low Moor) the builder of the glass-works was Edward Rookes Leeds (1715-1788) of Royds Hall, Lord of the Manor. James Parker in Rambles from Hipperholme to Tong states that in 1780 the works were demolished by another local land-owner Richard Richardson, together with some ‘freeholders’, as an infringement of their rights. Then, he says, it was re-erected on Leeds’s own land. Disagreements over the use of common land, or the exploitation of the minerals under it, between powerful local landowners was not uncommon before the Enclosure Acts. Parker’s account is credible but he is the only source for it. Considering the advertisement from the Leeds Mercury with which I started, 1750 is a more likely date than 1780 even if the rest of the account is true. Glass House’ remained as a place name in Low Moor although the cone itself was probably demolished in the late 1820s.

A detail of the Fox map of Low Moor showing a circular plan of the glass cone, with ancillary buildings. Other versions of this map exist in which this feature is not represented.

The ancillary buildings which seem to be represented in the plan would include storage space and an annealing furnace or lehr. A newly made glass object needs to be cooled down to room temperature very slowly, so that stresses produced by solidification of the glass could be dissipated. This is about as far as a student of technological history can take the Wibsey Moor glass house, but I am extremely fortunate to have had the assistance of Mary Twentyman of the Low Moor Local History Group. She believes she will be able identify the original glass-maker who leased the works, and hopefully establish something about his life. The Bradford glass industry is truly forgotten and has probably received only three brief written mentions during the last 150 years. Its full story may soon be told.

Derek Barker, Local Studies Library Volunteer

Treasure of the Week no. 21. The Low Moor Iron Works – what poetry!

June 25, 2018Bradford Libraries Leave a comment

Low Moor Iron Works: a poem. By John Nicholson. 1829 (1856 reprint).

JND 187/1 (Please quote this number if requesting this item.)

Image reproduced from ‘Poets of Keighley, Bingley, Haworth and District’ by Charles F Forshaw.

In common with other writers of the early nineteenth century, John Nicholson (1790-1843), ‘The Bard of Airedale’ found romance in the achievements of industry. The coal-fired flares of the iron works at Low Moor were compared to the smoking volcanoes of Etna and Strombolo. Beyond romance though, were the utilitarian products that issued

When first the shapeless sable Ore
Is laid in heaps around Low Moor,
The roaring Blast, the quiv’ring Flame,
Give to the mass another name;
White as the Sun the Metal runs,
For Horse Shoe Nails, or thund’ring Guns;
The trembling hair-spring of a Watch,
An Anchor, or a Cottage latch –
Most implements the Farmers have,
And those of Steamers on the wave
The Tailor’s Needle, or the Shell
The levell’d once where Princes dwell;
The Engine, Boiler, Cobler’s awl,
The Carronade, the pond’rous ball;
The place where Steam first moved his wings,
The Nails in Beggars’ Shoes and Kings’;
The Anchor’s Chain, the Fisher’s Hook,
The Sword – the Hatchet – and the Crook,
The sounding Anvil, all the blades,
The cause of many thousand trades;
No pen can write, no mind can soar
To tell the Wonders of Low Moor.

The importance of the Low Moor Iron Works in the manufacture of weapons is noted:

Throughout the world thy heavy Guns are known:
From the Pacific to the Indian shore,
Nations have heard their dread tremendous roar.

And at the Woolwich arsenal:

There Pyramids of balls for battle form’d,
By which each fortress of our foes is storm’d,
The bursting bombs of every size are there,
To guard the land Britannia holds so dear.

But now

Silent the Cannon, peaceful all the host;

In particular, and prophetically, the coming of the railways is noted: the days of the Courier, the Pilot, and the Duke of Leeds, stage coaches all, are ending:

Ye panting horses, smoking on the road,
Mark’d with the whip, and struggling with your load;
Your race of cruelties will soon be done,
The mail without you soon will swiftly run.

Summing up, Nicholson tells how Low Moor helped make Bradford:

What millions sterling have been made,
What tens of thousands have been paid,
What thousands here has genius fed,
Since the first blast has rear’d its head,
Crown’d with flame that dar’d on high,
And cheer’d the midnight cloudy sky.
But for Low Moor, old Bradford Town,
Had never like a City grown.

This poem was first published in 1829 and reprinted in 1856 by J Dobson of the Market Place, Bingley.

Nicholson started his working life in the mills but aged 32 moved to Harden Beck and became an established poet. After success with works such as Airedale in Ancient Times and The Siege of Bradford, he tried his luck in London, but soon returned to Bingley. In the 1841 Census, John (aged 50) and his wife Martha (45) were living with their eight children, aged 6 through to Ann (22) and Sarah (20), both worsted warpers, and Thomas (20), a wool sorter. John Nicholson was drowned while trying to cross the River Aire on stepping stones on a stormy night.

Image reproduced from ‘Poets of Keighley, Bingley, Haworth and District’ by Charles F Forshaw.

The Low Moor Iron Works have long since gone, but the recent re-opening of Low Moor station would surely have pleased ‘The Bard of Airedale’!

Stackmole

Neglected Bradford Industries: Iron-smelting

April 28, 2017May 2, 2017Bradford Libraries Leave a comment

The production of copperas (iron sulphate) and glass in the Bradford area have been completely forgotten. Brick-making has escaped serious study until quite recently. It is the extent, rather than the existence, of quarrying, coal-mining and iron-smelting that has tended to pass out of memory. I shall try to provide a brief introduction to these industries and to some smaller concerns: pottery, fireclay production, lime burning and vitriol manufacture. My survey cannot be exhaustive since I know very little about soap boiling, clay pipe production, nail making or leather tanning. I hope any reader with knowledge of these activities will feel free to contribute. Although my main interest is in the history of technology I am not unaware that the successes I shall describe came at considerable human cost. In the period selected the rural poor were driven by a need for work into factories and crowded, unsanitary, housing. Some employers, like Titus Salt, were humane men but others were exploitative. Foundries, mines and vitriol works were dangerous places where often little thought was given to worker safety. Those who paid the price of progress seldom reaped its benefits.

Bradford had many advantages as an industrial centre. Building stone was relatively easy to acquire, and since the late eighteenth century there had been a vigorous brick industry. Cheap local coal was available, and could be coked to supply blast furnaces which made pig iron from locally dug ironstone. There had long been water-powered corn and textile mills but it was the introduction of steam engine power that really transformed any process that was capable of mechanisation. Cloth production was a principle beneficiary of this technology which in turn promoted the development of textile engineering in Bradford and Keighley. The town was originally a communications backwater. It was hard to move raw materials, or manufactured products, cheaply and speedily. Horse transport had been used for centuries and a network of pack-horse routes had developed throughout West Yorkshire. The construction of turnpike roads in the years 1734-1825 produced a substantial improvement in the situation. With the opening of sections of the Leeds to Liverpool canal in the 1770s, with its spur into Bradford, transport of bulk goods, especially coal and limestone, became far cheaper. Railway links were established by the 1850s.

Iron1

A 30.5 ton Rolling Mill flywheel presented by Alan Elsworth and preserved for display near the site of Low Moor Ironworks.

A century ago no community would be without its blacksmith but Bradford could boast a complete package of iron based technologies: ironstone mining, iron-smelting, and foundries. Historical sources, and deposits of slag, suggest that a medieval, bloomery furnace based, iron-smelting had occurred at Eldwick, Harden, Baildon, and Eccleshill, with charcoal being the fuel employed. Until their dissolution around 1539 northern Cistercian abbeys were heavily involved in iron-making but there is some documentary evidence of late Tudor smelting at Esholt and Hirst Wood, Shipley. The origin of modern industry was the discovery in 1709, by Quaker ironmaster Abraham Darby of Coalbrookdale, that iron could be successfully smelted using coked coal. This advance took about 50 years to be widely accepted. Darby’s grandson was the creator of the famous iron bridge.

Iron2

An iron pig produced by Abraham Darby in 1756, on display at Coalbrookdale Museum.

Bradford did not have the capacity to produce vast quantities of charcoal for blast furnace fuel but Darby’s discovery resulted in south Bradford’s Black Bed coal seam being mined for its rich roof deposits of ironstone. It was discovered that the deeper Better Bed coal seam was low in sulphur and phosphorus and so produced coke highly suitable for iron-smelting. The industry was capital intensive but blast furnaces were set up at Birkenshaw (1782), Bowling (1788), Low Moor (1791) and Bierley (1810). Their products were cast iron and the ‘best wrought iron’, produced by Cort’s ‘puddling’ process. Cannon and shot were manufactured during the Napoleonic Wars. At a later date the companies did not adopt the Bessemer process to convert cast iron into steel for which Sheffield became celebrated. The furnaces are long gone but the ‘dross’ waste and some of the iron products remains. I vividly remember encountering some Low Moor cannon at Alnwick Castle. As local deposits were exhausted mineral carrying tramways transported vast amounts of coal and ironstone for miles towards the furnaces. In the 1960s a scholar called Derek Pickles studied the mineral ways supplying Bowling Iron Works. His detailed and fascinating work is curated by Bradford Industrial Museum but I know virtually nothing about him. Can anybody help me?

A plan from Derek Pickles’s study showing mineral ways around Bowling Iron Works (top centre). The triangles mark collieries.

If you want to undertake further background reading the Local Studies Library has copies of three useful texts:

RCN Thornes, West Yorkshire: A Noble Scene of Industry, WYCC (1981)
Gary Firth, Bradford in the Industrial Revolution, Ryburn Publishing (1990)
C Richardson, A Geography of Bradford, University of Bradford (1976)

Derek Barker, Local Studies Library Volunteer

Book Reviews – The Low Moor Explosion

January 12, 2017August 7, 2018Bradford Libraries Leave a comment

The Low Moor Explosion, August 21^st 1916. A Mystery Explained? By Ronald Blackwell. Augmented Reprint. Published by the Low Moor Local History Group, 2016. 144 pages. A4 format. Illustrated.

Yellow Poppies. The Dead and those who received honours as a result of the 1916 Low Moor Munitions Explosion. By Barbara Reardon and Mary Twentyman. Low Moor Local History Group, 2016. 110 pages. A4 format. Illustrated.

On August 21^st 1916, a series of explosions took place at the Low Moor Munitions Works which resulted in the deaths of forty people, six of whom were corporation firemen. It was wartime, and picric acid was produced at the works. The acid was reduced to a powder and bagged ready for transportation to shell-filling works elsewhere. The cause of the initial fire appeared to be either that a drum containing the powdered acid was not adequately insulated on its exterior surface and inappropriate handling of the drum by a worker caused picrate deposits to combine with the metal leading to combustion; or, that the drums, which were being transferred to a packing shed, were not covered on top as safety requirements stated and a spark or descending hot clinker from an adjoining part of the works could have come in contact with the open drum and caused ignition. The fire thus started in the drum entered the building where the stored picric then caught fire, leading to explosions all over the site. Hot flying debris landed on adjacent corporation gas holders, leading to their wholesale destruction and that of adjoining buildings. The accident investigators commented that the works were holding far more picric acid than its licence permitted. The company, though, was under pressure to produce as much as possible for the war effort.

In 1987, Ronald Blackwell wrote a detailed and comprehensive account of the accident, but his book has long been out-of-print and hard to obtain. Since its publication more details have been uncovered with much research carried out on the people who were killed or who were involved. As a consequence the Low Moor Local History Group decided to commemorate the centenary of the explosion by re-printing the book and to add these further details. The book has now been reprinted in its entirety with the addition of Blackwell’s article in the Bradford Antiquary of 1987, which gave a simplified account of the disaster and a revised list of the dead. Also added is are two new names, other new information, and the transcription of the citation recommending a bravery award that had been submitted later. Ronald Blackwell supported this augmented re-publication.

Since the 1980s new sources have become available, most notably census data and the ability to search some newspapers digitally, so it was decided to research details of the people who were killed in the explosion and those who received national awards for their bravery. Their stories are told in a separate publication, Yellow Poppies. The title relates to the fact that the people working in the area were often referred to as ‘canaries’ due to the fact that their skin often acquired a yellow tinge from the sulphur content of the acid, and also, of course, the poppy being a symbol for the war – the reason why explosives were being manufactured at Low Moor in the first place. Typically, each of the forty victims has a double-page spread giving details of their part in the disaster, their background, and information about their surviving families, with photographs. Similar treatment is given to a number of the firemen, managers and telephonists who were involved in the disaster but survived. Finally there is information about the national and local awards for bravery that were awarded. The book is profusely illustrated.

Both authors are experienced in family history research and this marvellous publication demonstrates how much information can be discovered using modern research methods, despite the difficulties caused by wartime news restrictions. More importantly, it brings back life these brave and innocent people, of which Low Moor can be proud.

Bob Duckett

The publications can be borrowed from the library service or purchased from the publishers c/o 13 St Abbs Fold, Odsal, Bradford, BD6 1EL. Email: info@lmlhg.org.uk.

Map of the Week: Low Moor

March 23, 2016Bradford Libraries 2 Comments

In 1828 or 1829 surveyor Joseph Fox drew a map recording the property of the Low Moor Iron Company. The West Yorkshire Archives (Bradford) have a copy of his map, generously donated by Geoff and Mary Twentyman. The donors suggest that it was kept on display at the ironworks, and it has certainly been annotated at a later date. The original map is too fragile to be handled, a common problem with old material, but images of excellent quality are available on CD-ROM. The Local Studies Library reserve map collection also has a plan, labelled North Bierley, which closely resembles the Fox map. It has deteriorated quite badly but the detail included as this week’s chosen example perfectly clear.

The same landowners are mentioned in both maps, although the script in which their names are written differs. The plan of the Low Moor Ironworks is identical in the two maps, as are most buildings included. In the top left corner of the image are a collection of roughly circular features. These represent coal or ironstone mines. It is hard to imagine now that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Bradford was densely covered by mines, abandoned mine-shafts and piles of colliery waste. The Low Moor and Bowling Iron Companies smelted iron ore, obtained locally from the roof of the Black Bed coal seam, using coke made from the deeper Better Bed seam. The production of cast iron and ‘best Yorkshire wrought iron’ was extremely profitable for more than a century.

In the approximate centre of the map is the place name ‘Glass House’. This represents the site once occupied by Bradford’s only known glass-making furnace. The builder of the glass-works, known to be in existence by 1748, was Edward Rookes Leeds (1715-1788) of Royds Hall, Lord of the Manor of Wibsey. In that era the space needed for a furnace and its attendant glass-workers was enclosed by a brick cone, and there were large underground flues. An excellent surviving example of such a cone can still be seen at Catcliffe, South Yorkshire. The Fox map in the WY Archives places a large circle at this site which could easily represent a glass cone in plan, but the map illustrated here has no such feature. Have the two map versions ‘caught’ the brick cone in the process of being demolished?

The fate of the glass works is being actively researched at present. It is possible that the works was not in active production for many years, but ‘Glass House’ long remained as a place name in Low Moor. Fox drew other maps; the LSL reserve collection contains a beautiful example showing Harden Moor, with the roads connecting Keighley and Bingley, drawn in 1830.

Derek Barker, Library Volunteer

Low Moor