The Cotton Industry in Hoghton Bottoms, 1778-1970
By Roger Hargreaves
Introduction
This brief history is intended to serve three purposes. Firstly, to ensure that the research which I carried out in 1966 as an A-level history and geography student, which was never written up but of which I still have the notes, is not lost, and secondly, to act as a corrective to the “official” accounts online, in the Historic England Research Records, of Higher and Lower Mills, which although they do contain useful material are fundamentally incorrect and misleading due to misattribution of sources and failure to recognise that until 1846 there was a third, larger mill.
Thirdly, this is a story worth telling. Although it spanned almost the entire length of the factory cotton industry in Lancashire, and all of its major branches, the history of the industry in the Bottoms is essentially one of failure. This was a favourable site for early development and it might have grown into a substantial settlement, but a succession of fires and bankruptcies meant that the ambitions of its founders were never realised, and without a proper written account there would be very little left to show what it was at its peak in the early 1820s and what it might have become.
The three sites are Higher Mill/Upper Mill/Hoghton Tower Mill/Top Factory (SD 62799 26499); Middle Mill/Livesey’s Mill/Hoghton Bottoms Mill/Vale Shuttle Works (SD 62620 26882); and Print works/Lower Mill/Hoghton Bottoms Mill (SD 62689 27205)
Sources
This account is based on:
My notes from 1966, compiled mainly from searches in Blackburn Library
Geo. C Miller’s “Hoghton Tower” (plus assistance from George Miller himself and his son Stanley, then the Reference Librarian)
A visit in 1966 to Lower Mill and interview with Mr Moore of Southworth and Moore, the owners
Searches in the Hoghton estate papers in the Lancashire Record Office (LRO) in 1968-9 whilst compiling my dissertation – “The Decline of a Common Field System in a Lancashire Village – Hoghton 1650-1850”
Historic maps on the Lancashire County Council (LCC) and National Library of Scotland websites, and in particular Yates’s map of Lancashire, published 1787 but (maybe) correct to 1786, which is the first detailed map of the area, and the Ordnance Survey (OS) First Series 6-inch, published 1849 but surveyed in 1845, which along with the 1841 Tithe Map is the first detailed large-scale map.
The Historic England Research Records (HERR) for Higher and Lower Mills
Online newspaper searches, primarily for “Hoghton Tower” and “Hoghton Bottoms”. Unfortunately the Blackburn Mail, the main local paper from 1793 to 1829, is not online. I searched it in 1966 at the library but only of course by card index.
“A Description of Hoghton Tower” printed 1857 for J Heseltine (JSTOR John Rylands Library) which (pp 19-23) includes an anonymous account of a walk through the Bottoms, probably between 1842-44.
Thanks also to Deborah Jarvis nee Miller-Crook who supplied photos of the Walmsley family memorial in Hoghton churchyard.
Due to constraints of time and distance I have not consulted the LCC Historic Environment Record, and although the estate papers in the LRO are very incomplete as a result of a fire in 1876 in the estate office at Walton Hall there may be documents I missed in 1968-9 as my main focus by then was on agriculture not industry. There will also be other information in trade directories and journals and reports by government inspectors, and I have not attempted any genealogical research so am not always certain how people were or might be related. However, I am satisfied that I have enough information to construct a reasonably accurate timeline for all three sites.
Background
The (de) Hoghton family appear rarely to have used Hoghton Tower after about 1710, and after the death of Sir Henry Hoghton, 5th baronet, in 1768 the mansion was let to tenants. The deer park which had first been established in the 14th century would therefore have gone out of use as such and been turned over to agriculture. However, the domestic textile industry, initially producing woollen and linen cloth but increasingly cotton, was growing rapidly. The first reference in the list of estate deeds to a weaver was in 1760, but after that they accounted for almost half of all grants of leases.
Hoghton’s soils were unproductive, but when factory industry began the former deer park in the Bottoms was an attractive site, offering level land but with a steep fall in the river from the gorge, and the 6th baronet grasped the opportunity. The Rev Jonathan Shortt, the vicar who in 1880 published a history of the village, wrote that “At a time when commerce was viewed with little favour by most country gentlemen, the head of the Hoghton family encouraged it, even to the extent of dismantling part of the Tower to provide materials for calico print-works. The water power of the river was also a source of attraction to manufacturers.”
This account falls naturally into three time periods: 1778-91, 1791-1846, and 1846 -1970.
1778-91
The Heaton lease and the first printworks
The builder of the printworks was Edward Heaton, who in 1778 was granted a lease which included the greater part of all the land and property in the Bottoms. It was for a term of 63 years till 1841, but in 1791 he went bankrupt and his assets were sold off. From the published sale catalogue and other legal notices we can get a fairly clear picture of who he was and what he had achieved in 13 years.
He was a yeoman farmer with property in Pleasington, Livesey and Blackburn, and like most large farmers in the area was probably engaged in the domestic textile trade. Blackburn was an early centre in Lancashire of calico printing, and this would have been a logical development of his domestic weaving business as it would have added considerable value to the cloth. However, the fact that he took a lease on such a large area suggests that even at that early date, just seven years after Richard Arkwright built the first powered spinning mill at Cromford, he and the 6th baronet were thinking of much more than just a single small printworks.
His original residence appears to have been Tongue Hill in Pleasington, and in 1779 the house and farm, of which he held the freehold, were rented out, indicating that he had moved to Hoghton. The HERR entry for Higher Mill records that by 1782 he was a printer with “10 or 12 tables”, meaning that he was printing manually with blocks and would have needed a good supply of clean water but water power, if at all, only for ancillary functions such as colour mixing.
The entry then says that in 1784 he insured the works for £300 and the contents for £500 but that he “failed in 1786.” However, this is at odds with the 1791 evidence which shows that by that time he had built two spinning mills and that he was still operating as a printer, as one of his tenants, John Brierley, was committed to prison by the bankruptcy commissioners “for not giving a satisfactory account of 260 pieces of printed callicoes, which Brierley received from Heaton, in the night before Heaton sailed for Ireland.” He was also described in the bankruptcy notices as “calico printer, dealer and chapman” indicating that producing and trading in printed cloth was still his primary occupation.
The sale catalogue also lists “several buildings and grounds lately used by Edward Heaton in his business as a calico printer.” These included “all the privileges of water and water wheels” but these were “lately appropriated by him to that concern” which suggests that he may have recently moved on to powered roller printing which would need much more water. It seems likely (page 5) that he had very close connections with Livesey, Hargreaves and Co who in 1785 had introduced that technology at their works in Walton-le-dale, and who then established a bleachworks in the Bottoms, probably to supply the larger volume of bleached cloth needed for mechanised printing.
The catalogue gives no clue as to the location of the printworks, but Yates’s map, published 1787, shows a “printing works” at the south end of the valley immediately below the Tower, and the likelihood is that it was on the site next to the river now occupied by Riverside Cottage. The same lot also included “a large genteel and commodious dwelling house” plus 13 acres and garden “lately in the occupation of the said Edward Heaton.” This appears to have been the house at Hill End which was subsequently divided into “Quarry Cottages” but which from the surviving ruins was clearly once a substantial residence of high quality.
Higher Mill
The sale also included a “factory or mill now used by Mr John Brierley for the purpose of spinning cotton wool, with water rights granted by Edward Heaton.” Brierley’s 50-year lease, which included 5 houses “with several offices and parcels of land” dated from February 1791, but Heaton had sub-leased most of his Hoghton properties on the same date, very likely in the hope of staving off the impending bankruptcy, so it is likely that the mill was already working prior to that date but under his direct control.
Another, unidentified, building is shown on Yates’s map immediately to the north of the “printing works”, suggesting that the mill was also there by the date of the survey, which was stated as 1786 but might have been earlier. I recorded in 1966 the local belief that the mill had started out as an unpowered “loom shop” housing handloom weavers, and it may well be that both printworks and mill received water power at the same time, from the weir shown on the 1845 OS map just below the later railway viaduct.
The middle mill
Lot 3 in the sale was “A large factory used for the purpose of carding, spinning and weaving” plus houses and 23 acres. It was “now held by Messrs Tallentine Brown and Co” with again a 50-year lease from February 1791, so may also have been working before that date but under Heaton’s control. However, it was likely to have been of more recent construction than the mill occupied by Brierley, and later documents indicate that it was on a footprint three times as large and with about 70% more spindleage. They also state that it had two spinning floors, and as it also incorporated carding and weaving it was likely to have been at least four storeys high, with a “loom shop” on the top floor. For the period this was a big mill, and it was to get bigger.
Unlike the previous developments it sat on the flood plain of the Darwen and so could not have been built until the estate had drained the land. The 1845 map shows a goit running to it from the weir just below the later railway viaduct which would also have served the printworks and Higher Mill, and the normal practice was to augment the fall of a weir by digging out and straightening the river bed below, which would also drain the adjacent land and provide material for raised goits and ponds.
When the population of Hoghton, although rising rapidly, was probably still less than 1,000, a mill of this size, which could potentially employ over 150, was likely to struggle with labour supply, although it could also draw workers from Pleasington and Livesey across the river. In addition, weaving was then entirely a manual process and its in-house weavers could have used only a small part of the output of its spinning floors, so its success would be largely dependent on take-up of its yarn by domestic weavers.
To attract mill workers and domestic weavers Heaton had been building houses on what until 1778 would have been virtually unoccupied land, and the sale catalogue suggests there may have been between 40 and 50 both attached to the mills and otherwise, including the ancient Long Barn once used to store fodder for the deer, and its farmhouse and carthouse, which he had recently subdivided to make 11 dwellings. Occupancy levels were likely to average seven per house, indicating a total population of up to 350.
In addition, at some time prior to 1793 a workhouse serving the parishes of Hoghton, Wheelton and Withnell had been built on Heaton’s land opposite the Long Barn. We do not know how many inmates it had, but although it was closed in 1839 its roofless outline can still be seen on the 1845 OS map and it was a sizeable building, so it seems likely that – as with the Brindle workhouse – it was taking able-bodied paupers from other parishes to augment the local workforce.
The carding house
Lot 4 consisted of a carding house occupied by James Barker, again with a lease from February 1791. There is no indication as to where it was, but at that time carding might be done by hand or by power and as there were water rights it was presumably the latter, so it must have been on one of the goits supplying the mills. On the 1845 map there is a large cruciform-shaped building, which had been demolished by the 1890s, just south-east of Vale House on the edge of the pond for the middle mill and adjacent to Blackburn Road (see page 13) and this seems the most likely candidate. As the middle mill had its own carding provision it was presumably intended to supply Higher Mill. It appears still to have been operating in 1830 as there are references in the estate records to leases granted for the two cottages “at the carding engine.”
The bleachworks
By 1791 Heaton’s leases included most of the land in the Bottoms, including The Eyes and The Moor Ground opposite Bolton Hall which he had held since 1782. However, a parcel of about 50 acres in the centre was leased separately, again to 1841, to Messrs Livesey, Hargreaves and Co who then built a bleachworks on it.
This was just an offshoot of a very much larger enterprise, Livesey Hargreaves and Co being one of the biggest companies in the early cotton industry and in 1785 one of the pioneers of powered calico printing, and the likelihood is that they were brought in by Heaton to plug a gap in his operations. There may have been a family connection, as the Liveseys were related to the Liveseys of Livesey Hall which Heaton part-owned. The sale catalogue states that his printworks had attached bleaching grounds, meaning that he was bleaching cloth prior to printing by exposing it to sunlight, but he had a limited area and in Hoghton’s weather it would in any case have been a slow process, so if he did move on to powered roller printing he would have needed a provider of chemical bleaching for the much greater volume of cloth which he would then have been buying in from the handloom weavers.
The bleachworks included two reservoirs of in total “more than an acre” and three wheel races. It is unlikely that all its water came from the river. The main need of a bleachworks was not for power but for pure water, and there were two streams running down which could have provided it; one reservoir was wide and shallow and would have acted as a settling pond. The other would have held water from the river, which even then would have been less than completely pure. To supply it a goit was run, as shown on the 1845 map, from the pond of the middle mill to a third stream running down from Long Barn.
To create access a road would have been built by the estate down the hill from Long Barn. Chapel Lane did not exist at that time, all road access to the Bottoms being from Riley Green via the Tower. It is unlikely that there was a road along the valley floor, now Viaduct Road, until the middle mill was built as it would have been a boggy flood plain until drained.
The bleachworks is not shown on Yates’s map, surveyed 1786, and it is likely, therefore, that it had not been there very long when in 1788 Livesey, Hargreaves and Co went bankrupt, taking its bank with it and owing £1.5 million (about £197 million today). The works was advertised for letting in April 1789.
Heaton’s legacy
Although his business eventually failed, in just 13 years Edward Heaton had overseen the creation of a considerable industrial settlement – a printworks, bleachworks, carding house, two mills - one large for its time - and between 40 and 50 houses - and given employment to possibly 250 people directly plus a much larger number of domestic weavers. His spinning mills were amongst the earliest – on Yates’s 1786 map only about 42 can be identified in the entire county.
As he appears to have started out as just a yeoman farmer he must have taken on considerable debt. However, he may have been sharing some of the risk. It seems too much of a coincidence that the notices which reported his bankruptcy also reported that of Richard Parker of Brindle, “calico manufacturer, dealer and chapman.” Perhaps Parker took control of the printworks when Heaton moved on to bigger things.
Some of his debt was almost certainly owed to the Hoghton estate, but it does not appear to have taken a direct stake in his business – subject to the 63-year lease the buildings, contents and land belonged entirely to him. However, although the sale included all these plus water rights, the lack of any reference to the water infrastructure – weirs, goits, ponds, sluices and wheels - indicates that this had all been built by the estate and was retained by it. It also built new roads (see pages 12-13) and again retained ownership of them.
This was a sensible policy. First of all, this infrastructure was the greater part of the total fixed assets, and the major attraction for any new entrepreneur; an advert in 1812 for Higher Mill said that “a suitable weir, fender, flood gates, water sluice and water wheel being already provided, they afford a situation extremely desirable to any person wishing to carry on an extensive business as a cotton spinner.”
Secondly where, as here, water flowed down from mill to mill, water rights could be guaranteed by the freeholder only if it retained overall control. Where mills were separate and perhaps competing businesses, if those at the top failed to maintain their weirs and goits, or refused to enlarge capacity, or hoarded water in a drought, they would imperil those lower down.
The estate would therefore have made a substantial investment on which it needed a return, so would be looking to minimise risks from future business failures. In October 1798, probably at the insistence of the 7th baronet, the assignees (i.e administrators) of the Heaton bankruptcy auctioned the ground rent, which if a buyer was found would have ensured that the estate received it regardless of the health of the individual businesses, and would also encourage further investment in them. The ground rent was stated to be £246 4s 6d per annum, or about £27,000 in today’s money.
1791-1846
The second printworks
The bleachworks would have supplied the first printworks higher up the valley, and as it was almost certainly a viable concern in itself it is likely that it was re-let, probably to Edward Heaton initially and then to whoever took over the printworks after his bankruptcy, which from the notice of the October 1798 auction of the ground rent appears to have been Alexander North Parker. The printworks site, however, offered no room for expansion, being hemmed in between the river and Higher Mill, so at some point a combined bleaching and printing works was established on the lower site by Richard and James Lomax.
Richard Lomax was mentioned in an advert for the middle mill in 1806, suggesting that they were already in business by that date, but they may still have been operating the upper site, as in January 1815 the Lancaster Gazette reported that some “journeymen block printers” had been prosecuted for breaking their contract with Messrs R and J Lomax. As block printing was by then increasingly “old technology” it is unlikely that they would have replicated it at the new site, and the 1832 sale catalogue (see below) lists only equipment for bleaching and roller printing.
However, the new site was definitely in use by 1818 as it was marked as “print works” on Greenwood’s map. A directory of the same year lists R and J Lomax as calico printers, “Hoghton Tower” but by 1824 only J Lomax.
As the bleachworks was still relatively new it presumably continued to serve that purpose under the Lomaxes, and it seems likely that the main building, the “large bowk house”, was the large square building shown on the 1845 OS map, which was derelict when the anonymous writer visited in the early 1840s and had been demolished by the 1890s, and that the Lomaxes built their new printworks immediately to the east of it on the site of the later Lower Mill.
The water requirements of a bleachworks and a printworks were somewhat different. A printworks still needed pure water, as any impurities could discolour the dyes, but printing machines required considerable power, so the two reservoirs now became three. The anonymous writer described them as “three lodges, intersected by dykes, covering a space of four or five acres, and serving as placid lakes to enrich the landscape.”
The 1789 bleachworks advert had included a house, but at some point the Lomaxes either built another or replaced it on the same site with something much grander – Hoghton Hall. Although not then as large or grand as it has more recently become, its name alone implied pretensions and the anonymous writer describes it as “a handsome house called The Hall, nearly concealed by Italian poplars and other trees….this mansion was built at considerable cost by the late Mr Lomax who also built the works below….the surrounding grounds are tastefully laid out, the gardens and orchards are luxuriant.”
Such a house was not the norm for the owners of a relatively-small and recently established printworks. As technologies were advancing rapidly even large industrialists of that era tended to live modestly and to reinvest most of their income into the business. It may, therefore, not be surprising that the Lomaxes soon ran into trouble. In 1829 James Lomax tried to sell up, and in July of that year he and his workers and tenants, 96 people in all, had to go to court to prevent Sir Henry Philip Hoghton from seizing his property, which was valued at £1600 p.a., although the rent “reserved and payable to Sir Henry” i.e. the ground rent, was only £165 p.a. It was to no avail, as in 1831 Lomax “calico printer, dealer and chapman” was declared bankrupt, and in January 1832 the machinery was auctioned. It is apparent from the inventory that some investment had been made, as it included a 14 hp steam engine, “nearly new”, so obsolescence may have been less of a factor than the rural location. First of all, printing required a much higher proportion of skilled labour than did spinning, and even if designing of patterns and engraving of rollers was done elsewhere there would still be a need on site for skilled dye mixers and machine operators, who would be hard to attract to a rural area when there were much bigger printworks in the towns on either side.
Secondly, Lomax was dependent on cloth from the local domestic weavers, but the coarse cloth (calico) needed for printing was also the first to be successfully woven by power, drastically reducing the cost, and once from the mid-1820s (see page 12) the urban printers had easy access to it he would have been at a serious disadvantage.
In December 1831 the Blackburn Gazette reported unemployment and “very severe privations” in the Bottoms due to closure of the printworks and stoppage of one of the mills. In February 1832 Lomax’s personal possessions were auctioned, and by April he was dead.
Higher Mill
Meanwhile, the enterprises at the upper end of the valley were faring little better. After James Brierley went bankrupt in 1793 Higher Mill reverted to the Hoghton estate, which in 1794 advertised it to be let and in 1796 granted a lease for “Anderton’s and Hacking’s factory” at £10 p.a. In February 1798 a new lease was granted to Roger Anderton at £6 3s. This was for the building alone, the 1791-1841 ground lease remaining in force.
However, in August 1811 the mill burnt down. Anderton then immediately attempted to sell the site as it was, plus the associated housing, but was unsuccessful so appears to have rebuilt the mill, advertising it in March 1813 as a “newly erected factory” measuring 15x15 yards. It had 18 feet of fall, and three floors plus attics, including a preparation floor with carding engines.
It also included a smith’s shop and other buildings, and a “dwelling house nearly contiguous to the factory, now occupied by the said Roger Anderton.” This might seem to be a reference to the house, still in situ, more recently referred to as the Counting House, but an agreement of 1807 in the estate papers makes it clear that he was then living in the house at Hill End, later Quarry Cottages, which originally belonged to Edward Heaton.
The buyer was Thomas Turton of Preston, who according to the HERR was by 1816 “employing 49 persons” and who in 1817 took out insurance for £2,500 for “Upper Hoghton cotton mill”. He was still there in 1819, living in the former Heaton house which the later anonymous writer described as a “neat white farmhouse” but he had other interests and so by 1824 had sublet the mill to Richard Baxter. However this was a bad time for the industry, and in May 1826 the Morning Herald reported that “there were three establishments (in Hoghton Bottoms) two for spinning and one for printing calico, both(all?) of which have been closed since January – very nearly the whole of the hands have remained idle…….One of the spinning factories, that of Mr Baxter, is completely broken up. The materials are to be sold by auction, he being a bankrupt.”
He was also elderly for the time – he died the following year aged 63. The bankruptcy notices state that he was carrying on business with his brother Thomas, describing them both as “farmers and cotton spinners.”
The mill, as rebuilt by Anderton, then had 14 mules with 4372 spindles. It was offered for sale in June 1826 but there appear to have been no takers. However, the owner of the building was Mr Turton, and he completely re-equipped it then in January 1832 again offered it for sale. The house went with it, plus 25 cottages. It already had gas lighting but Turton added heating by steam, the external boiler house sharing a chimney with the gas plant.
There were now about 7000 mule spindles, an increase in spinning capacity of 60%, and it seems likely that to achieve this it was Turton who added a four-storey block to the west end of the original three-storey square structure. However, although more power would have been needed it is apparent from a photo I took in 1966 of its south side that the mill continued for the time being to rely on the original lower weir, the wheelhouse being in the base of the four-storey block as evidenced by a large filled-in archway. It is likely, too, that Turton built the “Counting House”, that name indicating that it was originally the mill office. The first millowners would have run their mills from their own houses, but when they delegated the day-to-day business to managers it was advisable to site their office in a building away from the mill, as the noise and vibration from mule spinning, and even more so from power loom weaving, was not conducive to clerical work.
Despite all Turton’s efforts there were again no takers, other than for all but 9 of the cottages, and the years were catching up with him too, as in August 1833 the mill was advertised for sale by his widow. It was described as being “in full work” but on September 19th the entire contents were put up for auction including all the machinery, gas apparatus and boiler and “the grates and other fixtures in the cottages adjoining” meaning that these were now vacant. His “mansion house” in Fishwick, Preston, was also in the sale. Perhaps he had creditors who were getting restless. It appears, however, that the business was bought, by Messrs J and T Barker, as a going concern and that work continued, or resumed. But not for long. On November 5th1836 the Preston Pilot carried a report of a “serious conflagration”. It had begun at 7 am on the ground floor, the worst place, and although fire engines arrived from Blackburn “in an almost incredibly short time”, at 9 am “the roof fell in, carrying away all the floors with a tremendous crash.” Five or so years later, on their way up “The Horr”, the anonymous writer walked past “the ruins of a factory, destroyed by fire.”
The middle mill
In 1798 the larger middle mill was still occupied by Tallentine, Brown and Co, although they had also had their problems with fires – in 1797 the Blackburn Mail reported one in a handloom shop, which was presumably theirs. However, on October 16th1805 the Mail carried notice of an auction. The machinery was all for preparation or spinning, there being 34 mules with a total of 6830 spindles. There was no mention of weaving, and as six of the mules plus other machines were new it may be that the hand looms had been displaced. There was also a “capital good new water wheel” which suggests additional power consequent on additional powered machinery. Those dealing with the sale included “Mr W. Rigby, on the premises” and Mr N. Rigby in Preston. However, it appears not to have sold, as it was put up for auction again in March 1806. This was not a good time to be selling a mill, as trade was depressed due to the Napoleonic War and loss of markets in Europe.
This time the notice described the mill as being formerly in the occupation of the late Nicholas Rigby, the sale being by his executors, including Richard Lomax of Hoghton. The premises were “extremely desirable to anyone wishing to carry on an extensive business as a cotton-spinner, being extremely commodious and having an abundant supply of water with nine feet of fall.” The sale also included “a convenient messuage or dwelling house, nearly contiguous to the said factory, with the gardens, outhouses and other conveniences belonging thereto, and which were lately occupied by Mr Alexander North Parker.” This was clearly Vale House, and the fact that it had not been included in the October 1805 auction suggests that Mr Parker had still been living in it at that time. In 1793 he had married the daughter of a clergyman and was described as being “of Hoghton Park.” However, two years later, in the Blackburn Mail on March 16th1808, both mill and house were up for sale again, the mill now being described as “late in the possession of James Ogden.” It comprised “two large spinning rooms” 42x18 and 42x12 yards, and “is well supplied with a constant and powerful stream of water (which) from a moderate computation is capable of turning 12,000 spindles.” The house was described as “fit for the reception of a genteel family.” The owner of both was given as Alexander North Parker.
It seems likely, as the house was clearly linked with the mill, that Parker had been the ultimate owner of both all along and that Nicholas Rigby was a sub-leaseholder, with Ogden then being put in as tenant to keep the mill running when it failed to sell. As the industry progressed and mills became bigger and their owners more wealthy and gentrified, management arrangements became more complex with the ultimate owners much less likely to be running the mill themselves, instead delegating this to a sub-leaseholder, tenant or manager. Managers became key figures, but are often invisible as they may not appear in legal or sale notices; in 1966 in Blackburn Library I found James Ogden’s obituary card, which suggested that he had played a more important role in the industry in the Bottoms than might be assumed from that single reference. Parker had been named as a leaseholder in the October 1798 auction of the ground rent, and by a process of elimination must have been the occupant of the original printworks next to Higher Mill. Absent genealogical research it seems likely that he was a close relative, and probably the son, of the Richard Parker, “calico manufacturer, dealer and chapman” who went bankrupt at the same time as Edward Heaton. Many bankrupts appeared repeatedly in the papers for several years as they made multiple appearances before the commissioners, but I found only the one reference to Richard Parker, suggesting that his distress was short-lived – he may even have been tipped over the edge by a debt owed him by Heaton – so Alexander may have been able to resume the family business and to take control of the printworks, build Vale House, and buy the mill.
As the 1806 sale advert also included the first mention of the Lomax family, it seems very possible that by then Parker had sold his printworks to the Lomaxes, who eventually moved the business to a bigger site at the other end of the valley. By the time of the 1808 sale he was living near Newton-in-Bowland at The Heaning, a substantial minor-gentry residence more extensive than Vale House; the Parkers Arms is in the centre of the village. In the nearly 200-year history of the cotton industry in Hoghton he appears to have been one of the few entrepreneurs to have left better-off than when he arrived. Two who did not were William and Joseph Marsden, who in 1811 were reported as bankrupt. They were described as cotton manufacturers of Hoghton Tower, and as there is no evidence of any connection with the mills it appears that they were living at the Tower and running a business from there, putting out yarn to domestic handloom weavers and buying then marketing the finished cloth; they appear to have been part of a larger family business with bases in Manchester and Lancaster.
At that time the domestic weaving industry was bigger than the factory spinning industry. Weaving added the greater part of the final value and was much more labour-intensive; the population of Hoghton, which in 1760 had probably been no more than 300, reached 1300 in 1801 and 2200 in 1831, by which date domestic weaving was probably supporting seven times as many families as the factory spinning and printing. There was also a “size house” for sizing the warp threads before weaving, Richard Coupe being recorded in 1824 as a sizer on Chapel Lane in what later became the Post Office. The Marsdens may therefore have been running from the Tower a bigger business than any of those in the Bottoms, and it is not surprising that the new owners of the middle mill were also involved in the domestic industry, James Bailey “of Hoghton Bottoms” being in partnership with James Livesey of Walton-le-Dale and Thomas Livesey of Blackburn as “cotton manufacturers and cotton spinners.” That partnership was dissolved in 1818 and replaced by one between Bailey and James Livesey, and in 1824 Bailey dropped out leaving the Livesey family in sole charge; by the 1840s it was James Livesey and Son, and the mill had become known as “Livesey’s Factory.” The new company was soon in trouble. On the 19th January 1817 there was a fire which “laid the whole premises in ashes”. Fortunately, there was insurance, and since 1814 it had also owned Moon’s Mill at Higher Walton so was able to relocate workers there. The report says that “the lower storey consisted of dwellings for the convenience of the workpeople” but in reality it is more likely to have been a dormitory for pauper labour, including children. The mill was rebuilt and appears to have been raised from four to six storeys. However, in December 1821 it was gutted again – “such was the rapid progress made by the devouring flames, that the entire valuable machinery, with the whole of the stock, was totally destroyed in the short space of two hours.” A messenger was dispatched to Moon’s Mill for the fire engines but they arrived too late to do anything.
Nearly 200 people were out of work, but the insurance, for £8,700 or about £833,000 in today’s money, rather surprisingly appears to have been paid out, and the mill was rebuilt again. What this says is that Livesey and Bailey had considerable resources and that in the boom years which followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars had been making heavy profits from which they could afford high insurance premiums. There were costs to being in a rural location, but the ground rent was probably lower and as the 1808 advert pointed out “hands may be obtained at very reduced wages.” In addition, of course, any exploitation of pauper child labour was also less likely to attract attention.
However, by 1826 the boom had come to an end, and in May Hoghton Bottoms, with all three establishments idle, was equal first in a national list for relief grants, receiving £250 (£22,000 at today’s prices.) When the workers went back, though, they were still far from happy, and in May 1827 the Blackburn Mail reported that the town’s police had been summoned to Livesey and Co to deal with a “turnout for more wages” by spinners which turned violent. Eight ringleaders were arrested and sent for trial.
And as if the mill’s fire record was not already bad enough, in October 1827 another broke out. However it was in the attic “where the cotton undergoes the first process of cleaning” and by the time a fire engine arrived from Preston the workers had successfully confined it to the upper storeys. The loss was estimated at £2-300, or about £28,000 in modern terms. The insurers must have been relieved. And there was another threat on the horizon. In the early 1820s power looms began to appear in numbers in Blackburn, and the technology spread rapidly. The population of the village collapsed as fast as it had risen, as workers moved to the new weaving mills in the towns; from its peak in 1831, by 1851 it was back to where it had been in 1801.
This had particular implications in Hoghton, as the textile economy had up to then been largely self-contained – the raw cotton came from Manchester, the mills prepared and spun it, the yarn was put out by the “manufacturers” to local handloom weavers, and the cloth then went either first to the printworks or directly back to Manchester, the carters having a payload both ways. However, there were no weaving mills in the Bottoms, so once the domestic industry collapsed the yarn had to be carted to be woven in Blackburn or Preston, the extra transport costs undermining the advantages of the rural location.
The estate had already taken some steps to improve the road system. It is very likely that it played an active role in promoting the Sharples and Hoghton turnpike, the present A675, which was authorised in 1801; the crucial route to Manchester had been somewhat indirect, via Livesey and Darwen to Bolton, but the new road cut the journey by at least 3 miles. It is not entirely clear when Chapel Lane was built. As the Methodist chapel and school were aligned to it it might be assumed that it dates from the early 1790s, but an agreement in the estate papers from 1807 refers to it as the “new road”, giving Roger Anderton of Higher Mill the right to use it in return for giving up his rights over the old road via the Tower to Riley Green. Perhaps the estate began it but then paused when Edward Heaton’s business collapsed. Whenever it was built, Chapel Lane did provide a shorter route to Walton and Preston, and only a slightly longer one to Manchester via the new turnpike, but a longer albeit less hilly one to Blackburn, which was the closest location of powered weaving once access to it was needed. However the estate, or the trustees of the Blackburn-Walton Cop turnpike, or both, appear to have had a plan to deal with that.
Although I have not seen any documentary evidence, it is very clear from the 1845 map that at some point a road had been built from Long Barn, across a bridge (washed away in 2015) at Vale House, and via Throstle Nest Brow to Butler’s Bridge to join what is now the A674 at Feniscliffe. On the modern maps it is still Blackburn Road at Vale House and Tower Road at the Feniscliffe end. This was very clearly a “new build” engineered road rather than an ancient track as it had long straight sections, cut across existing field boundaries and was largely unfenced. It is now followed, as far as Butler’s Bridge, by the return leg of the Beamers’ Trail of the Witton Weavers’ Way. It would have had the effect of reducing the distance from the mills to Blackburn on well-surfaced roads from about 7 miles via Chapel Lane to less than 4 and cutting out the steep climb up Long Barn Brow.
It was not on Hennet’s map, surveyed 1828-9, and was most likely built by the estate in the late 1830s in response to the new geography of weaving; and it may also have been of interest as a short-cut to the trustees of the turnpike, which would have suffered a drastic reduction in income following the opening in 1825 of the shorter Preston New Road. The investment would have seemed worthwhile; as rebuilt after the 1821 fire Livesey’s Mill was at least mid-sized by the standards of the time, ultimately having a footprint of about 90 by 54 yards, a 20hp wheel and an 18hp steam engine, and after the closure in 1831 of the printworks and the destruction in 1836 of Higher Mill it would have been contributing almost all of the estate’s income from the Bottoms. The usefulness of this road was, however, short-lived, and it may never have been fully constructed beyond the two end sections. In June 1847 the Blackburn and Preston Railway was opened for goods traffic, with a goods yard at Hoghton. However, by that time the need to move yarn from the Bottoms to weaving mills had already ceased.
At 11am on Thursday March 19th1846 a fire broke out in the scutching room adjoining Livesey’s Mill. It spread rapidly into the main building, trapping six workers on the sixth floor until they were rescued by the contractors building the new railway viaduct, who had ladders long enough to reach. Fire engines were sent for, but there was not much they could do as within 40 minutes the mill was largely destroyed, “the heat of the fire being so intense that it consumed everything within the walls”. This time it would not be rebuilt. The insurance cover was now for only £7500 but the loss was estimated at £10,000, and in May the salvageable contents were sold off, including the engine and boiler which had been saved by the actions of the first fire crew to arrive, from Samlesbury. Astonishingly, after at least three previous fires the company had still not invested in a fire engine; the Blackburn Standard said that “if one had been on the spot it is possible that a part of the mill might have been saved.”
The sale included the fixtures from 20 cottages now vacant because over 150 workers had lost their jobs and been forced to move elsewhere, and the Liveseys also moved out; the furniture and effects of Thomas, who appears to have been living in Edward Heaton’s old house as it was “immediately adjoining the Hoghton Tower station” were auctioned in October 1846. The cotton industry in the Bottoms would continue for a further 124 years, but from then on it would be on a smaller scale.
1846-1970
It is very doubtful if by 1846 the Hoghton estate was yet showing any profit on its investment in the Bottoms. As there are no obvious references to such a party in subsequent sale notices it is unlikely that it succeeded in 1798 in finding a buyer for the ground rent, so it would still have been reliant on whatever funds it could recover from enterprises which were struggling or stopped for much of the time. The ground leases had, however, expired at the end of January 1841, so it now had a clean sheet, and it seems to have adopted a policy of more active involvement. On February 4th1841 an advert was issued for a “newly erected cotton factory”, built by the estate on the site of Lomax’s abandoned printworks, together with a wheel with 14 feet of fall, and a 12hp steam engine and boiler “in good working order…. the mill, having recently been rebuilt, is in excellent repair, and very suitable for throstle spinning, or power loom weaving.”
It is not absolutely clear how much of the “newly erected factory” was in fact new, but as printing machines were tall and heavy, printworks tended to be mostly single-storey, and the new mill was all two- three- or four-storey suggesting a major rebuild on the existing footprints. It seems likely that engine and boiler came from the printworks as from the description they were clearly not new. It is likely that as part of this development the estate also built a new weir, initially to supplement the existing one. Even if the buildings themselves were not enlarged, each new generation of machinery required more power, and although the village had, via the canal, very good access to coal it made economic sense to maximise use of whatever water power there was. Some time prior to the visit of the anonymous writer (around 1842-4) a new weir had therefore been built further upstream, with a new goit running at a higher level and necessitating, when it was rebuilt, a new wheel and external wheelhouse at first-floor level on the west end of Higher Mill. It created a much bigger upper pond stretching back a third of a mile to Owlet Holes and added about 12 feet to the overall fall, although this would have been mainly to the benefit of Livesey’s and Lower Mills as the fall to the new Higher Mill wheel would have been little different.
The lease for Lower Mill was taken by Cornelius Walmsley, who then equipped it as a weaving mill. He was already there by the time of the 1841 Tithe Survey, and the anonymous writer later visited, passing the derelict bleach works, and finding that the mill “was in full work…here, besides a steam engine, there is a fine water wheel, 18 feet diameter by 9 in width. The rooms in the mill are large and cheerful – principally females are employed at the looms, many of them weaving fabrics of unusual fineness.” The leasing model was now different. The estate built the mill and retained ownership of the buildings, and when I interviewed him at Hoghton Hall in 1966 Mr Moore confirmed that it still owned them. This would both ease the financial pressure on new leaseholders, reducing the risk of early failure, and give the estate more control over things such as insurance and fire precautions, leaving it less vulnerable to reckless or incompetent operators.
Having built one mill the estate then rebuilt another. Higher Mill had been roofless when the anonymous writer passed it, but the 1845 OS survey shows it not yet operating but with a roof, indicating that the rebuild was in progress. Cornelius Walmsley then took this mill also and ran Higher and Lower Mills as a single weaving business. In 1919 Cornelius Walmsley and Sons was replaced by Southworth and Moore, which ran the business until Lower Mill was finally closed in 1970.
The remains of Livesey’s Factory were also reborn as part of the weaving industry, which as the century progressed became the predominant branch of the industry in East and Central Lancashire, with yarn largely sourced from specialist spinners in what is now Greater Manchester, transport costs now being vastly reduced due to the railways. The ground floor became the Vale Shuttle Works, still powered by the enormous wheel which had run a six-storey spinning mill. It made shuttles and other small items for the weaving industry, and in 1854 was being run by W. Bradley, by 1887 by Charles Stephenson. However, although the water power would have given it a cost advantage there were at least ten shuttle makers in Blackburn alone, closer to the customers, and it had ceased working by 1911.
The Walmsleys
Cornelius Walmsley was more experienced than many of those who had previously tried their luck in the Bottoms. When in 1841 he took on the new Lower Mill he was aged 51, and when he died in 1850 the Preston Chronicle described him as “for many years a faithful and highly respectable servant of Messrs Horrockses, Miller and Co” one of the largest firms in the industry. He had then gone into partnership with John Evans at a spinning mill in Chipping in the Ribble Valley, a site even more remote than the Bottoms, and they initially took on Lower Mill together but then decided to go their separate ways – perhaps they realised that it was not practicable to run two mills separated by 17 miles of country lanes. After Walmsley’s death the mills continued to be run by his sons, although in 1866 the younger sons John and Thomas Henry parted company and Cornelius jnr and William carried on as Cornelius Walmsley and Sons Ltd. They were, however, based in Manchester and had other textile interests including at least one other mill so ran the Hoghton business via a manager. After their mother died in 1865 Hoghton Hall was still occupied by their sister Ann.
In March 1868 the mills and house were advertised “to be let.” The intention is not entirely clear, but it seems likely that the brothers, in view of their other interests, wanted to relinquish direct responsibility. However, they carried on, and when Ann died in 1895 the Preston Herald said that “since the death of the head of the firm, the business has been managed mainly by the brothers Messrs Cornelius and William, who reside at Manchester, for their sister Miss Walmsley. She was a lady of independent means but owing to old associations, and out of consideration for the many families depending upon the works, the mills have been kept going regularly.” The brothers still carried on but were now themselves getting very elderly – when Cornelius jnr died in 1900 it was reported that he had been a member of the Manchester Cotton Exchange for over 60 years - and after William died in 1906 at the age of 80 there may no longer have been any active family involvement. In contrast to what had gone before in the Bottoms, the firm’s tenure seems to have been relatively uneventful. However, in November 1904 the central part of Lower Mill, containing boiler, engine and winding room, was gutted. It may not, though, have resulted in a prolonged stoppage as, unusually by that time, the mill still had a wheel to supplement the engine. This was not, though, a sufficient defence when in March 1907 the firm was prosecuted for allowing female employees there to work more than nine hours a day. There was an exemption, but only for mills powered solely by water. The manager argued that “their case was exceptional because they ran mainly by water and were subject to the fluctuations of the river, sometimes being stopped by flood and sometimes by lack of water. They could not run at full speed, and he did not think they averaged nine hours a day at full speed.” This was nonsense, as the mill was over 900 yards and two large ponds away from the river and would not have noticed any fluctuation short of a complete drought. The magistrates found the firm guilty but fined it just £3 – there were probably millowners on the bench.
At least Lower Mill did have an engine - Higher Mill still relied on its wheel alone. These mills were now, by the standards of the industry, very small and old-fashioned – the newest and biggest weaving mills had thousands of steam or electric horsepower driving thousands of looms. And with many hundreds of operatives. At the peak in the early 1820s, when (briefly) all three sites in the Bottoms were working, they had probably employed about 350 in total, but on 1st February 1850 the Walmsleys managed to cram their entire workforce into the Boar’s Head for what the Preston Chronicle described as a “grand banquet” but could more prosaically be described as a dinner dance. The handloom weavers had also gone, and by 1875 the population of the village, which had reached around 2200 in 1830, had bottomed out at about 900 before rising slowly again.
Although the damaged part of Lower Mill was rebuilt and engine and boiler replaced, much of the other machinery was probably obsolete and in 1919 the mills were stopped for several months before new owners took over and began a process of re-equipment.
Southworth and Moore
Absent further research it seems likely that the new owners were the existing managers, as Southworth, Moore and Co Ltd was not formed until November 1919. It had a working capital of £10,000 which would be enough for at least partial re-equipment, but it immediately found itself facing post-war headwinds, the Cotton Factory Times reporting on September 17th 1920 that “Messrs Southworth and Moore’s mill at Hoghton Bottoms, one of the few remaining cotton mills run by a water wheel, and which was reconditioned after a long stoppage some months ago, is now closed on account of trade slackness. Alterations are being made to the driving machinery.”
The main alteration was to replace the wheel at Lower Mill with a turbine. It was still sloshing away, 30 feet below the floor, when I visited in 1966. Mr Moore said that the wheel had been “much slower and not as steady”. The turbine was also much less sensitive to “fluctuations” and could run directly from the goit, so the millpond was no longer needed. Although the wheel at Higher Mill rumbled unsteadily on for another 34 years, there were some changes there too. The original mill was square, not a good shape for a textile mill and especially a three-storey weaving mill as the weavers needed very good light in order to see, and repair, breaks in the warp. In August 1924 the Blackburn Times reported that the new management “have built a skylight in the roof and taken portions of the first and second floors away” reducing the number of looms but creating the desired “top light.” It also noted that the chimney was no longer in use, meaning that electricity had arrived, at least for lighting and heating – electric power was still 30 years away. The reporter assumed that because it had once had a boiler, in the shed next to the wheel, it must have had steam power, but in fact the boiler had just been for heating.
By the 1950s many firms in the industry were investing heavily to stem foreign competition, ultimately to no avail, but some of those which lasted longest were small firms which eked out the remaining life of their elderly machinery and catered for niches in the domestic market, which was still partly protected. In 1966 Mr Moore told me that although their normal orders were for between 100 and 500 pieces, with one lorry journey each week taking cloth to Manchester and bringing back yarn from Oldham, they could accept an order for as little as a single piece, and that as he knew all the trades he could if necessary lay off all the workers and fulfil the order himself.
By that time Higher Mill, which had looms only, other processes being carried out at Lower Mill, had closed, reducing the firm’s capacity by almost 60%. In 1891 it had 274 looms, but by 1966 there were just 72 in three rooms, the newest dating from 1953 and made in Blackburn by Henry Livesey, a familiar surname in the Bottoms. The steam engine had gone in 1956 to be replaced by a 50 hp electric motor, and the 12 Livesey looms had their own motors, but the 1905 boiler, 30 feet long, with mechanical stoker and economiser, was still there, providing steam for sizing and heating. As in most of the industry, staff were becoming even harder to find than customers, and the company had the added handicap of a rural location. Although it still owned all the cottages in the Bottoms, 32 in all, most of its workforce no longer lived in them. In April 1960 it advertised in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph for two weavers, “transport provided from bus route to mill and return” and its minibus was a regular sight in the village in the mornings and evenings. By 1966 it had just 23 workers. It carried on working for four more years, finally being liquidated in April 1971. The notice said that “all creditors have been, or will be, paid in full.” In the 192-year history of the industry in the Bottoms that was a rare achievement.
Postscript
Although it eventually survived almost to the end of cotton in Lancashire, the first 68 years of the industry in the Bottoms were little short of disastrous. Whatever vision Edward Heaton and the 6th baronet might have had in 1778, a long succession of bankruptcies and fires meant that the potential of the site, which had level land, plentiful water power, and adequate transport links, was never realised. Although such events were common in the early industry, the chain of them in the Bottoms was exceptional and points to poor judgement, incompetence or recklessness on the part of many of the key figures involved. Heaton’s achievements were, however, considerable, and his bankruptcy may have been due to events beyond his control; given his likely connections, it could well have been triggered by the much bigger failure three years earlier of Livesey, Hargreaves and Co, which sent ripples through the entire industry. Frequent stoppages and closures, over and above those caused by trade fluctuations, meant that life for the families dependent on the businesses was always precarious, and it is clear from newspaper reports that the level of poverty in the Bottoms was often extreme even by the standards of the time, and mitigated only by charity. The nearest alternative employment being at least four miles away, the choice was between a long walk or moving, and a settled community could never have been established.
The Hoghton estate would have made little or no return on its investment in water power and roads but was hamstrung by the terms of the leases which gave it no control over the individual businesses. It would also have suffered a heavy loss of rent income as the domestic weaving industry collapsed and the weavers moved to the towns. However, in parallel with concerted efforts to upgrade the farms in the village, after the leases expired in 1841 it took a much more active role in its industry, rebuilding both then-derelict sites and bringing in Cornelius Walmsley, who had the competence and experience which many of his predecessors appear to have lacked.
His efforts, though, could not compensate for the loss in 1846 of the largest mill, Livesey’s. Thereafter the population of the Bottoms would be much smaller but more stable, and a close-knit community developed around the mills, supported by a benevolent employer. I was told in 1966 that a derelict three-storey building at the east end of the Lower Mill site had once been used as a social centre for the village.
However, by the end of the 19th century benevolence had become benign neglect. By the end of World War One the mills had become obsolete and were closed for some time before being revived under new management. Surprisingly they carried on even as the rest of the Lancashire industry went into decline, but by the 1960s it was catching up with them too. When in 1966 I visited the surviving Lower Mill, although by then the steam engine had been gone ten years and there were fluorescent lights and a few modern looms, it felt like a museum and it was clear that the elderly owners would not be able to carry on much longer.
Now there is very little left to see of an industry which lasted nearly 200 years. Lower Mill has completely disappeared apart from the office and stable, now dwellings; in 1966 the stable housed the lorry, still smartly painted with the company’s name. All that is left of Higher Mill is a house constructed from the first two storeys of the original building, which may go back to the early 1780s, and of the once-extensive Livesey’s Mill and later shuttle works there is just the former cart shed, now being converted.
Blackburn Road is now a cul-de-sac, the bridge having been swept away in 2015, but much of the water infrastructure is still there, hidden beneath the trees. The water in it, though, is clean. Even in 1966 the river was grey and pungent, and I can still remember the stench which hit me in Lower Mill when Mr Moore opened the hatch to show me the turbine, but it must have been vastly worse before Darwen and Blackburn got sewage works and the river was an open sewer for over 100,000 people.
The most visible survivals are the dwellings, the former cottages of the workers and the larger houses of the owners; Edward Heaton’s house is a ruin, but Hoghton Hall survives, as does Vale House which is Grade 2 Listed. It is now difficult to imagine the valley as it must have been at its industrial peak in the early 1820s, dominated at its centre by a six-storey mill, with smoking chimneys, rattling machines, carts bumping along, and home to hundreds crammed into cottages and working long hours in the mills or printworks or at a handloom.
RH v6 2/2/26
rogerhargreaves20@gmail.com
