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ABSTRACT
The architects Stott & Sons of Manchester are chiefly known for their work in designing cotton mills, but in 1896–9 they were responsible for the works and adjoining housing estate of the Linotype Company at Broadheath near Altrincham, Cheshire. This early example of an electrically powered factory, located on an early example of an industrial park, was built for the manufacture of the Linotype hot-metal typesetting machines that had been developed in America. It used mainly American machinery and can be seen as illustrating the loss of British technological supremacy. The main part of the works was of a single storey, built on the weaving shed principle, and fronted by an elaborate office building. Electrical power was generated on site in a large power house containing reciprocating steam engines driving DC generators. The works has now been largely demolished, although the office building has been converted for residential use and a few other features have been retained in the modern redevelopment.
Acknowledgements
It was Bernard Champness of the Manchester Region Industrial Archaeology Society who originally drew the author’s attention to Stott & Sons involvement with the Linotype Company, having found the drawing of Woodfield Road and accompanying letter in the Earl of Stamford archives while researching the Budenberg Gauge Company. Mark Fletcher of Matrix Archaeology provided a copy of their report and photographic material. Jenny Wetton of Jenny Wetton Conservation provided photographs showing the filler-joist flooring and north-light roofs in the office. John Glithero provided information on the Benjamin Goodfellow engines and drew the author’s attention to the article in The Engineer. Finally, acknowledgements are due to the staff, in particular to Emma Burgham, of the Archives Centre, Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, and of the Trafford Local Studies Centre.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Roger N. Holden, Stott & Sons: Architects of the Lancashire Cotton Mill (Lancaster: Carnegie, 1998).
2 Roger N. Holden, ‘The Work of Stott & Sons for the Linotype Company at Altrincham: 2 The Housing Estate’, Industrial Archaeology Review, in preparation.
3 Michael Nevell, The Archaeology of Trafford (Stretford: Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council, 1997), 126–30; Curtis Sparkes, ‘The Industrial Development of Broadheath’ in Altrincham: A History, ed. Don Bayliss (Altrincham: Willow Publishing, 1992), 120–5.
4 Matrix Archaeology, ‘Linotype Works, Broadheath, Altrincham, Trafford: Historic Building Recording’ (unpublished report, Matrix Archaeology, 2017).
5 Science and Industry Museum (SIM), Manchester, Linotype and Machinery Archive, YA1997.20, YA2014.3001. These sources did not become publically available until after the original research on Stott & Sons had been carried out.
6 SIM YA2014.3001/856, Details of engine house interior, Stott & Sons drawing no. 14576, 29 March 1897; YA2014.3001/825, Alterations to boiler house, Stott & Sons drawing no. 31381, 23 April 1919.
7 SIM YA2014.3001/850, Proposed dining rooms and club house, Stott & Sons drawing no. 14546, no date; YA2014.3001/855, Proposed additions and alterations to eastern front, Stott & Sons drawing, no number or date. For the dining rooms and club house see Holden, ‘Linotype: 2: The Housing Estate’.
8 ‘The Linotype Company’s Works, Broadheath, near Manchester’, The Engineer: Electrical Engineering Supplement, 25 November 1898, viii–xiv; Linotype Company, The Linotype Company’s Works, Broadheath, near Manchester: Souvenir of the Inauguration on Friday, the 14th July, 1899 (1899); Linotype and Machinery Limited, Works and Industry of Linotype and Machinery Limited (n.d., c. 1906). Copies of these last two items are available at Trafford Archives (TRA377 and TRA1364).
9 Basil Kahan, ‘A Brief Account of the Development of the Linotype and its Early Use in the United Kingdom’, Journal of the Printing Historical Society 26 (1997): 70–93.
10 An ‘en’ is a typographic unit, traditionally the width of an upper-case letter N but in modern usage equivalent to half the height of the font.
11 J.O. Stubbs, ‘Lawrence, Sir Joseph’, in Dictionary of Business Biography, ed. David J. Jeremy and Christine Shaw, vol. 3 (London: Butterworths, 1985), 674–9.
12 Bosdin Leech, History of the Manchester Ship Canal, vol. 1 (Manchester: Sherratt & Hughes, 1907), 91.
13 Kahan, ‘Development of the Linotype’, 75.
14 Linotype Company, Souvenir of the Inauguration, 6.
15 The National Archives (TNA), BT31/4508/29456, The Linotype Company Limited, registered 29 July 1889. Stubbs, ‘Lawrence’, 675.
16 ‘The Linotype Company: Annual Report’, Manchester Guardian, 20 March 1896, 7f.
17 Linotype Company, Souvenir of the Inauguration, 5.
18 Linotype Company, Souvenir of the Inauguration, 12.
19 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1 1, Linotype Co. Ltd, Directors’ Minute Book, 8 December 1896–18 May 1903, 76; Sylvia Clark, ‘Chorlton Mills and Their Neighbours’, Industrial Archaeology Review 2, no. 3 (1978): 207–39.
20 Isaac Slater, Slater’s General and Classified Directory and Street Register of Manchester and Salford and Their Vicinities (Manchester: Slater, 1895). Symonds is also listed at the same address as secretary of the National Reform Union.
21 Navigation Road station on the MSJ&A Railway was not opened until 20 July 1931 following electrification of the railway, and did not provide goods facilities. Frank Dixon, The Manchester South Junction & Altrincham Railway, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oakwood Press, 1994), 68.
22 TNA BT31/7146/50416, The Linotype Company Limited, registered 7 December 1896.
23 TNA BT31/5666/39550. The Machinery Trust Limited, registered 8 September 1893.
24 www.manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/architects/william-dawes (accessed 25 May 2021).
25 SIM, YA2014.3001/827, Plan of Estate showing buildings etc., William Dawes, Architect, January 1896; ‘The Linotype Company: Annual Report’, Manchester Guardian, 20 March 1896, 7f.
26 SIM, YA2014.3001/2, Contract for the Erection of Works & Offices at Broadheath, 10 November 1896.
27 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 11-2.
28 SIM, YA2014.3001/3, Agreement to exchange land between Earl of Stamford’s Trustees and Mr A.C. Sparkes and construction of new road and sewer at Broadheath.
29 A copy of a plan by Stott & Sons for this road, together with accompanying letter, exists in the Earl of Stamford Archive at the University of Manchester Library: GB133 EGR14/15/75. Grey (Stamford) of Dunham Massey Papers. Bundle ‘W Woodfield Road Dispute’. These papers relate to a dispute between A.C. Sparkes and the Linotype Company Limited over liability for the repair and upkeep of Woodfield Road in 1904–5. This dispute led to A.C. Sparkes blockading the company’s access along Woodfield Road for three months in 1905; this became known as the ‘Broadheath Blockade’.
30 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 49.
31 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 81.
32 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 97.
33 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 108.
34 Holden, ‘Linotype: 2: The Housing Estate’.
35 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 115–16 (interleaved).
36 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 126–7.
37 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 134.
38 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 162, 168, 251.
39 ‘Linotype Co’s Works’, The Engineer, x.
40 Percy Dunsheath, A History of Electrical Engineering (London: Faber & Faber, 1962); Brian Bowers, A History of Electric Light & Power (London: Peter Peregrinus, 1982).
41 Ian Charles Rayner Byatt, The British Electrical Industry 1875–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 67–94.
42 Bowers, Electric Light & Power, 139; John D. Poulter, An Early History of Electricity Supply: The Story of the Electric Light in Victorian Leeds (London: Peter Peregrinus, 1986), 190–205.
43 Roy Frost, Electricity in Manchester (Manchester: Neil Richardson, 1993), 18.
44 Electrical Review 34, no. 854 (6 April 1894): 403; 36/906 (5 April 1895), 705.
45 Electrical Review 35, no. 881 (12 October 1894): 437; Leslie Hannah, Electricity before Nationalisation: A Study of the Development of the Electricity Supply Industry in Britain to 1948 (London: Macmillan, 1979), 18.
46 Frost, Electricity in Manchester, map on rear cover (provenance not stated, note this does not cover Altrincham); Byatt, British Electrical Industry, 74.
47 ‘The Use of Electricity in Engineering Works’, The Engineer: Electrical Engineering Supplement, 25 November 1898, vii.
48 Electrical Review 35, no. 880 (5 October 1894): 409.
49 Electrical Review 35, no. 880 (5 October 1894): 406–7.
50 Holden, Stott & Sons, 98–9.
51 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 163.
52 ‘The Linotype Company at Broadheath — Inauguration Ceremony’, Altrincham and Bowdon Guardian, 19 July 1899; ‘Inauguration of the Linotype Company’s Works’, The Engineer, 21 July 1899, 59.
53 Linotype Company, Souvenir of the Inauguration.
54 As this building was constructed to imperial units and the original documents are in imperial units, this paper prioritises imperial units and quotes metric equivalents to one decimal place.
55 Holden, Stott & Sons, 116.
56 Roger N. Holden, Manufacturing the Cloth of the World: Weaving Mills in Lancashire (Stockport: Roger N. Holden, 2017), 99.
57 Roger N. Holden, Palmer Mills: The History of a Stockport Cotton Spinning Mill (Stockport: Roger N. Holden, 2017), 48.
58 Matrix Archaeology, ‘Linotype Works’, pl. 117.
59 Matrix Archaeology, ‘Linotype Works’, pl. 115.
60 Matrix Archaeology, ‘Linotype Works’, 20, pls 122, 125.
61 Roger N. Holden, ‘Concrete Filler-Joist Floors and the Development of Lancashire Cotton Spinning Mills’, Industrial Archaeology Review 34, no. 2 (2012): 115–36.
62 Atkinson Peck Consulting Engineers, ‘Retained Façades to the Large Travel Bay of the former L&M Works’ (26 October 2018), unpublished report, as part of Trafford MBC Planning Application 96227/LBC/18 available at https://pa.trafford.gov.uk/online-applications/.
63 Clare Hartwell, Matthew Hyde, Edward Hubbard and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Cheshire (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011), 102.
64 Holden, Stott & Sons, 127.
65 Matrix Archaeology, ‘Linotype Works’, 11. Lever House is dated 1895 (Hartwell et al., Buildings of England: Cheshire, 534); Holden, ‘Linotype: 2 The Housing Estate’.
66 Note that this has variously been called the engine house, the engine and generator house or the power house. As it contained both engines and generators, power house seems the best description and has been adopted here. Some recent studies have wrongfully called it the boiler house, for example: KM Heritage, Former L&M Site, Norman Road, Altrincham, WA14 4ES: Heritage Appraisal (unpublished report, KM Heritage, July 2014), 9.
67 John Glithero, ‘Benjamin Goodfellow Ltd, Hyde’, The Flywheel – Journal of the Northern Mill Engine Society (October 2018): 24. The first two engines were ordered 1896, the third in 1898, see: SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 134.
68 ‘Linotype Company’s Works’, The Engineer, xi, actually says groups of 5hp or 10hp, but it is clear from the subsequent description of the motors that there were also groups of 20hp.
69 ‘Linotype Company's Works’, The Engineer, xiv.
70 ‘A 200-hour Arc Lamp’, Electrical Review 37, no. 935 (25 October 1895): 517; ‘The Jandus Arc Lamp’, The Engineer 81 (24 January 1896): 93.
71 Roger N. Holden, ‘Water Supplies for Steam-powered Textile Mills’, Industrial Archaeology Review 21, no. 1 (1999): 41–51. Although the Linotype works was not a cotton mill, the same principles apply.
72 SIM, YA1997.20/5/1/1/1/1/2, Linotype and Machinery Ltd, Directors’ Minute Book, 1910–16, 254.
73 ‘Inauguration of the Linotype Company’s Works’, The Engineer, 21 July 1899, 59; ‘Manchester’s Industrial Developments’, The Engineer, 9 August 1901, 156.
74 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 310.
75 ‘Manchester’s Industrial Developments’, The Engineer, 9 August 1901, 156.
76 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 318. This minute of 5/9/1901 notes that the extension to the works is to be deferred until it was clear how much space was needed but this is the last time it is referred to.
77 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 247.
78 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 310.
79 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 418; SIM, YA1997.20/5/1/1/1/1/3, Linotype and Machinery Ltd, Directors’ Minute Book, 1916–23, 242. The second reference makes clear that this was a Browett, Lindley engine.
80 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 418.
81 SIM, YA1997.20/5/1/1/1/1/2, 158; Matrix Archaeology, ‘Linotype Works’, 8.
82 SIM, YA2014.3001/855, Linotype & Machinery Co. [sic] Ltd, Proposed Additions and Alterations to Eastern Front. Stott & Sons, no drawing number, no date.
83 SIM, YA1997.20/5/1/1/1/1/3, Linotype and Machinery Ltd, Directors’ Minute Book, 1916–23, 135–6.
84 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 141–2.
85 Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council, Linotype Estate Conservation Area — Supplementary Planning Document SPD5.7: Conservation Area Appraisal (March 2016), 20.
86 Kahan, ‘Development of the Linotype’, 90.
87 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saguache_Crescent. The Saguache Crescent issue of 18 February 2021 marked 100 years of being produced on the Linotype (http://sag.stparchive.com/Archive/SAG/SAG02182021P01.php). For Le Démocrate de l’Aisne see https://democrate-aisne.fr/. A number of videos of Linotypes will be found on youtube.com. All websites accessed 25 May 2021.
88 Information from Chiara Fiaccavento, Documentation and Enquiries Officer, Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, 10 June 2021.
89 www.lmimaging.co.uk (accessed 25 May 2021).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Roger N. Holden
Roger Holden is an independent researcher, a member of the Association for Industrial Archaeology and the Newcomen Society, with an interest in the Lancashire cotton industry on which he has published a number of books and papers in relevant journals. His first book was about Stott & Sons, the Oldham mill architects, which originated as an MPhil thesis, and his most recent was Manufacturing the Cloth of the World: Weaving Mills in Lancashire, published in 2017.