Act 19

Dark Satanic Mills

The Farndale Story met Leeds, Bradford, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Stockton through the period of industrial transition

Dark Satanic Mills Podcast This is a new experiment. Using Google’s Notebook LM, listen to an AI powered podcast summarising this page. This should only be treated as an introduction, and the AI generation sometimes gets the nuance a bit wrong. There are a some instances in this podcast where there are mistakes about the exact relationships and an overlap of generations. However it does provide an introduction to the themes of this page, which are dealt with in more depth below. Listen to the podcast for an overview, but it doesn’t replace the text below, which provides the accurate historical record.

Spinning machines A flavour of Victorian innovation

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Industrial Change

A demographic boom increased the population of England from 5.2 million in 1701 to 17.9 million in 1851. A trend in increased wages and new job opportunities started in the eighteenth century. People married younger and had more children. Rev Thomas Malthus wrote his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. A volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in present day Indonesia peaked on 10 April 1815. This disrupted the climate and caused widespread famine. In the rest of Europe the consequence of this trend of population growth was sharp deterioration, but this didn’t happen in Britain. There was no economic disaster. Living standards were maintained at a relatively high level. Prosperity focused on the growth of urban areas such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. This was a period of the growth of new jobs, and a degree of support for incomes through the Poor Laws.

From the 1850s there was a second stage of industrialisation, boosted by cheap energy from the new mineral economy. A new clothing demand also drove the industrial revolution. Cotton was adopted for its colour and brightness. Folk bought goods for enjoyment and self invention. This was a time of self expression and ambition.

Proponents of change, such as David Hume and Adam Smith welcomed a new commercial society, and saw a remedy to poverty, and provision of a more stable, peaceful and civilised society, with new economic freedoms. Wages were already high, and people had new aspirations and choices. Opponents of change criticised its moral, social and aesthetic consequences. Skills were devalued and health deteriorated. Infant mortality was high. People’s physical condition deteriorated, and people’s heights declined. Real wages barely rose from their already high levels, about 4% from 1760 to 1820, but food prices rose.

Coketown, to which Messrs Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before pursuing our tune.

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.

These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from the work by which it was sustained.

You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful.

The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail, the town-hall might have been either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the contrary in the graces of their construction. Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the immaterial. The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in figures, or show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen.

(Charles Dickens, Hard Times, Chapter V, The Keynote)

Between 1790 and 1850, the sudden industrialisation caused a loss of status for some and sudden wealth and power for others. Many saw insecurity, disorientation, slum living and disease. There was uncertainty as to whether the new era would end in wide prosperity or mass starvation.

The dark side of the industrial revolution was emphasised in Arnold Toynbee’s Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England and Engels’ anticipation of a proletarian revolution. There was a bleak interpretation of the industrial revolution trapping the poor in smoke and squalor.

William Blake’s Jerusalem contrasted nostalgia for England’s green and pleasant land with the new industrial landscapes.

And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England’s mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my Arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold: Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In England’s green & pleasant Land.

In reality the famous hymn, written between 1804 to 1820, which became a great patriotic song in the first world war, is difficult to comprehend. It was written in consequence of the Napoleonic Wars and envisaged an ancient English order as God’s chosen people rebuilding Jerusalem, harping back to the long debate since the Civil War holding underlying rights held to have existed in Anglo Saxon times before they were swept away by the Normans. Whilst dark satanic mills have long been associated with the Industrial Revolution, there are interpretations that the phrase was a criticism of the conformity of the established Church of England, and that the phrase was an attack on ambitious church building projects.

Scene 1 - Worsted Spinning in Bradford

Worsted is a high-quality wool yarn. The name derives from Worstead, Norfolk which was a manufacturing centre for yarn and cloth in the twelfth century, boosted by weavers from Flanders who moved to Norfolk. Worsted yarns and fabrics are stronger, finer, smoother, and harder than more traditional woollens. Worsted wool fabric is preferred in tailoring items such as suits, whilst woollen wool tends to be used for knitted items such as sweaters.

John Farndale was baptised in Bishop Wilton near York on 23 April 1849 and became a groom by the age of 21 in 1871. He married Catherine Todd in 1872 and soon afterwards they moved to Eccleshill and then Clayton in modern Greater Bradford. John continued to work as a groom in Clayton, but his family all took work in the worsted industry. By 1891, Annie Farndale, aged 19, was a worsted drawer and John Farndale, 15 and James Arthur Farndale, 13, were working as worsted spinners. Annie continued to work as a drawer until she married Frank Robinson in 1902 after which she worked as a mill hand until the family emigrated to Massachusetts, where Frank worked in a paper mill. Cloth drawers, or finishers, inspected the cloth and used a needle to make any necessary repairs to small holes or blemishes in the fabric. They were paid relatively well, 30s a week for a drawer compared to 18s a week for a hand loom weaver and 9s for a power loom weaver, in 1858. Their sister, Mary Farndale was working as a worsted spinner by 1901, aged 17 and her sister Maggie Farndale was a mill hand by 1911, aged 25.

In the eighteenth century there was a rich tradition of hand loom weaving and spinning, as well as shoe making and mending, in the cottages of the village of Clayton. The completed work was sold in Bradford and at Piece Hall, Halifax. By the early nineteenth century Clayton had over 1,500 hand loom weavers working in their homes.

In 1760 England, yarn production from wool, flax and cotton was a vibrant cottage industry. Fibres were carded and spun by hand using a spinning wheel. As the textile industry expanded its markets and adopted faster machines, yarn supplies became scarce especially due to innovations such as the doubling of the loom speed after the invention of the flying shuttle. High demand for yarn spurred the invention of the Spinning Jenny in 1765, followed closely by the invention of the Spinning Frame, later developed into the water frame which was patented in 1769. New technology increased the production of yarn so dramatically that by 1830 the yarn cottage industry in England could no longer compete and all spinning was carried out in factories.

The mechanisation of the industrial revolution transferred Clayton’s industry around a growth of new mills. The first mill to be built in the Clayton area was Brow Top Mill. Alfred Wallis, Asa Briggs and Joseph Benn were the principal manufacturers at Oak Mills and later Joseph Benn and Sons at Beck Mill. Clayton was well served by public transport from the late nineteenth century. In October 1874 the Great Northern Railway opened to Clayton, followed in October 1878 by the Bradford and Halifax lines.

James Arthur Farndale (1877 to 1952) was baptised in Clayton. As a boy Mr Farndale commenced working at Messrs Joseph Benn and Sons, Beck Mills, Clayton, eventually becoming an overlooker and after being associated with that firm for 26 years, he was appointed drawing room manager at Saltaire Mills. He married Florence Edith Greenwood in 1905 at the Wesleyan Chapel in Claton. He was appointed drawing room manager at Saltaire Mills in January 1914.

Salts Mill was a textile mill in Saltaire, Shipley, to the north of Bradford, and about six kilometres north of Clayton. It was commissioned and financed by the industrialist and philanthropist, Sir Titus Salt and opened in 1853. Working conditions in factories were appalling by the mid nineteenth century, with most workers suffering disease, low wages and labour exploitation. Dangerous machinery and long hours, sometimes exceeding sixteen hour working days, resulted in frequent accidents. Titus Salt acknowledged this and built a factory and surrounding village with which he intended to improve the working conditions for his employees. The mill was, at the time, the largest industrial building in the world by total floor area. It was built beside the River Aire. Salts Mill Mill is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

James became attached to Saltaire Cricket Club on coming to live in Albert road in 1914, and his keenness for cricket in general and this club in particular continued unabated to the end. During the First World War there were a number of hearings of the Shipley Military Tribunal which excused James, by then braiding manager, from military service.

On 31 May 1918, George V and Queen Mary visited Shipley and was welcomed amongst others by the Chief Constable of Bradford, Joseph Farndale, who we will meet in Act 21. The object of their Majesties’ visit, for their three days tour of the West Riding of Yorkshire - beginning at Bradford on Wednesday morning and terminating to date today at Leeds, was really an inspection of representative textile factories that are engaged on work of national importance. Consequently, local interest could not have been a greater stimulus, and, so far as circumstances permitted the residents expressed their appreciation of the royal favour that was conferred on them. They crowded the places of interests, displayed a large quantity of decorations in street, shop and residence considering there was no organisation behind this sort of compliment to their Majesties; and in in a variety of other ways they indicated the warmth and sincerity of their welcome. It was the first time for the visit of a King and Queen and the inspection of Saltaire mills was also high testimony to the industrial importance of the town and to the eminence of the enterprising spinning and manufacturing Firm, Sir Titus Salt, Bart and sons and co limited.

Shipley's association with Royalty began in 1882 when the late King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra stayed two nights at Milner field, where, at the Prince as the Prince and Princess of Wales, they came for the opening of the Bradford Technical College. Coming to Saltaire Station by train, they were received by the representatives of the town in the grounds of the Saltaire Congregational Church, a roadway having been cut through the railway embankment. Next morning they drove from Milner field through Saltaire and Shipley, being received by the representatives of Bradford at the boundary of Frizinghall. Among the decorations was an imitation gothic arch at the Frizinghall entrance to Lister park, and the present permanent arch was afterwards erected as a memorial of the visit. In May 1887, Royalty was again at Milner Field, Princess Beatrice being the visitor. She had come to open the Saltaire Jubilee Exhibition. The late Mr Titus Salt and Mrs Salt were on both occasions resident at Milner Field. On September 27th 1916 her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess George of Russia came to Saltaire from Harrogate, accompanied by her two daughters, the Princess Nina and Zenia, to open a patriotic bazaar.

The King and Queen arrived at Sir Titus Salt’s spinning and manufacturing mills at Saltaire, where James Farndale was the worsted drawing manager, at 3pm and stayed until 3.40.

By 1925, James’ family were established in Shipley’s Society. At Christmas in 1924 and 1925, Florence Farndale, James’ wife, handed out Christmas presents to children of the Fire Brigade and James and Florence were active supporters of the Fire Brigade, various galas and local sporting events. As well as a keen interest in cricket, he played bowls and won the gold medal and silver rose bowl in 1926.

Indeed, in November 1936, their support of the Fire Brigade paid dividends when, after a thrilling dash through the fog over frost bound roads a Bradford fire brigade engine reached Baildon in the remarkable time of 11 minutes yesterday to deal with an outbreak of fire at the home of Mrs James Arthur Farndale, of Oakley, Sandals Road, Baildon. The fire appears to have originated in one of the bedrooms and have been caused by an electric radiator becoming overheated. When the brigade arrived on the scene the upper floor was filled with dense clouds of smoke, and it was necessary to use oxygen apparatus in order to approach the seat of the fire. The flames were quickly brought under control, but it is thought that the damage may exceed £100. The house was “Oakley”, the property of Mr. James A Farndale.

James retired in 1942 after having held the position of manager of the drawing room at Saltaire mills for 28 ½ years, a good record of service. Mr R W Guild, managing director, on behalf of the directors, presented Mr Farndale with a cheque; the managers and staff also gave him a cheque; and all connected with the drawing room gave him as a parting gift a beautiful electric clock. Mr Guild in making the presentation on behalf of the directors spoke very highly of the excellent services rendered by Mr Farndale in his capacity as manager of the drawing room and assured him that he left with the best wishes of all those connected with the firm. Mr O Dennison, spinning manager, who made the presentation on behalf of the managers and staff spoke in a similar vein, and of the high esteem in which he was held by everybody.

He has been actively connected with the sports activities of the firm and was formerly a playing member of the Salts Bowling Club, whilst he has been a member of the Saltaire Football Club. Mr Farndale has also taken a keen interest in Saltaire Cricket Club, of which he is vice president and an active member of the committee. He is held in huge esteem by the directors, managers and work people of Saltaire Mills, when on Friday everybody gave tangible expression of their esteem. A life member of Saltaire Cricket Club, he had voluntarily tended their Roberts Park ground for five seasons.

On 1 March 1952, James collapsed in a bus while returning from Saturdays football match at Park Avenue and died almost immediately.

We will meet his son Wilfred Farndale, who became a locally renown cricketer and Shipley’s sanitary inspector, in Act 33.

James’ brother, William Farndale started a plumbing partnership in Bradford and his daughters, Edith Farndale and May Farndale were both bookkeepers at the Infant Clinic in Bradford. Tom Farndale became a machine moulder and his daughter Minnie Farndale was working as a cotton weaver in 1939 in Padiham in Lancashire. Robert George Farndale (1909 to 1978) left Hartlepool to marry Winifred Sibley in 1934. He worked as a French polisher in Bradford and they had a family of six. His son, Peter Farndale, was secretary of the Bradford Rugby Central League.

Scene 2 - The Cordwainer of Leeds

John Farndale was a shoe maker’s apprentice at Crayke, a village east of Easingwold, aged 14, in 1841. In 1856 John married Sarah Ann Brittain in Leeds and they set up home in Bramley near Leeds. By then John was working as a cordwainer, a craftsman of new shoes distinguished at that time from the cobbler who fixed them. John was still making shoes and boots in Bramley in 1901 by which time he was aged 68 and a widower. He died in 1902.

As the population of Leeds grew, so did the demand for meat, and this meant a local supply of hides and skins for the leather industry. The leather industry in turn provided material for the footwear industry, which became an important trade in Leeds from the 1830s, mostly making boots . A major footwear producer in Leeds was Stead and Simpson who started out as curriers and leather factors in 1834. In the 1840’s they began to make ready made boots, and shoes. Many footwear manufacturers remained as small firms, but some like John Halliday outgrew his workshop in Harrison’s Yard, Bramley, and built a large factory employing 450 people making strong boots for the home and export market. Another large manufacturer was F & W Jackson.

The Halliday Factory in Bramley

John and Sarah had a family of eleven. Their eldest son, Joseph Farndale, was also working as a shoemaker by the age of 14. He died, aged 34, in 1891. Jethro Farndale was also a shoemaker, and he too died young at the age of 32 in 1893. Peter Farndale was another shoemaker. Mary Farndale, Alice Farndale, Elias Farndale, and William Farndale, all died in infancy. Elizabeth Farndale worked as a shoemaker machinist by 1881 and continued to work as a boot machinist after she was married to an iron miller, John Gall. She died when she was 47. The youngest son, John Farndale, became a boot rivetter.

Scene 3 - Heavy Industry in Stockton

John Farndale (1796 to 1868) was a farm labourer at Brotton who married Elizabeth Wallace in 1827. They had a family of ten, the Stockton 1 Line. The family then moved to Middlesbrough, where John was working as a labourer and merchant in 1851, and he became bankrupt. By 1861, John was working in the iron foundry in Stockton.

Iron Foundry, Stockton

We met his sons William Farndale and Peter Farndale, who were solicitors’ clerks in Stockton, and George Farndale, the grocer, in Act 14 Scene 2.

Robert Farndale (1814 to 1866) also became a grocer in Stockton. He married Sarah Taylor of Saltburn in 1841 and they had a family of six. Robert Edward Farndale was an iron ship builder’s clerk and later a plasterer and cement maker of Stockton but his business was bankrupted, and he died five years later in Birmingham.

William Farndale (1849 to 1927) was a footman when he married Jane Gale at Bedale on 8 February 1870. William and Jane had their own family of seven, the Stockton 3 Line. In about 1881, the family moved to Stockton, where William became a car man and later a boilersmith labourer. Their son William Farndale moved to Norwich, and we will meet him in Act 20. Their son, James Farndale worked in an iron foundry and for a time in steam engine works in Stockton. In 1909 James Farndale became a brother of the Order of Druids Friendly Society and later joined the committee. He joined the Royal Field Artillery in the First World War. Their son Tom Farndale became a general and fitter’s labourer and machine helper whose children included Wilf Farndale who was an aircraft engineer who later emigrated to New Zealand.

Scene 4 – Shipbuilding and heavy industry in Hartlepool

Robert George Farndale (1834 to 1900) grew up in Great Ayton, part of the Great Ayton 3 Line, and worked as a farm labourer. In 1862, he married Mary Butterworth in West Hartlepool, by which time he was working as a shoemaker. They had seven children, the Hartlepool Line. He was still working as a shoemaker in 1892, when he was involved in the proposal of Christopher Furness, a steamship owner and shipbuilder, as the liberal candidate for West Hartlepool. He became a master boot and shoe maker. He had a low point in 1898 when an old man named Robert Farndale was summoned at the West Hartlepool Police Court this morning for non payment of improvement and highway rates amounting to £1 16s 10d. It was stated that great efforts had been made to recover the money, but in vain. A distress warrant was issued, but it had been returned endorsed “no goods.” Farndale was ordered to be sent to gaol for 14 days in default of payment. He died of pneumonia at 18 Benson Street, West Hartlepool, on 14 January 1900.

When Isambard Kingdom Brunel visited Hartlepool in December 1831, he described it as a curiously isolated old fishing town – a remarkably fine race of men. Went to the top of the church tower for a view. In 1831 the population of Hartlepool was still only 1,300. In 1833, the council agreed to the formation of the Hartlepool Dock and Railway Company (“HD&RCo”) to extend the existing port by developing new docks, and link to both local collieries and the developing railway network in the south. In 1835, a railway link was established from the South Durham coal fields, and new docks opened in 1835. From 1836 there was a gas supply for gaslight. This expansion led to the new town of West Hartlepool. West Hartlepool grew out of a dispute between the owners of the railway and the owners of the docks. The owners of the railway decided to build their own docks south west of the town. The eight acres West Hartlepool Harbour and Dock opened on 1 June 1847. Almost immediately the new town of West Hartlepool sprang up nearby. In 1878 the William Gray & Co shipyard in West Hartlepool launched the largest tonnage of any shipyard in the world. By 1881, old Hartlepool's population had grown to 12,361, but West Hartlepool had a population of 28,000. Ward Jackson helped to plan the layout of West Hartlepool and was responsible for the first public buildings. He was also involved in education and welfare. In the end, he was a victim of his own ambition to promote the town, with accusations of corruption and legal battles, left him in near-poverty. He spent the last few years of his life in London, far away from the town he had created. In 1891 the two towns had a combined population of 64,000. By 1900 the two Hartlepools were, together, one of the three busiest ports in England.

By 1913, there were forty three ship-owning companies located in the town, with responsibility for 236 ships. This made it a key target for Germany in the First World War. One of the first German offensives against Britain was the raid on the east Yorkshire coast on the morning of 16 December 1914, when the Imperial German Navy bombarded Hartlepool, West Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough. Hartlepool was hit by 1,150 shells, killing 117 people.

Robert and Elizabeth’s oldest son, John George Farndale was working as a labourer in Hartlepool, at the age of 17, by 1881 and by the turn of the century he was working as a cement trimmer in West Hartlepool. He became treasurer of the Hartlepool Branch of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, known as the Buffs to members, one of the largest fraternal movements which started in 1822 and which spread throughout the former British Empire. Henry Farndale was working as a sailor in Hartlepool by the age of 22, in 1891. In 1892, he married Elizabeth Armin, and they had eleven children. By 1901 he was working as a barman in Middlesbrough, but had returned to West Hartlepool by 1911, then working as a shipwright’s labourer. He played football for local teams. He was reported as a deserter from the Royal Navy in 1916, but rejoined his ship, the Pembroke, and was ordered not to be apprehended. He served as a stoker with the Royal Navy Reserve. By 1921, he was an Able Seaman with the Mercantile Marine, working for the Eagle Oil Transport Company. Founded as the Eagle Oil Transport Company in 1912, the Company was sold to Royal Dutch Shell in 1919. It was renamed Eagle Oil and Shipping Company in about 1930, and remained a separate company within the Royal Dutch Shell group until it was absorbed in 1959. William Farndale was a hotel barman in Stockton and by 1911 he was working on a poultry farm in Darlington. By 1921, he worked there as a fitter’s labourer with J Finsley Limited who were hauling engineers at Westfield Engine Works. Robert Farndale, a football back, was a hotel manager in West Hartlepool by 1906, and later like his two brothers, he also worked as a barman. Robert was wounded in the First World War, and worked as a labourer in the shipyards in Hartlepool after the War, including with Irain Shipbuilding, but in 1921 he was out of work.

Of the third generation of this family, Ethel Farndale was a fish dealer’s assistant in Hartlepool by 1911. Hilda Farndale and Olive Farndale married two brothers, Fred Wager and Hezekiah Wager in 1920 and 1922. Henry Farndale was a general labourer with E A Fortlind Timber Merchants of West Hartlepool before he moved to Bradford by the Second World War where he worked as a public works contractor. John Armin Farndale was a labourer working in Hartlepool in December 1915 when at about two o’clock, he was in his own room on the top landing, when he heard a child screaming. He ran downstairs, and at the first landing he saw the little girl in flames. He started to tear the clothes from the child, and whilst doing so a Mrs Hogg ran to his assistance. Someone wrapped a blanket around the child, and carried her into a room. The room in which the child was burnt was that of Mrs Mann, and not a room in her own house. Mrs Mann, the wife of a soldier, said the mother of the child shouted to her “Maudie, my bairn, has been burned.” After the War, John was working as a Coggie Tram Driver at plate rolling mills, at the South Durham Steel and Iron Company in Hartlepool, but he was out of work in 1921. In 1854 John Pile, a shipbuilder, founding the West Hartlepool Rolling Mills Company which based its business on an iron works which supplied materials to build iron ships. He travelled to New York on the Queen Elizabeth in 1957 and later settled in Bradford. Doris Farndale also moved to Bradford and by the outbreak of World War Two, she was working as a fly frame spinner. James Armin Farndale also moved to Bradford and worked as a labourer there. William Farndale became an engineer in Bradford.

William Robert Farndale was an oiler with the North Eastern Railway Company, by 1921, working at Bank Top Railway Station in Darlington. His sister Lily was a hairdresser there at the outbreak of the Second World War when brother Sidney was working as a labourer and Reginald was working as a moulder’s labourer.

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There is an In Our Time podcast on the Industrial Revolution, on the far-reaching consequences of the Industrial Revolution, which brought widespread social and intellectual change to Britain and on Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and railways still in use today.