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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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 Posted -
27/04/2004
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06:59
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SOUGH BRIDGE MILL
INDEX ENTRIES AS OF 28 April 2003
Engine was a gear drive Roberts Tandem of about 500hp and was very old when Johnny Pickles worked on it in 1920s.
Craven Herald reported on 13/02/1931 that the Earby lock-out by the manufacturers over the wage reductions would start on Monday 16th February. Sough Bridge mill worked as normal as it was not in the Earby Manufacturer’s Association.
Bracewell Hartley and Company mentioned as manufacturers in Sough Mill in 1902 Barrett directory.
Rupert Nutter and Company had most of Sough Bridge Mill in 1932 as a cotton weaving shed. The Nutter Brother’s interests collapsed in 1932 and a man called Percy Lowe who had been Nutter Brothers salesman promoted a scheme whereby the weavers paid £2 a loom and restarted at several mills in Earby including Sough Bridge, as worker’s cooperatives. The firm at Sough was named Nutters (Kelbrook) Ltd. and wove on until at least 1938. This was announced in the Craven Herald of 03/06/1932. On 17/06/1932 a further announcement in the Craven Herald confirmed this and said that the names of the directors had not been released but 50 looms were running.
Horace Thornton told me in 1979 that the Earby Shed Company owned Sough Bridge Mill and ran it as room and power under the management of Proctor and Proctor, accountants of Grimshaw Street, Burnley.
During the 1932 strikes against wage reductions in the cotton industry Sough Bridge kept running and was the scene of violent picketing by strikers from other mills. Foremost among the protesters was James Rushton who was a founder member of the Communist Party branch in Barnoldswick in 1931. There are numerous reports of his activities as an agitator during this period. On Tuesday 30th August 1932 there was a large demonstration outside Sough Mill and police imported as strike breakers charged the crowd and scattered them. Two men were arrested and the confrontation was so violent that the Barnoldswick Urban District Council and the Weavers Association complained to the Home Secretary about the importation of police from the West Riding and the violence they were using.
The engineer at Sough Mill between the wars in charge of the engine and transmission was Jim Pickles, Johnny Pickles uncle.
Nutter and Turner mentioned as tenants in Sough Mill with 252 looms in Manchester Exchange Directory of 1912. H G Wilkinson was the salesman. Rupert Nutter and Co Ltd mentioned in Craven Herald as being tenants in 1929.
There is no mill marked at Sough Bridge on the 1853 1st Edition of the OS 6” map. Therefore, the mill was built after then.
Bristol Tractors were working in Sough Mill with their associated firms, Forecast Foundry and Kelbrook Metal Products in 1956 when I had the grocer’s shop next to the mill. We had a good trade in Bacon Butties and hot dinners for the workers. Names I remember from then are Chris Demaine who was a farmer’s man from Foulridge who worked at Rover’s when they were there. Tom Ward who later had a tailor’s shop in Barlick and retired in 2002. Hartley King a local engineer from Salterforth.
United Metallic Packing Company at Bradford supplied 2 duplex packings for the steam engine at Sough Mill on October 28th 1912. The contractors were Henry Brown and Sons, Albion Street Earby and the owners were the Kelbrook Mill Company
Fred Inman told me in 1979 that Joseph Foulds had looms in Sough Bridge until 1930. Also mentioned as having looms in Brook Shed.
In 1928 the second motion shaft broke and stopped the mill and Johnny Pickles repaired it. He was working for Henry Brown and Sons who liquidated in 1929 and Johnny took over the work founding J Pickles and Son which eventually became Henry Brown Sons and Pickles. Now part of Gissing and Lonsdale at Barlick.
SOUGH BRIDGE MILL
Nathan Smallpage and Son are mentioned as Cotton Manufacturers at Sough Bridge Mill in Barrett’s directories for 1887 and 1896. So the date of building was before 1887.
SOUGH BRIDGE MILL.
The story so far at 28 April 2003.
OS reference SD 903454.
Sough Bridge Mill stands in the Village of Sough about 1 mile south of Earby which used to be in Yorkshire but was dragged kicking and screaming into Lancashire during the boundary changes of 1974. It’s called bridge because it is next to the bridge over the New Cut. This name gives away the reason for the name Sough, this is the dialect name for a drain and the New Cut was dug to improve the drainage in this low lying area.
When the mill was built sometime round about 1880 the site was chosen because one of the essentials for running a steam engine is a reliable supply of water for the condensers. There were very few houses here at the time, the mill provided the stimulus to build housing.
Important to recognise that apart from agriculture, the Barlick/Earby area was single industry up to WW2, cotton weaving in large mills was the only industry. This started as a water powered industry but really took off when the Leeds and Liverpool canal opened the area up to the Lancashire coalfields in 1800. 1820 onwards steam built mills were being built. Sough Bridge was one of these.
The mills were built with local money. At first this was local entrepreneurs but from 1887 onwards was predominantly public companies using local capital building 1200 loom sheds with steam engine and shafting and letting the space out to local entrepreneurs. The Room and Power system as it was called was a brilliant inception as it allowed entrepreneurs to get into the industry with a low threshold of entry and the industry boomed. Another benefit was that in the absence of banks it allowed the workers to invest their savings in the mill they worked in by buying shares in the shed companies.
By 1920 there were 20 large mills in the area varying between 1,200 and 3,000 looms. The big expansion had been 1890 to 1914 and the area was fully committed to the industry. They thought it would never end but in 1920 the post war re-stocking boom collapsed and from then on the textile industry was in terminal decline. This was reinforced by the inter-war depression and by 1930 some mills had finished altogether and were empty.
In the late 1930’s the government was using it’s collective head and was actively looking for premises where essential industries could be re-located if necessary. A collateral need was housing and a skilled working force. Barlick/Earby was ideal.
In 1940 the heavy raids on Coventry triggered the removal of the Rover Company’s war production to the area. They took over five sheds in Barlick/Earby and Waterloo Shed at Clitheroe, Sough Bridge was one of these and they were all converted to engineering production. One section in Bankfield Shed at Barnoldswick housed an experimental unit run by a bloke called Frank Whittles. This became the birth place of the jet engine and Rolls are still there in 2003.
In 1942 Rolls Royce swapped Rover a tank factory for the jet engine work at Barnoldswick and Clitheroe but Rover retained the other mills including Sough Bridge largely for work on building and refurbishing piston engines. These Rover concerns stayed until 1945 when they moved back to concentrate in Coventry.
The result of this was that the area was left with the advantages of converted mills suitable for engineering, a housing stock and a skilled work force but no work apart from Rolls Royce at Barlick. Wage rates were very low and the area was attractive for incomers. It was the most attractive prospect in the West Riding. In 1945/46 Armoride moved from Brighouse into Grove Mill at Earby and Bristol Tractors moved from Idle at Bradford into Sough Bridge. They recruited local labour who had no problems converting from aero engine work to general engineering.
This influx and the existence of the small independent service forms spawned by the aero engine industry was the trigger for the transformation of the area from single-industry textile work to a wide based industrial base founded on precision engineering.
From here on, you know more about Bristol Tractors than I do but I hope this brief overview gives you some background into how BT came to the area. I always think it’s ironic that the area’s conversion from a depressed textile area to a thriving multi-industry manufacturing base was not as a result of overall planning but because of a mad genius called Hitler. Perhaps we ought to build a statue to him?
SCG/29 April 2003
1,436 words.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 20/10/2010 : 08:28
More for GAK on Sough Bridge
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk  |
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SOUGH BRIDGE MILL.
