Hunslet Foundry and the Making of Industrial Leeds

Abstract

Hunslet Foundry was a pioneering venture just as Leeds began its transition into a centre of engineering and textile manufacture. The foundry was built at Hunslet Carr in 1770 to serve the Middleton colliery and railway, and other south Leeds collieries. The story of its early progress reflects more than innovation in iron-making, also illuminating the growing human connections between south Yorkshire’s metalworking districts and new industrial ventures emerging in Leeds.

Keywords:

• Iron-making
• Leeds
• mechanical engineering
• family firms
• industrial networks
• South Yorkshire

The modest scale of Hunslet Foundry, and its cupola furnace technology, marked it out as a new kind of enterprise for Leeds. The foundry’s products quickly proved a boon for the growing town. Its early experiences are also notable for what they reveal about the human side of business, the fragility of family firms and the strength of wider trade networks. These industrial links, and family and personal connections, proved to be of great value, at Hunslet Foundry and more generally. Social networks built confidence to take steps in innovative directions, and the foundry is a case study in how they might come to the rescue when a business encountered unforeseen setbacks.

Hunslet Foundry’s main promoters came from south Yorkshire, part of an early wave of specialist iron-workers migrating from rural areas north of Sheffield, attracted by the possibilities already evident in Leeds. Countless others took similar routes in the following decades, arriving from across northern England, and beyond, the influx intensifying after 1800. The flow of skilled artisans moving into textile machine-making or steam-engineering often connected with groups of family members and former neighbours.

This account of Hunslet Foundry’s earliest years has a particularly poignant human story. Personal tragedy almost caused the enterprise to fail, when it had barely started. But if not happy endings, there was at least a pragmatic re-adjustment to secure its immediate future.

Iron-working in Leeds

Iron-working in and around Leeds has a long history. George Newton has described how one early iron-works, Farnley Smithies, which was water-powered and charcoal-fuelled, developed from the fifteenth century. ¹ Better known is Kirkstall Forge, first associated with the abbey, though almost certainly the monastic-period iron-works was situated elsewhere, perhaps not in Leeds at all. ² At some time post-Reformation, after 1650, Kirkstall Forge and a furnace at Seacroft were absorbed into business combines headed up by the Spencer family of Cannon Hall, west of Barnsley. Iron-works, most situated in south Yorkshire and including blast furnaces as well as forges, were brought together under mutating partnerships, partly with the aim of spreading financial risk. From 1702, Kirkstall, four miles north-west of Leeds, was bundled with forges at Colne Bridge (north-east of Huddersfield, with older links to Fountains Abbey), and, most significantly, that at Wortley (south of Penistone) into a new Spencer combine. ³ The connection with Wortley Forge built relationships which were to prove influential in making the Yorkshire textile districts a machine-making centre from the 1790s. ⁴

Hunslet Foundry was commissioned when Leeds was experiencing a surge in demand for iron products, and before cast-iron was routinely used in machinery. The Hunslet initiative was ahead of Kirkstall Forge’s renaissance under Beecroft and Butler from 1779. ⁵ The Hunslet location chosen in 1770 indicates its purpose, to serve local collieries and connect into Middleton colliery’s waggonway. The long-established Middleton coalfield came, through marriage, to the Brandling family of Felling, Co. Durham, in the late-seventeenth century. It was inherited in 1749 by Charles Brandling, a minor, whose agent proposed a horse-drawn railway, a ‘Newcastle road’. The name points to the north-east’s technical superiority in moving coal from pit-head to river at this time. Indeed it was engineered largely by specialists from the Tyne coalfield, the Brandlings’ base. The Middleton line crossed Hunslet moor on its way to a staith near Leeds bridge. From there, coal could be exported downstream via the Aire navigation, or, from the later 1770s, carried west as far as Skipton as the Leeds-Liverpool canal gradually opened to traffic. The Middleton railway is famed as the first to be authorised by private Act of Parliament, enabling its promoters to gain wayleaves over land in other ownerships. It passed in 1758. ⁶

The foundry site was by the waggonway, allowing sufficient space for its own siding, at a little-developed point on Moorside at Hunslet Carr. The foundry was built on an unnamed stream which fell from higher ground on the west, joining Balm Beck below the new ironworks. The Hunslet township map of 1791 (Figure 1) marks only field boundaries, but the water course is shown clearly on the 1846 tithe map (Figure 2). ⁷ It is evident on the 1791 map that the foundry straddled the stream, the long sides of two buildings facing each other across the beck/field boundary. The assumption would be that the descending stream drove one or more waterwheels.

Figure 1. In the centre of the image, foundry buildings stand on either side of a stream descending from the west (left, shown here as a field boundary), suggesting one or more waterwheels in use. Nearby are other foundry workshops and houses. (WYAS Leeds, WYL333/316, Farrer & Co. of Oulton, plan of the township of Hunslet, 1791, copy made in 1817, detail. Reproduced with permission of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds.)

Figure 2. The tithe map of 1846 confirms the stream’s course, and shows considerable change on the site since 1791. Also marked are the railway’s changing paths northwards to the town centre, and its route south on the steep incline towards Middleton. (WYAS Leeds, PL/HU/1, Hunslet tithe award (1846), detail. Reproduced with permission of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds.)

Figure 3. Bird’s eye view of Denison’s foundry c. 1919, with Moor Road in the foreground. (‘The House that Weighs’, centenary booklet of Denison & Son (1919). Published with permission of David B. Hunter.)

Nor does the waggonway appear on that plan, though it was certainly there. Its earlier routes are apparent on the tithe map. The line enabled a two-way traffic with Middleton colliery. Foundry coal purchases were substantial − 300 tons a year by 1793 – but in value were far surpassed by sales of waggon-wheels and other iron goods to the colliery. ⁸ Iron products could also be conveniently sent to central Leeds for local sale, or for sending out by water.

The foundry launched in 1770 as the Cupola Company, so the furnace type is not in doubt. ⁹ A photograph taken in c. 1919 shows an external view of ‘the old cupola end’. ¹⁰ During the eighteenth century, iron-smelting quite literally emerged from the woods as it left charcoal behind. Using coke in the process gave ironmasters extra flexibility in their choice of blast-furnace sites, and even more so when steam-power, often supplemented by water-wheel, became an option. So ironworks moved closer to sources of coal and iron, and also to their main markets, whether those were for cast-iron goods or bar-iron. ¹¹

The cupola furnace came to the fore in iron-making after 1750. It liberated small foundries from being close to a blast furnace. Without the cupola, direct connection between the two had been essential: liquid iron ran, or was ladled, from a furnace into moulds on a sand floor, the method Abraham Darby of Coalbrookdale had introduced in the 1710s. From this, iron emerged either as pig-iron, to be further refined; or in the form of finished items.

Since Darby’s time, there had been a great expansion in the range of foundry goods. Huge castings such as cannon, engine cylinders, bridges, beams and other structural parts were in high demand, but so too were goods of smaller size. With the cupola, a small blast furnace which was used to re-melt rather than smelt, foundries were able to develop specialisms on a convenient site close to customers. They could occupy smaller premises, away from the five- or six-acre site – and consequential huge investment – that a full-scale ironworks demanded. The cupola furnace had another advantage for machine-making. Castings from the older reverberatory (air) furnaces were hard but brittle. In contrast, the cupola’s output was fluid, less likely to fracture, and according to Ashton, ‘peculiarly suited to the production of machine parts’. ¹² So this was a very convenient facility for local manufacturing, and particularly for small-scale engineering.

A stand-alone foundry making cast-iron products on a small site also opened the door to smaller-scale investors. Iron-making – or at least, one significant part of it – had become more accessible. The cupola technology could be put to work anywhere within reach of coal supplies. Thus it was available to localities outside the leading centres of iron-production. It offered the potential to manufacture machine and engine parts in northern towns, close to where the machines themselves were assembled.

And so it happened, enabling the first flowering of a new kind of engineering, which grew and concentrated where machine-making needed to be. In practice, during the peak period of textile mechanisation before 1850, that meant close to textile-manufacturers. With textiles, machine-making and iron processes clustering at close quarters, Leeds, already long-established as a centre of woollen-cloth marketing, became a leader in woollen- and flax-manufacture, and in mechanical engineering. Hunslet Foundry’s role in this, in at the beginning, was significant.

Planning the foundry: Timothy Gothard

The origins of Hunslet Foundry have always been unclear. ¹³ It was a new, freestanding, venture. Though closely associated with Middleton Colliery, no formal relationship existed between the businesses. Somehow, though, the potential was identified, and the opportunity seized. How did this happen?

Cupola furnaces may have been far cheaper than a full-scale ironworks, but still the investment was sizeable. And money was not enough. The other essential ingredient was technical direction, the skills and knowledge to build and manage the furnace. Timothy Gothard (1723–1805) fulfilled this latter role. Gothard had previously been (largely or entirely) based in south Yorkshire. There he gained familiarity with the most modern ironworks, as well as a network of professional connections. He was cut out for this job.

In later life Gothard committed himself to Methodism, and was respected as ‘remarkably steady, both in his principles and in his conduct’, generous, a man of peace. These personal details appear in an obituary which noted that he was born at Silkstone, near Barnsley, in 1723, and ‘deprived of his father when he was about eleven or twelve years of age’. ¹⁴ Two Francis Gothards had been parish clerk of Silkstone, his father (1692–1734) and grandfather (d. 1712). ¹⁵ Socially, Timothy Gothard’s family was positioned somewhere above the general run of tradesmen, although judging by what later emerged at Hunslet, money was not plentiful.

But Gothard’s asset, his technical expertise, was considerable and would prove of great value in this project. By some means, possibly sponsored by a relative, Gothard trained as a millwright, a profession matching the family status, and for which a premium would have been paid. The course of his career shows in parish records, and places him at the sites of important ironworks. It is likely that he served his apprenticeship at Wortley Forge, five miles south of his birthplace. There he lived as a young man, marrying at Tankersley in 1745. His first four children were baptised at Wortley, the chapel-of-ease in that parish, 1746 to 1752. After this Gothard was in Sheffield, in 1755 at least. Three further children were born, during 1756–60, though their baptisms have not been traced. The family may still have been in Sheffield. Then the youngest were baptised at Rotherham All Saints in 1764 and 1766. His arrival in Leeds in 1770 was direct from Rotherham, so he had been there for at least six years, and perhaps rather longer. ¹⁶

This skeletal outline of a life indicates Gothard’s progression as an engineer. All those locations are significant. Traditionally, millwrights travelled widely within a region, to where the mills were located. In Gothard’s time, a most innovative one for iron and steel, millwrights in the south Yorkshire metal-working districts were commonly based in a forge or foundry, though not always directly employed. Some or all of their work might be out on site, building, installing and repairing heavy equipment. The Kirkstall Forge records show workers there employed under a variety of arrangements, either directly, by the day or receiving piece rates, or as subcontractors working on and from the premises. ¹⁷ It was fluid and interactive. It was also a continuing education. Wortley Forge in particular was a hub of knowledge – a source of information about technology, techniques, work opportunities – and of connection, between sites in the same combine. In Gothard’s time, there were highly significant links, as described above, between the forges at Wortley and at Kirkstall. ¹⁸

The evidence of Gothard’s employment pre-Hunslet is circumstantial yet compelling. The places he had lived were home to south Yorkshire’s most important ironworks of that era. His career can be read as follows: Gothard was at Wortley Forge between 1745 and 1752, and possibly rather longer. By the mid-1750s he was in Sheffield, but exactly how employed is not known. Titus Salt, later his partner in Hunslet, then lived in the town, so this may have been when these two first met, perhaps as co-workers. After that comes a gap in information before Gothard’s reappearance in Rotherham records in the mid-1760s.

His Rotherham period coincided with a vast expansion of the Walker brothers’ iron- and steel-works in Masbrough on the River Don. Walkers’ works, said the historian of Rotherham, dwarfed all others, coming to ‘excite our astonishment and admiration’. ¹⁹ Samuel Walker and his brothers, from a modest nail-making background, built their first foundry in Grenoside in 1744, quickly expanding into Masbrough in 1746. From 1762 they also developed a forge downriver at Thrybergh. Their sites constantly expanded and re-built, always on re-invested profits. Gothard, with a wealth of experience in this industry, was then perfectly placed to manage the construction and repair of refineries, furnaces, rolling mills, warehouses, engines, and other structures on the Walker sites. ²⁰ There can be little doubt that he worked for them.

How, then, did Gothard come to choose Hunslet as a location for his own foundry? The trail leads back to Rotherham and Wortley, and back again to Leeds. By then a millwright of some stature, Gothard would hardly have committed to Leeds unless the prospects were enticing, and substantial. The industrial links between Leeds and south Yorkshire were also channels of information. Although the older Spencer combine was giving way to new owners, bonds between Wortley and Kirkstall forges endured, and news of developments and employment opportunities continued to pass. That is clear. But Walker too had connections into Leeds, and specifically to the Middleton Colliery. Throughout the 1760s, the colliery and its waggonway obtained supplies from both Walker of Rotherham and the Kirkstall Forge. ²¹ It is conceivable that Gothard visited Leeds while working for Walker, or knew it from his earlier career at Wortley. He may even have encountered the Middleton agent, Richard Humble, in Rotherham.

The way in which Hunslet Foundry was established suggests careful planning by people who understood both the local market for castings and the technological possibilities. It is conceivable – likely, even – that Gothard knew all this while representing Walker, was encouraged by the Middleton colliery company, and re-created technology and methods he knew from Masbrough. This may or may not have had the Walkers’ blessing.

Whatever the precise circumstances, Gothard recognised an opening in Leeds for a local producer of cast iron goods. ²² The response of nearby collieries, and in particular the technologically progressive Middleton Colliery, was key. It is even possible that Brandling’s agent, or another local party, made the suggestion to Gothard that a foundry there could do well. ²³ Perhaps land was offered to him on good terms.

For the previous decade, Walker had been a significant supplier to the Middleton Colliery. But at this time the Walkers were shifting direction, preoccupied with lucrative government contracts for cannon. Seeing this, Leeds collieries may have sought a local facility, even encouraged the Hunslet initiative, in order to secure their own supply of iron components. Middleton Colliery records show that the regular purchases from Walkers fell away after 1770, and had more or less ended by 1782. ²⁴ So Gothard’s up-to-the-minute technical skills would be a boost to the neighbourhood, and the foundry made a good customer for Middleton coal. From Gothard’s perspective, he could supply the booming local market without incurring high transport costs, thanks to the waggonway and its links into regional and national waterway networks.

Finding a partner: Robert Howitt

Timothy Gothard did not proceed alone, for he could muster little or no capital. A financier was needed. Ironmaking, even on this relatively modest scale, was an substantial undertaking. ²⁵

Hunslet Foundry’s management model was typical of late-eighteenth century industries built on new technologies. The key to success in engineering at this time, the pattern for an enduring company, was generally some combination of finance and business acumen with specialist practical knowhow. The full range of attributes was rarely found in one individual. An investor, or a moneyed working partner, might join forces with a technically skilled promoter. In this mould, James Fenton joined Matthew Murray and David Wood as an active managing partner in 1799, when they needed substantial investment to extend their Holbeck premises into steam-engine making. ²⁶ Another possibility was that a group of factory promoters who had funds but lacked technical expertise offered partnership to someone with appropriate skills but no capital, in the hope of retaining them longer term. An example is Kirk Mill in Chipping, Lancashire, whose merchant owners brought in William Carr, with experience in the Arkwright system, as a partner in 1785, with no expectation that he would invest. ²⁷

Gothard would need to convince any potential backer that there were profitable opportunities in a small but technologically progressive foundry on the southern fringes of Leeds. But he knew his industry, the cupola system was not untried, the local market was growing, and competition quite limited. Gothard had an edge, and a persuasive case. In addition to this, any investment would be secured, at least in part, against the property itself. The West Riding of Yorkshire had the country’s first registry of deeds, established in 1704, which from the mid-century grew in importance as a mechanism to raise industrial finance through mortgage. ²⁸

The records of John Howarth, a Bradford attorney-at-law, reveal that more than 80 per cent of advances the lawyer arranged for local clothiers in this period was in the form of loans secured on mortgage. Like many attorneys, Howarth was a money lender and facilitator, introducing clients to businesses in need of investment. ²⁹

In the case of the Cupola Co., Timothy Gothard may similarly have been introduced to his partner Robert Howitt through an attorney. There is some hint of earlier acquaintance, but the circumstances leading Howitt to Hunslet remain a matter of conjecture. Socially they were equivalents, though Gothard was older, approaching 50 when Hunslet Foundry was built. Howitt, described as yeoman, a mark of family standing, was sufficiently educated to manage the foundry, and had considerable assets in property. There is no indication that he, coming from a farming background near Pontefract, had a close connection with iron-making. In the places Howitt knew best, though – South Kirkby lies between Barnsley and Doncaster, and north of Rotherham – metalworking was widespread, and contact with it inescapable. He must have known many iron-workers, and among them some of his own relatives: Thomas Howitt of Ackworth, probably his cousin and an exact contemporary, was, for instance, a blacksmith. ³⁰

It is likely that Gothard and Howitt had family or other connection in common. Silkstone, Wortley, South Kirkby, Rotherham, all are within about 15 miles’ distance, and the partners moved in similar industrial and social circles. However it did come about, they met and agreed to work together. Howitt, a young man who borrowed against his own property to finance the venture and actively managed the commercial side of the business, complemented Gothard well.

The Howitt family were farmers and property-owners in Low Ackworth, south of Pontefract. Robert Howitt (born 1741/2) was orphaned at eight. His mother died of consumption aged 30, quickly followed by the father, another Robert (1716–50). His assets passed to Howitt and his one surviving brother Johnny, who were left to the care of their grandfather, John Pinder. ³¹ So Robert grew up in his mother’s home parish, South Kirkby, where he married Sarah Bailey in 1765. Their daughters were baptised there in 1766 and 1768, and Howitt was described as yeoman ‘of South Kirkby’ as late as June 1770. ³²

Soon afterwards, Howitt moved to Hunslet, and with Gothard jointly launched Hunslet Foundry in 1770. The Cupola Co. started to buy coal from Middleton Colliery in that year, the start of the two businesses’ long commercial relationship. ³³ At this point Gothard did not own a stake in the company. Howitt had financed the enterprise by mortgaging a farm in Ackworth, part of his inheritance. ³⁴ He attended to commercial dealings, while Gothard managed the works.

As first intended, Hunslet Foundry focussed on the growing market for colliery and waggonway castings at Middleton, and also served collieries at Beeston and Rothwell. Its products included – though this was only a part – waggon- and tram-wheels, plates for the Middleton waggonway, and replacement parts for Rothwell Colliery’s pumping engine. ³⁵ In the 1770s, Middleton Colliery’s orders for iron goods rose three-fold compared with the previous decade. Before 1770, none of these could have been locally manufactured. From 1770, the colliery spent heavily in the neighbourhood, while its reliance on Walker became less pronounced and fell away quickly after 1778. ³⁶ Gothard’s optimism about the foundry’s potential had been well-founded.

Howitt brought his family to Hunslet, where his first son, Robert, was born in January 1771. ³⁷ But then came calamity. Howitt fell mortally ill. His death in December 1771, around the time of his thirtieth birthday, was a disaster for his family. It could have spelled ruin for the infant business. But in the knowledge that he was dying, there was a brief opportunity to formulate a succession plan. The interests of his wife and children depended on this. Howitt and his brother Johnny settled between them the ownership of properties inherited from their father and their grandfather John Pinder. ³⁸ Howitt’s signature to this contract was witnessed by Timothy Gothard. Shortly after this the business situation was regularised. A partnership agreement divided the company into four parts, one of which was purchased by Gothard with the help of a loan from Howitt. The remainder would be managed by trustees for the benefit of Howitt’s family. ³⁹

This placed Gothard in a position to continue. As the business’s technical specialist, he was noted in the document as ‘founder’ and ‘in the business of casting iron and other metals at Hunslett’. But the settlement exposed his lack of financial resource. Howitt had invested £300 in the business, while Gothard needed to borrow £80 from him to establish his own quarter-ownership. The venture was, it appears, then valued at £400. Howitt, aspiring to maintain his family’s interest in the foundry, instructed his executors to sell one of the Ackworth farms and use the proceeds to discharge the mortgage on the other. Rents from that property, and profits expected from the foundry, would support his family. ⁴⁰ All this happened very quickly. The property and business settlements were sorted out late in November 1771. On 5 December Howitt signed a will; his funeral took place on 20 December. ⁴¹

Almost inevitably, widow and trustees found that continuing the partnership was not viable. There were heavy demands on engineering proprietors. They needed to be hands-on and understand something of the technicalities. The pressure of technological change, both in products and processes, was relentless. Howitt’s trustees, a farmer and an innkeeper, doubtless well-suited to managing property, could not have stepped up to supervise the business. It was not unknown for widows to run ventures that were less technical, despite the legal obstacles facing women. But Sarah Howitt was young, and probably without commercial experience. How could she and the trustees weigh the risks of further investment into the business, when a family’s security depended on it? The foundry seemed at this point to be thriving, but its future was far from assured, in an industry vulnerable to wider economic downturns. The Howitt withdrawal was settled in August 1772. This conclusion did not reflect upon Gothard’s abilities, nor his integrity, but was the sad reality of circumstances. ⁴²

Titus Salt

The situation in which Timothy Gothard then found himself must have been disquieting, as he was in no position to buy out his partner. But the replacement that he found brought not only financial investment, but the technical expertise Howitt had lacked.

Titus Salt is a famous name, though for the industrial exploits of the later baronet, the founder of Saltaire. About the grandfather Titus Salt (1724/5–1804) far less is known. His own origins are mysterious, and perhaps – for some unexplained reason – that was intentional. Much does not add up, particularly his age. There is a suggestion, though unconfirmed, that his family came from Staffordshire, where there is a village called Salt. ⁴³ Salt’s year of birth is estimated, from the inconsistent ages declared at his three weddings. He avoided stating his age while in Hunslet, nor was it announced when he died.

Salt’s original trade was whitesmith, and as a young man he worked in Sheffield in the 1750s, perhaps when he first met Gothard. There he married twice, much improving his financial situation in the process. First, in 1751, giving his age as 25, Salt married Rachel Wyatt, a widow aged 37. She died in 1762. ⁴⁴ When he re-married the following year, Salt was said to be 39 and his new wife, Sarah Taylor, widow of a shoemaker, 40. He signed the register, she made a mark. ⁴⁵

Any family assets possessed by Salt, or whether he gained financially from his first marriage, are not known. But through Sarah Taylor, who died in 1769, Salt came into considerable freehold property, comprising houses in Sheffield, in Cheney Square and Norfolk Street. Later, in 1786, Salt was able to buy out the interests of Sarah’s nephew Thomas Wood in this holding, afterwards bequeathing to his son Daniel those ‘freehold and leasehold estates’. ⁴⁶

Monumental change was underway in iron and steel production in Sheffield, and Salt appears to have grasped the opportunity to acquire a new speciality. In 1763, he had identified himself as whitesmith. By the time of the move to Hunslet, in 1772, he described his trade as cast-steel maker. ⁴⁷

Cast steel – an alternative name for crucible steel – was produced by melting wrought iron at high temperatures in crucibles (‘pots’) in coke-fired furnaces. The method was developed by Benjamin Huntsman, a clockmaker in Doncaster searching for a more consistent quality of tool-steel. The best then available, called German or shear steel, was manufactured by forging together bars of blister steel made from carbonised Swedish bar-iron. Huntsman embarked on lengthy trials in the 1730s and succeeded in producing a high-grade tool-steel, far more robust and uniform than shear-steel. In 1751 he set up in Sheffield as a steelmaker. His product, while expensive, was unmatched in its all-round quality. The technique, unpatented, was copied by others, and it is most likely that Titus Salt learned the process from one of Huntsman’s emulators. Possibly this was a company called Love & Manson, one of the earliest to practise the technique, founded in 1760 ‘for the running of casting of steel’. ⁴⁸

But Hunslet was primarily an iron foundry. Its first sales to the Middleton Colliery, 1770–75, consisted entirely of waggon-wheels. In 1780 it manufactured significant parts for a new colliery engine. The value of Middleton purchases more than doubled in the 1790s, as the original waggonway rails, of wood plated with cast iron, were replaced by edge-rails made entirely of iron. In 1811 John Blenkinsop, Brandling’s agent, developed a system of rack rails to support the steam locomotive built by Matthew Murray. These rails, weighing altogether about 500 tons, were cast at Hunslet Carr. ⁴⁹

Cupola furnaces in foundries melt pig iron (made in a blast furnace) along with foundry scrap and other iron and steel scrap, to produce iron alloys. Thus Blenkinsop’s rack rails of 1811 were in their turn recycled by Richard Kilburn in 1862. ⁵⁰ But Hunslet Foundry did not make steel. While Salt’s experience as a cast-steel maker probably influenced aspects of Hunslet’s operations, no detail survives. ⁵¹

Salt and Gothard’s venture was established by formal agreement in 1772, with Salt as senior partner by virtue of his large investment. The Cupola Co. name was abandoned. Howitt’s executors turned over the foundry and its contents to this new partnership in August 1772. ⁵² Two years after this, Salt married Robert Howitt’s widow, the former Sarah Bailey, describing himself then and afterwards as ironfounder. ⁵³ His age on the marriage licence is given as 35, which is preposterous as he must have been approaching 50. Several children followed: Titus in 1775, Elizabeth in 1777 and Daniel, father of the Saltaire baronet, in 1781. ⁵⁴

While the business itself was very much a working partnership, Salt owned most or all of the premises. A rating assessment in 1791 showed the property as his, including his own dwelling and other houses rented to Timothy Gothard and John Gothard. ⁵⁵

The heirs of Salt & Gothard

The death of ‘Mr Salt of the Foundry at Hunslet’ was announced in the Leeds newspapers in 1804, and the burial of Mr Titus Salt duly recorded in the Hunslet parish register. This title, ‘Mr’, recognises his respectable status as owner of an important local business. He was among the loyal citizens of Leeds who signed a supportive declaration to the King during the American troubles in 1775. ⁵⁶

While Gothard was his social equivalent, Salt was always by far the wealthier. As their company multiplied in value over 30 years, both profited, though not equally. Salt, it seems, held most, probably three-quarters, of the shares. The business was transferred to Titus Salt jun. and John Gothard in 1802 when the founding partners bowed out. Accordingly it did not form part of their estates for probate purposes. The personal estates, the cash and property left to their families, were valued at £1,000 for Gothard, and ten times that, £10,000, for Salt. Salt’s new will, drawn up after his wife’s death in 1802, bequeathed his Hunslet properties to Titus jun., the estates in Sheffield to Daniel, and £2,000 to Elizabeth. He also left a modest sum, £20, to Sarah Fletcher, described as his daughter-in-law but in fact his widowed step-daughter, the former Sarah Howitt. ⁵⁷

Timothy Gothard died in 1805. His family was large, and five sons outlived him. He had already transferred two cottages in Hunslet along with his interest in the foundry to the eldest, John (1750–1823), in 1802. Further property and money were shared around the rest, but with less prospect of establishing them in business. ⁵⁸ So while ultimately he had prospered, Gothard’s assets were thinly spread after his death. More liquidity would no doubt have helped John during the fragmentation of Salt & Gothard soon afterwards.

The younger Titus Salt invested in a colliery property at Cudworth, which triggered his financial collapse. His co-owner there, John Pinder, presumably a Howitt relative, was declared bankrupt in 1806. Salt then joined a plan to rescue the colliery, involving further outlay, including £500 for a steam engine. ⁵⁹ At some point, Salt himself became insolvent, though not formally bankrupted. Afterwards his assets were managed by assignees. By mutual agreement, his partnership with John Gothard was dissolved in 1808. Titus Salt handled the winding-up process, settling and receiving outstanding debts, and returning foundry models to millwrights and other clients. This was still in progress in March 1810. ⁶⁰

Daniel Salt (1781–1843), the younger son of that family, had gone his separate way even before the older Titus died. Daniel, like most of the Gothard sons, had been brought up in the foundry business. In 1802 he left Hunslet for Morley, where he stepped into his late father-in-law’s business as a cloth-merchant and drysalter. Soon afterwards he inherited his father’s valuable Sheffield property. Alongside these early advantages, Daniel Salt had commercial acumen and the flexibility to capitalise on rapidly changing times. His own son, the famous Titus, was apprenticed in business with a Wakefield woolstapler. Daniel’s family then moved to Bradford, a newly booming centre of mechanised worsted spinning, where young Titus spotted the potential of alpaca. Drawing on his iron-founding background, Daniel was able to advise his son 'in practical mechanics with which his former occupation made him familiar’. ⁶¹

In Hunslet, Titus Salt jun. continued to occupy a house and counting house on the foundry property, seemingly for the remainder of his life. The foundry premises were rented out to tenants by his assignees. When Salt died in 1849, apparently intestate, his personal estate was valued at under £100. ⁶²

As Salt wound down the old business in 1809–10, John Gothard had already re-established himself next door. Part of his father’s bequest to him had been ‘two tenements now used as warehouses and occupied with the foundry at Hunslet Carr’, and it was there that he opened his own ironworks. This was operating by March 1809. Noting that the old company had wound up, Gothard thanked the partners’ clients and announced

… that he now carries on the business of Iron Founder, on his own sole account, at his Foundry, by the Side of Hunslet Moor, adjoining the Premises, whereon the said Partnership Business was lately carried on, and as he shall make it his Study to merit, hopes to experience a Continuance of those Favors. ⁶³

So it was business as usual, though on a reduced scale. The value of John Gothard’s foundry, apparently owned outright, was only a little lower than that of Salt’s empty premises next door. He took a younger brother, Richard (1760–1830), into the business. ⁶⁴ Meanwhile their brother Timothy (1752–1817) established Balm Road Foundry a short distance away. This endured at least to the mid-century, when Richard and William Gothard were noted there as iron and brass founders. ⁶⁵

By September 1810, John and Joseph Jubb had become tenants of Salt & Gothard’s foundry, announcing their plan to ‘carry on the concern in all its departments’. ⁶⁶ The Jubbs were renowned, skilled and wide-ranging Leeds millwrights. Their father, John sen., was a friend of Timothy Gothard, a trustee of his will in 1805, and worked at Wortley Forge before moving to Churwell in 1778. There in 1784 Jubb built a very early cotton mill. He then established the first modern machine-making workshop in Leeds, on Water Lane, Holbeck, in 1787–8, afterwards moving to larger premises in Meadow Lane. The family appeared to be re-focusing on their main trade as millwrights, and after the older John died in 1808, his sons made the decision to take Hunslet Foundry. It represented additional capacity to supplement the iron and brass foundries on their main Meadow Lane site. ⁶⁷

This decision by the Jubbs was not a small thing, and their ambitions for the foundry show that they recognised its good prospects. They were well-attuned to local industrial demands and trends. But disastrously for their plans, Joseph suffered a long illness and died, aged 35, in 1812. His brother died at 41, in 1816. There was no one to take over. Previous accounts of the foundry have missed the Jubb period, but it was significant. The heirs of Salt & Gothard had been unable to fully capitalise on the foundry’s promise, something that the Jubbs had recognised before misfortune destroyed their own opportunity. ⁶⁸

There is a description of the foundry premises after Jubb had given them up. The site contained

… two good dwelling houses, an iron and a brass foundry, also malt kiln and range of buildings upwards of 280 feet long by 22 feet wide, 2,300 square feet or upwards… Steam engine of 4 h.p. with gearing etc… two ground floors, 38 feet by 22 and 41 by 22; two chambers, 76 feet by 22 and 54 by 22. ⁶⁹

The Hunslet survey and valuation in 1823–4 noted Salt’s assignees as owners, with the foundry then empty and semi-derelict – ‘no roof’ – so evidently not immediately re-let after Jubb’s tenancy. ⁷⁰ Whether it was ever re-let is not known, but the former Salt property must at some point have been absorbed into Gothard’s site. Kilburn Scott, though many of his ideas about the earlier history of the site are wide of the mark, knew Hunslet Foundry after his own family bought it. He noted continuities, including a long-lived furnace, describing the Blenkinsop rails of 1811 as ‘melted down as scrap in the same furnace from which the metal was originally poured’ in about 1860. ⁷¹

The neighbouring foundry at Hunslet Carr lost its directors when John Gothard died in 1823, and his brother Richard left to manage a similar venture in Wortley Lane, Holbeck. ⁷² The business was afterwards owned by John Gledhill and John Willans, both sons-in-law of John Gothard. Willans (1774–1849), originally a glass-maker in Goslem, a hamlet near Stourton, joined the Gothard firm after becoming a Methodist and marrying Sarah Gothard. ⁷³ The male line among John Gothard’s successors died out with John Gledhill in 1855, and the Gothard foundry was then bought by Richard Kilburn. Kilburn, a machine-maker in Holbeck, was a well-established customer of Hunslet Foundry, previously maker of all his castings. ⁷⁴

Kilburn added considerably to the premises, and more significant changes were made by Samuel Denison & Son Ltd of North Street, Leeds, after they acquired it from Kilburn in 1897. There was then a major rebuilding in 1957. Denison’s specialised in weighing and testing machines, including heavy weighbridges. ⁷⁵

Today there is little indication that here stood one of the more fascinating and important industrial ventures in Leeds history. The only relics of the Salt & Gothard era are points in the landscape. ⁷⁶ Old Run Road, rising towards Middleton, traces the colliery railway’s original route, as the name suggests. In the other direction Moor Road sweeps from the foot of that hill, around the foundry site and follows the waggonway’s path across Hunslet moor.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to David B. Hunter, formerly sales manager, for sharing material about the history of Samuel Denison and Son; and to Dorothy Schofield, for extracts from the diary of her ancestor John Willans, and from the family bible that was originally Timothy Gothard’s. I am also grateful to Sheila Bye, Colum Giles, John Suter and Geoff Tweedale.

Thank you to WYAS Leeds for permission to reproduce the plans in Figures 1 and 2, and in particular to Harriet Harmer for her assistance in acquiring copies and permissions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gillian Cookson

Gill Cookson specialises in the history of engineering and textiles during the period of industrialisation. As county editor of the Victoria County History of Durham, she oversaw histories of Darlington and Sunderland. Her most recent book Age of Machinery (2018) focuses on textile-machine making in Leeds and Keighley, 1770–1850. This article is an outcome of new research in progress on British industrialisation.

Notes

1 Newton, ‘Farnley Smithies’.

2 Inf. from Glyn Davies, ArcHeritage, and his lecture 19 Oct. 2019 to YAHS Industrial History Section, on archaeological investigations of the Forge site. Davies agrees with Mott, ‘Kirkstall Forge’, that this was not the site worked by monks, but dates from the seventeenth century.

3 Raistrick and Allen, ‘South Yorkshire Ironmasters’; Andrews, Story of Wortley Ironworks, esp. p. 46; for Seacroft, see Riden, Gazetteer of Charcoal-fired Blast Furnaces, 105. See also Raistrick, ‘South Yorkshire Iron Industry’.

4 Cookson, Age of Machinery, 163–8. Wortley should not be confused with the Leeds suburb of that name.

5 Butler, History of Kirkstall Forge; Butler (ed.), Diary of Thomas Butler. Much of the forge’s production was in finished goods, including domestic items, but also parts for machines and much else.

6 Thoresby Soc., MS box XXVI. 1/37; Batty, History of Rothwell, 169–71; May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’; Scott (ed.), Matthew Murray, 67–8.

7 West Yorkshire Archive Service [hereafter WYAS] Leeds, WYL333/316, Farrer & Co of Oulton, plan of the township of Hunslet, 1791, copy made in 1817; PL/HU/1, Hunslet tithe award (1846): http://wytithemaps.org.uk/leeds-maps/hunslet/ [hereafter Hunslet tithe map]. Subsequent developments on O.S. maps: Yorkshire 218 (6”.) or CCXVII.10 (25”), starting with 1st ed. surveyed 1846-7, pub. 1854.

8 May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, 239.

9 May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, esp. 47–51, 59–61; WYAS Leeds, WYL 899/222.

10 Reproduced in ‘The House that Weighs’, centenary booklet of Denison & Son (1919), in the possession of David B. Hunter. Scott offers a similar image ‘as it now is’ in 1935, surrounded by newer buildings: Scott (ed.), ‘Hunslet Foundry’, 725. Whether this structure contained anything of the original furnace housing seems unlikely, in view of heat and heavy usage.

11 Hyde, Technological Change, 121–3.

12 Raistrick, Industrial Archaeology, 46–8; Hayman, Ironmaking, 86–9; Ashton, Iron and Steel, 102–3. The cupola furnace concept is sometimes credited to William Wilkinson, who patented one such in 1793, though most probably the work of his estranged half-brother, the famous John Wilkinson. Versions of the cupola were certainly around earlier. Carron Ironworks, near Falkirk, considered installing a cupola when first established, 1759-60: Chrimes, ‘Charles Gascoigne’, in Skempton (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers, 244–6. See also William Wilkinson’s entry in Dictionary of National Biography, by J. R. Harris.

13 Scott, ‘Hunslet Foundry’, and in Matthew Murray, 108–10, supplies unique and valuable evidence but his assumptions, particularly about Howitt, have proved inaccurate.

14 Methodist Magazine, XXIX (1806), 325–7; Silkstone with Stainborough All Saints, bap. 26 Apr. 1723. Date of birth 27 Mar. 1723 confirmed in family bible [hereafter Gothard bible], in the possession of Dorothy Schofield.

15 Silkstone with Stainborough All Saints, bur. 8 Oct. 1712; 6 June 1734.

16 Gothard’s movements tracked through his marriage and children’s baptisms. Parish registers: Tankersley St Peter, marr. Sarah Copley, 11 Feb. 1745; baptisms at Wortley St Leonard, 1746 (Ann), 1748 (Francis, d. young), 1750 (John, d. 1823), 1752 (Timothy, d. 1817); Sheffield St Peter, bap. and bur. 1755 (Sarah); Rotherham All Saints bap. 1764 (Elizabeth, b. 1763, fl. 1797), 1767 (Benjamin, b. 1766, d. 1817). Parish register entries have not been found for William (b. 1756, fl. 1797), Mary (b. 1758, d. before 1797) or Richard (1760–1830), all of whose births are listed in the Gothard bible. See also the obituary in Methodist Magazine, XXIX (1806), 325–7. Gothard and his family committed to Methodism at Belle Isle, Hunslet, in 1775.

17 WYAS Leeds, WYL76/ WYAS6248, workmen’s ledger no. 2.

18 Cookson, Age of Machinery, 71-4, 163-5; Raistrick and Allen, ‘South Yorkshire Ironmasters’.

19 Guest, Historic Notices of Rotherham, 485.

20 M. Chrimes, ‘Walker family’, in Skempton (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers, 753–5; John (ed.), Samuel Walker & Co., ii–iii, 2, 6–9.

21 May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, 61.

22 Kirkstall Forge did not have a foundry at this time. Its iron was sourced through the Wortley-centred combine, and from Sweden and America: Butler, History of Kirkstall Forge, 4.

23 Brandling bought a quarter share of the manor of Hunslet in 1754, and reached agreement with his co-owners to develop Hunslet moor: May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, 39.

24 May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, 61; John (ed.), Samuel Walker & Co., iii, 2–3.

25 Rydén, ‘Production and Work’, 13.

26 Cookson, Age of Machinery, 278

27 Cookson, Age of Machinery, 89–90.

28 Sheppard and Belcher, ‘Deed Registries’: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00379818009514153?journalCode=cjsa20; Jenkins, West Riding Wool Textile Industry, esp. ch. 6.

29 Miles, ‘Money Market’; Hudson, Genesis of Industrial Capital, 211–17.

30 Ackworth St Cuthbert, Thomas Howitt, son of Francis Howitt, bap. 15 Nov. 1741, bur. 29 May 1803; WYAS Wakefield, Deeds, BL 631 896.

31 Ackworth St Cuthbert, bap. 8 May 1716; 1 Jan. 1742; 19 Jan. 1747; mar. Anne Pinder, 29 Dec. 1740; bur. 20 Dec. 1748; 1 May 1750; Borthwick Institute, Univ. of York [hereafter BI], Pontefract: Grant of admin. and curation Dec 1751 f. 120, mf 1201; vol. 95 f. 268, mf 1012.

32 South Kirkby All Saints, mar. 29 May 1765; bap. 18 May 1766; 10 Mar. 1768; WYAS Wakefield, Deeds, BL 492 699 & 493 701.

33 May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, 47, 61.

34 WYAS Wakefield, Deeds, BM 628 797, 1 Mar. 1771. No land transfers relating to the foundry site have been found, and the site is not listed in the Hunslet tithe map apportionment.

35 May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, 45–51, 59–61. An atmospheric pumping engine said to be by Emmett was installed at Fenton’s Rothwell colliery c. 1750: Batty, History of Rothwell, 173.

36 May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, 49, 60–1.

37 Hunslet St Mary, bap. 8 Mar. 1771.

38 WYAS Wakefield, Deeds, BO 360 496 & 361 497. Johnny was then an innkeeper in South Kirkby.

39 BI, Probate, vol. 116 f. 299; Hunslet St Mary, bur. 20 Dec. 1771.

40 BI, Probate, vol. 116 f. 299. One trustee was John Pinder, farmer, of South Kirkby, presumably a relative of Howitt’s mother; a witness, John Gothard, Timothy’s then 21 year-old son.

41 Hunslet St Mary, bur. 20 Dec. 1771.

42 As a result, Robert Howitt’s infant son never became involved in the foundry. In adult life his business was wholesale grocer and hop merchant near Leeds Bridge, where he processed tobacco with a 2 h.p. Pullan engine: Baines, Dir. of the County of York, 1822, add. & alterations and p. 61; Brotherton Lib. Special Collections, Univ. of Leeds, MS 18, p. 6; Leeds St Peter parish registers, passim.

43 Balgarnie, Sir Titus Salt, 6. A Daniel Salt, possibly Titus’s brother, of Ward’s End, Ecclesfield, married Martha Drabble, daughter of Jonathan Drabble of Bradfield, at Ecclesfield in 1742: Sheffield Archives [hereafter SA], JC/16/2, p. 446.

44 BI, Bishop’s Transcripts, Sheffield St Peter, mar. 18 Apr. 1751; Yorks. Marr. Licences, 18 Apr. 1751; Sheffield St Peter bur. 28 Nov. 1762.  

45 BI, Bishop’s Transcripts, Sheffield St Peter, mar. 21 Apr. 1763; Yorks. Marr. Licences, 20 Apr. 1763; SA, JC/16/2, p. 219. Apparently both wives were childless.

46 Sheffield St Peter bur., 29 Mar. 1769; Scott, ‘Hunslet Foundry’, 726; Balgarnie, Sir Titus Salt, 7; SA, CA778/5289/2; JC/16/2, p. 219; William Fairbank, Map of Sheffield, 1771; BI, Prerog., vol 148 f. 109 (mf 1054).

47 Scott (ed.), Matthew Murray, 109.

48 Barraclough, Benjamin Huntsman; Hey, ‘South Yorkshire Steel Industry’, 91–6; Tweedale, Steel City, 28, 32–4, 38–42; Smiles, Industrial Biography, 101–2. By the late 1760s Love had a new partner, Alexander Spear, apparently a Wakefield merchant. For technical advice on cast steel, and information about Love & Spear, later Spear & Jackson, thanks to Geoff Tweedale.

49 May, ‘Waggonways and Staiths’, passim; Scott (ed.), Matthew Murray, 67–8, 105, 108–10. When the rails were cast, the foundry premises were divided between John Gothard and the Jubb brothers; Gothard’s long experience in railway castings suggests that his firm was the likelier manufacturer. Wheels for the Middleton steam locomotives would have been cast by Murray himself; the 1813 moulds for Salamanca were discovered in 1877 in the Tyne Iron Works, and used to make new castings, now at the Science Museum (1893–186).

50 Cossons, Industrial Archaeology, 117, 120; Scott (ed.), Matthew Murray, 110, 71.

51 Scott (ed.), Matthew Murray, 110, mentions the foundry’s reputation for a special iron, ‘almost a semi-steel’, but may refer to a later time.

52 Scott (ed.), Matthew Murray, 107, 109; Scott, ‘Hunslet Foundry’, 726. Scott saw this document, whereabouts now unknown, which seems to confirm Salt as sole owner of the real estate.

53 Leeds St Peter, marriage by licence, 11 May 1774.

54 Leeds St Peter, Hunslet chap., bap. 19 June 1775; 14 May 1777; 26 July 1781.

55 WYAS Leeds, LO/HU/4, Hunslet Field Book. See Figure 1.

56 Leeds Mercury, 10 Mar. 1804; Leeds Intelligencer, 12 Mar. 1804; Leeds St Peter, Hunslet chap., bur. 9 Mar. 1804; London Gazette, 31 Oct. 1775, 2-3.

57 Leeds St Peter, Hunslet chap., bur. 3 Mar. 1802; BI, Prerog., vol 148 f. 109 (mf 1054).

58 Methodist Mag., XXIX (1806), 325-7; Monthly Magazine, 1 June 1805, 516; BI, Prerog., vol. 149 f. 392 (mf 1055). John Gothard bap. Wortley St Leonard, 4 Nov. 1750; bur. Hunslet St Mary, 6 July 1823.

59 London Gazette, 15992, 17 Jan. 1806, 69; WYAS Leeds, LO/HU5 1823-4.

60 Leeds Intelligencer, 13 Mar. 1809; 26 Feb. 1810; London Gazette, 11 Mar. 1809, 16236, 333.

61 Smith, Morley: Ancient and Modern, 207-8; Balgarnie, Sir Titus Salt, 8, 17. A drysalter produced dyestuffs and other chemicals.

62 BI, Prerogative Court of York, index.

63 Leeds Intelligencer, 13 March 1809. According to Scott, a settlement was made with Daniel Salt at about this time: Scott, ‘Hunslet Foundry’, 726. Perhaps this was a disclaimer of any further interest in the Hunslet property.

64 WYAS Leeds, LO/HU5 1823-4; Hunslet St Mary, Richard Gothard ‘married man’ bur. 15 Feb. 1830 age 69; Baines, Dir. of the County of York, 1822, 534.

65 WYAS Leeds LO/HU5 1823-4; Baines, Dir. of the County of York, 1822, 534; White, Dir. of Leeds and the Clothing Districts (1853), 252. The site is marked 299 on the Hunslet tithe map.

66 Leeds Mercury, 29 Sept. 1810.

67 Cookson, Age of Machinery, 273-5; Leeds Mercury, 6 Sept. 1817.

68 Cookson, Age of Machinery, 273–5.

69 Leeds Intelligencer, 2 Feb. 1818.

70 WYAS Leeds, LO/HU5 1823-4.

71 Scott, ‘Hunslet Foundry’, 726–7.

72 Pigot, Yorkshire Dir., 1834.

73 Diary of John Willans, c. 1841–8, in possession of Dorothy Schofield; White, West Riding Dir., 1837, I, 646.

74 Scott, ‘Hunslet Foundry’, 726.

75 Hunslet tithe map; O.S. maps as fn. 7, above; Yorkshire Evening News, 5 Sept. 1957; ‘Short history of Samuel Denison & Son Ltd, Leeds’, unpub. typescript, and ‘The House that Weighs’, centenary booklet of Denison & Son (1919), both in the possession of David B. Hunter.

76 The Engine and Prospect, now inns, close to the foundry and perhaps built as owners’ homes, were later than Salt & Gothard’s time. Architectural details suggest a date post-1820. Thanks to Colum Giles for advice on this.