Some of the cottages built by Sir Titus Salt for his employees in Saltaire Mills near Shipley in Yorkshire.
Part 1 of 2
ON a trip to Liverpool, shortly after taking over his father’s wool business in 1833, Titus Salt stumbled across some bales of alpaca-wool,* then little-known in England. His father forbade him to buy them, but he did, and by 1850 his business had outgrown its Bradford premises.
In 1853, to escape the city’s notorious pollution and overcrowding, Titus moved his entire operation to a pleasant site by the River Aire. He celebrated the opening, on his fiftieth birthday, with a party for 3,500 employees in the combing shed. “I hope” he told them “to see satisfaction, contentment, and happiness around me.”
Titus spent the next twenty years and £140,000* on building them a town to be happy in. There was a hospital, a library, and a concert hall, and running water; there were laundries and public baths, care-homes for pensioners, and schools with grassy playgrounds.
See Alpacas at Seat Farm near Watermillock in Cumbria.
At least £12 million today. See Measuring Worth.
Précis
Titus Salt’s gamble on using alpaca-wool to make cloth was so successful that he outgrew his premises in Bradford. In 1853, he moved his whole operation away from the smog and slums of the city, and built a model village for his thousands of employees, designed to supply every need of body and mind. (53 / 60 words)
Part Two
The Saltaire Mill opened by Sir Titus Salt in 1853, to get out of the pollution and overcrowding of Bradford.
TITUS Salt’s sense of social responsibility did not stop with the comfortable town he built for his employees.
He had long been a champion of the Rodda Smoke Burner, a device to reduce pollution, and as Mayor of Bradford had tried and failed to have it fitted compulsorily in all the city’s factories.
He installed it in his new mill, however, together with a ventilation system to keep the workplace itself clean and fresh. He even buried his machinery underground to reduce noise.
He restricted his workers to a ten-hour day, paid them well, and kept paying them even when business was slack, which was rare. Even Queen Victoria placed an order with Sir Titus.
Saltaire was a monument to private enterprise, liberality, and wisdom, and when Titus died in 1876, more than 100,000 people came to say their farewells. Afterwards, his family estimated that he had given half a million pounds to charity in his lifetime.*
*Something like £42 million today. See Measuring Worth.
Précis
Titus Salt is famous for the model village of Saltaire he built for those whom he employed in his textile mills, but he also took care that their working hours should be as clean, quiet, and well paid as possible. As a result, when he died tens of thousands of people turned out to pay their respects at his funeral. (60 / 60 words)
