The Weaver Refining Co Ltd

Riparian Manufactory, Acton Bridge & Witton Brook

 

caution !! ... this is an initial draft of a story about my great grandfather's refining company ... there are still many errors, omissions and inaccuracies ... perhaps someone will make some welcome corrections ... ?

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NB I only keep these notes on my website so I don't loose them !  Here is a summary of the pages ...

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During the 18th & 19th centuries the ancient crafts of rural Cheshire were slowly industrialised. Innovative products & technologies were introduced exploiting the synergies of specialisation & scale which made mass production in factories profitable.

As enterprising folk wrestled with the new fangled problems of production, new factory locations were discovered wherever & whenever opportunities arose -

raw material availability?

proximity of markets & customers?

and the quality & costs of capital, land, energy, labour & transport? 

... but the economics of these factory systems were also bound up with the recovery or disposal of waste ... waste & trouble were inevitable, the 2nd law of thermodynamics saw to that! ... and it was always a competitive struggle, there was no other way that Darwin's natural selection could work!

For the entrepreneurs waste & trouble seemed to load the dice against them. Folk soon forgot about the inevitable profusion of expensive failures from the trials & errors and then, when a few experimental innovations were successful, the resultant profits were described as 'obscene' ... the murky result of a 'casino' of exploitation ... but risk takers like edward hindley knew it wasn't luck ... he knew 'the harder he tried the luckier he got' ... he knew about 'hard work, honesty & thrift' ... he knew about 'education & compound interest' ... Edward's factory processed rotting cows ... 

So why a manufactory at Acton Bridge?

The history of the riparian factory site at Acton Bridge goes back a long long way ...

The old spelling of Acton is Actun; Ac (Saxon) meaning 'oak', and tun meaning 'farm or place' - so we have 'Oak Place' or 'a place in the oak forest'.

The Acton area was described by George Ormerod (1785-1873) in his History of Cheshire as, 'a district consisting principally of fine meadow ground sloping to the banks of the Weever and not destitute of pleasing undulations of surface or fine timber which here, receiving protection from the sea breezes, begins to attain its wonted luzuriancy where deer range from the forest to the banks of the Weever'.

After the conquest Acton was part of the Weaverham parish and at Domesday the Earl of Chester and his cohorts owned most of the land and later some was passed to the Abbots of Vale Royal by Edward I.

Relentlessly land ownership ebbed and flowed as title resulted from the vagaries of successful warfare, patronage, inheritance, contrived marriage and, above all, tax raising capacity ... there was no point in owning unproductive land ... and almost inevitably there were constant disputes between rival Lords and Abbots over access to the taxes ...

In the reign of Henry VIII the church lost some of its influence and lands were redistributed. At this time Ormerod writes, 'Sir Peter Dutton held the Manor of Acton from the King as part of his manor of Weaverham by military service and the tithes of geese, pigs, hemp and flax in Acton were paid to the Lord of Dutton'.

During the Civil War in the 17th century it was the turn of the lords to lose influence. The king's supporters were responsible for 'all manor of outrages and intolerable taxes. They plundered Weaverham and the country about, carried off old men out of their houses, bound them together, tied them to a cart and rove them through mire and water to that dungeon, where they lie without fire or light and now through extremities so diseased, they are ready to give up the ghost'.

Dissolution or war, hanging onto land proved to be fraught with difficulty, and to survive the land had to be productive. Many people had a go and a string of landowner names were recorded around Acton Bridge. There was never any fun or reward in ploughing through the mesmerising mass of imperfectly recorded ownership titles as decades flashed by, often owners had the same forenames generation after generation, often with male lines becoming extinct and always with a lot of interbreeding and propitious marriages as incumbents frantically tried to keep their estates together ... and then there was the ignominy of a forced sales to upstarts with no pedigree ...

ormerod tells of the sequence of land titles at Acton from Sir Peter Thornton, to Vale Royal, to the Duttons of Dutton, passed to the Gerards, to the Fleetwoods, sold to Scrace ... and after such turmoil Nicholas Ashton emerged as a considerable landowner ... but other names were around - the Warburtons, Leycesters & Smith-Barrys, then the Parrs, Lyons & Gandys - and in 1640 some of the lands at Acton Bridge became part of the Milner Estate and remained so until 1918 when the properties were sold off to individual householders & businesses.

But names don't matter. Ownership tells us little about the economic activities on the land, and with the animals, which generated the wealth for folk to scrape out a living and pay their taxes.

For centuries Cheshire folk farmed. The damp climate and the hills & hollows of the topography tended to favour pasturing over arable farming so inevitably Cheshire specialised in animal husbandry ... not sheep which were favoured in other counties but cows. The animals and associated crafts were always important and things meandered slowly ... until industrialisation ...

In the 18th century Acton Bridge was a small rural farming community but change was in the air, populations were rising, there were many mouths to feed and feet to be shod, more food and more shoes were required and farming and shoemaking were not immune from change. 

In addition to farms and cows, Cheshire had salt. Industrialisation was a complex process but rural Cheshire and the river Weaver led the 18th century effort to supply much needed alkali for the new industries of soap making & glass making, and the calicos from the mills around Manchester needed washing, bleaching & printing. The exploding cities of nearby Liverpool, Manchester, Warrington, St Helens and Widnes needed soda ash & bleaching powder ... and both were made from salt.

The youngsters were looking for new jobs in new factories ... they paid better ... manure factories, shoe factories and chemical factories sprang up and some folk, like Edward Hindley, a local Barnton man, abandoned their traditional shoemaking craft and ventured into manufacturing ...

Access to cheap bulk transport and water power.

Adam Smith noted in 'The Wealth of Nations' in 1776 - 'by means of water carriage, a more extensive market is opened to every sort of industry than what land carriage alone can afford it, so it is upon the sea coast and along the banks of navigable rivers that industry of every kind naturally begins to subdivide and improve itself ...'

The merchants of liverpool made several attempts to open up the river Weaver for trade, there were no ruts, mud nor broken axles on the canals! Thwarted by the Cheshire gentry and land carriers, who anticipated revenue loss to the new navigation, the necessary Act of Parliament was not secured until 1721. The initial work was completed in 1734 when the Weaver Navigation started to provide cheap bulk transport for cargoes from the salt industry in Northwich & Winsford to the Mersey estuary and the port of Liverpool. Pack horses to the Mersey used to carry 200lbs, the payload of a 'Weaver flat', a sailing or horse drawn barge, was now 35 tons.

But it was not only salt; other commercial activities began to exploit the facilities available at Acton Bridge. The original wooden lock and associated weir of the Navigation provided a usable head of water of about 4 feet which lasted until the Dutton locks were operational around 1882. The Dutton locks replaced the Acton locks and secured big improvements to a busy waterway, but at a stroke the new project raised the water level and removed the head at Acton Bridge.

Local historian Colin Edmondson has confirmed from The Weaver Navigation records, that the loss of water power at the Acton Bridge factory site ended a series of altercations involving the conflicting interests of the site tenants and the River Weaver Navigation Trustees -

1781 6th September - the minute books of the trustees noted an agreement for water to be taken from the weir for a proposed cotton mill belonging to Daniel Whittaker & Co of Manchester.
1800 locks report - the name forge appeared for the first time.
1804 October - a complaint was recorded about water being drawn from the weir at Acton Forge and at Frodsham Mills.
1806 November - a sill was to be provided at the head of the Acton Bridge Forge cut to prevent the water level being drawn down below the weir head.
1807 locks report - confirmed a 'forge' at the weir site.
1817 October - notice was given to Acton Forge stating that unless the sluice was kept in repair, the water course leading to it would be shut up.
1843 - the tithe maps of Cheshire indicated that John Budd was the tenant of the mill site and had his 'zinc works and yard' there. Budd was also the tenant of a second site a few dozen yards up river, consisting of 'yards, gardens & buildings', the land was owned by Mr Dennis Milner.
1844 June - Mr Ewbank, occupier of Acton Forge, drew off water from the Acton pond so low that several down flats missed the tide and up river flats were delayed several hours ... engineers were instructed to erect a dam across the water course leading to the wheel of the forge, the same height as the weir so as to prevent drawing water from below the weir cap.
1850 Bagshaws Directory of Cheshire - the river Weaver at Acton Bridge was crossed by a bridge of two arches, near to the Acton Zinc Works and Saw Mills of Messrs Richard Lloyd and Co.
1857 Post Office Directory of Cheshire - Maude W E & Co, Zinc Rolling Mill, Acton Bridge.
1864 January - Acton Forge was using water required for navigation ... they were to be reminded that they used water under sufferance.
1864 October - Acton Forge ... unless Mr Milner gave permission to put a clow on his land between the river and the works which was to be under Navigation control, the trustees would take proceedings to protect their interests. If permission was not given within two weeks, a stone dam was to be constructed to stop the flow of water to the wheel clough.
1864 Morris & Co's Directory of Cheshire - W E Maude & Co, Zinc Rolling Mill, Acton Bridge.
1865 January - the clerk reported that the dam had been made.
1865 May - Milner consented to a clow on his land.
1875 - the Anderton Boat Lift provided access for narrow boats to the Trent and Mersey canal and the heart of industrial England and London.
1876 July 1st - an article in the Northwich Guardian reported the launch of the Lowwood coaster ‘Leven’ by the Wincham Company, to be followed by trials in October & November and at sea in December.
1877 OS map - showed the Acton Mill site as a Manure Works and the second site a few yards upstream as a Saltpetre Works.  The map showed the paired locks and weir stream by the island and just above the locks the weir site adjacent to Island Cottage.
1880 November - the clerk was to write to Messrs Milner and Maude, owner & lessee of Acton Mills, to inform them that the level of the water will be raised in the next few months when Dutton Locks were commissioned.
1881 June - water power at Acton Mills was to be independently valued.
1881 July - water now flowed through Dutton sluices but the level had not yet been raised due to the arrangements with Acton Mills not being finalised. Mr Leader Williams was appointed arbitrator.
1881 October - Acton Mills were still delaying the appointment of an arbitrator. They were to be given notice to do so within 14 days or the Engineer was to proceed with the works.
1881 December - it was agreed to pay £1,680 compensation to Acton Mills including costs. (£1.95 million in today's money).
1881 - Acton Mill machinery was removed for Mr Maude, a shed and boiler were raised.
1881 General Accounts Books, Weaver Navigation - the Lowwood Gunpowder Co were using Winnington Wharf, 76tons quarter of coal, also 170 tons of coal were recorded in the Northwich tonnage records.
1882 February - Northwich tonnage records confirm 60 tons saltpetre refuse using the dock.
1882 - £1,680 was paid to Acton Mill as compensation for the loss of water power.
1882 - Engineering reported parts of Acton Mills were raised.

During this period of water power from around 1734 to 1882 the Acton Mill site was owned by the Milner Estate and had a series of tenants. With these records as a guide the history of the factory site at Acton Bridge can now begin to be pieced together.

In 1734 the initial Navigation project involved constructing 11 wooded locks & weirs along the natural course of the river. A water head of about 4 feet would have been available at the Acton Bridge site.

It was 1781 before there was any mention of activity at the weir site. On September 6th Daniel Whittaker's aborted plan for a cotton mill was recorded. But who was Daniel Whittaker?

Daniel Whittaker (1738-93) was born in Rostherne, Altrincham in 1738, and married Esther Boardman at Manchester Parish Church on  November 1st 1756. They had fourteen children. One of the children, Mary, was baptised on 25 January 1769 at St Mary's Manchester. Mary was the second wife of peter holland (1766-1855), a Knutsford Surgeon, and they were married on 21 January 1809 at Walcot in Somerset. Peter was a considerable man, a second cousin of Charles Darwin (who was also Josiah Wedgwood's grandson), a pioneer of occupational medicine, and advisor to The Quarry Bank Mill and to the Leycesters of Tabley. Stella Davies tells of Dr Holland's attention to those in need in mid-Cheshire and also confirms that his enterprising son was the Henry Holland who reported to wrote at length about Cheshire agriculture in 1808.

At St John's in Knutsford there was a monument inscribed -

'Esther Whittaker, widow of the late Daniel Whittaker of Manchester, died January 26th 1813 aged 80. Mary wife of Peter Holland, Surgeon, died August 5th 1840 aged 71 and Catharine, daughter of Daniel and Ester Whittaker, died August 30th 1844 aged 85 years.'

Hunter's 'Familiae Minorum Gentium', Harleian Society, Volume 37, MS 133, page 301 reports that Mary Whitaker's father was incorrectly recorded to be Jememiah Whitaker and this name has been perpetuated in Burke's Peerage and elsewhere? ...

But Daniel Whittaker & Co from Manchester were well known in the cotton trade. In 1782 Daniel Whittaker was identified as a Manchester merchant and a member of The Committee of Trade in Manchester. Whittaker's tentative initiative at Acton Bridge was early on in the development of Manchester's cotton spinning dominance. Prior to the 1780s Congleton, Macclesfield and Stockport were the leading mill towns in the North West.

No doubt Whittaker would have been well aware that on the 6th of April 1780 Messrs Cockshott & Co of Macclesfield asked the committee for permission to use waste water from the Northwich weir for their manufactory in the cotton branch'. Furthermore around the same time peter drinkwater from Manchester was following Arkwright's success and moving into cotton milling. He found a suitable opportunity and in 1782 he purchased the cockshott mill, 'a situation on the River Weaver which, for water and hands, cannot be exceeded by any in the Kingdom'!

1780 was very early in the days of cotton spinning in the mills and the northwich mill was one of the influential pioneers - 1771 Arkwright at Cromford - 1777 John Smalley at Holywell - 1780 Cockshott at Northwich - 1781 Whittaker proposal at Acton Bridge - 1785 Whittaker at Holywell, David Dale at New Lanark - 1789 Drinkwater at Manchester - 1799 Robert Owen at New Lanark, after marrying Caroline Dale.

The Northwich mill owned by Drinkwater from 1782 was still operating in 1797 when proposed improvements to Witton Brook were being planned which had consequences for the water head at the Northwich weir.

(NB supervising the Northwich Mill was young Robert Owen, a brilliantly successful factory manager but one who could never accept some of the inhuman consequences of the factory system as machines took over the productive output of labour. What would he have made of computers and the demise of manufacturing?! Today few folk realise the enormous effects of mechanised cotton spinning. Thirteen days of labour used to be required to produce a pound of cotton thread. Thousands and thousands of girls (spinsters!) sat in the corner of their parlours, humming their way through hours and hours at the spinning wheels of the 'putting out' system. Daniel Whittaker, Peter Drinkwater, Richard Arkwright, James Watt and their colleagues destroyed that system, at a stroke, with their new fangled mechanical devices ... a devastating rearrangement of the economic life of the nation ... the factory system was the industrial revolution ... and it worried Robert Owen ... clearly Adam Smith's 'moral sentiments' and David Ricardo's 'comparative advantage' were difficult and rather counterintuitive ideas ... Robert Owen made his plea for the idyllic past in 1815 ... )

The good story was told by w h chaloner.

The best lead on Daniel Whittaker comes from his involvement in The Cotton Twist Company of Holywell. Just over three years after his appraisal of the Acton Bridge site he invested in much bigger things in the greenfield valley in Flintshire ...

There is little doubt that Daniel abandoned his plans for investment at Acton Bridge because he had found a better bet in Holywell ... 16 ft of water, high flying partners and a magnificent new cotton mill ... with diversification into corn milling ... and a 'Black Jack' works ... it appears that Daniel Whittaker was involved in the smelting of zinc in Holywell long before John Budd's enterprise at Acton Bridge (see below) ... Acton Bridge was a promising site but no match for the torrents of St Winefride!

The christopher greenwood map of Cheshire from 1819 clearly identifies a 'forge' at Acton Bridge. Peter Burdett's map of 1777. forty years earlier, shows nothing? By 1831 andrew bryant's map shows the forge again but also 'Gibsons Warf' and a little further up stream a 'coal wharf'? ... gibsons wharf was almost certainly where the Northwich to Liverpool packet service called to collect passengers, nicholas bower had his packet inn at Acton Bridge ... the Leigh Arms ... 

Around 1800 the first site occupant of the 'forge' was likely to have been a local blacksmith who set up shop to take advantage of the water head to power his hammers and bellows. 'Forge' was the generic name for a local work place for iron fabrication ... horse shoes, nails, pickels, spades, scythes & sickles, gate irons, chains, plough 'sucks', wheel 'strokes', fire grates ... power probably came from a small 10hp breast shot wheel. The forge would have been a coal fired reverberatory furnace producing 'puddled' wrought iron from pig iron. It's a safe bet that Flintshire pig iron was used at the forge and the source would have been John Wilkinson's blast furnace at bersham? Water driven trip hammers could forge much larger quantities of pig iron into wrought iron then could be done manually. The after heating red hot pig iron was pounded by the trip hammer as the water wheel raised and drops it.

From 1808 there was multiple occupancy of the Acton Bridge site, not only was there useful power but also opportunities at the wharf for bulk cargoes to be discharged and stored before distribution. In 1808 Henry Holland's book 'General View of the Agriculture of Cheshire' advertised that 'Good lime, brought by the Staffordshire canal in iron boats from the neighbourhood of Leek, may be purchased at the wharf at Acton Bridge at sixpence the bushel'. And 'The Agricultural History of Cheshire 1750-1850' by Clarice Stella Spencer Davies recalled that 'Lime could be purchased at the Acton Bridge wharf, near Northwich for 6d a bushel, but a four mile land carriage would increase the cost to 8d'. This confirms the dramatic cost advantages of bulk transport by the waterways. The riparian site at Acton Bridge was a valuable property! 

By 1843 the tithe maps of Cheshire show a 'zinc works' at Acton Bridge owned by a Mr John Budd?

Why a 'Zinc Works' in the middle of rural Cheshire?

The zinc connection goes back to the early industrialists in Flintshire and capital investment in new metal smelting technology. These early pioneers were primarily interested in lead ores but the processing of zinc became profitable around the turn of the 19th century and it was the availability of cheap zinc that inspired a young Liverpool metal merchant to invest at Acton Bridge.

In 1835 John Budd (1810-18??) developed a patent involving the use of a zinc alloy (zinc 100/tin 10) for the manufacture of printing cylinders for cotton, calico, silk and other fabrics. This alloy was considerably cheaper in material and manufacturing costs than the established copper alternative.

In 1836 Budd formed a partnership with cooper ewbank to exploit zinc metal applications at Acton Bridge Mills. The firm 'Budd & Ewbank' was funded by another partnership 'Ewbank & Cordes', owned by Henry Ewbank (1787-1859), Cooper's uncle, and James Jamieson Cordes (1798-1867) who manufactured the ewbank nail.

In 1837 zinc applications were given a fillip with the invention of galvanised iron. This invention led to new markets for the zinc works. Clearly the young partners had printing cylinders and galvanised nails in mind when they started their partnership in 1836. But there was trouble at the mill ...

Obviously tempted by the rosy prospects of cheap zinc and attractive products, in 1841 Henry Ewbank sued the partnership for bankruptcy in the vain hope of unseating John Budd and leaving the Acton Bridge riches in sole possession of his nephew. On Jan 20th 1841 at the court of bankruptcy Sir J Cross found with costs against the petitioning creditor. Bankruptcy laws were designed to protect creditors from loss they didn't enable them to usurp the profits!

In the 1841 Census, John Budd aged 30, a Merchant was living at Mt Pleasant, Liverpool. Perhaps this was a lodging house as 15 people were resident. The 1851 Census records John Budd aged 41 as born at Truro, Cornwall in 1810, unmarried. A merchant in metals and visitor at Kenyon Terrace, Birkenhead. With him in Birkenhead was his mate Thomas Bevan, 45 years old born in Morriston, Glamorgan.

In 1853 Gore's Directory of Liverpool lists John Budd & Thomas Bevan's metal brokerage. Thomas was a solicitor and a long time friend and colleague of John Budd, helping him in the court case against Henry Ewbank in 1841.

Significantly Slater's Trade Directory of 1850 confirmed that the Zinc Works also had an agent and representative in Bristol, edward grevile, who helped to promote and sell the products from the Acton Bridge Mills nationally. Edward was a force, the 1841 census found him, at 19, studying at St John's, Oxford. He had married Agnes in 1844 and by 1851 they were in Clifton with a flourishing family, Frances (1848-) and twins, Florence (1850-) & Frank (1850-). Edward was described as a 'Public Accountant & Commission Agent'. Frank went on to be a successful surgeon in Salford.

bristol was an established centre for the metal trades in the early days and students of the 'industrial revolution' should ponder why it was that Bristol in the south west, after an initial promising start, did not maintain its dominant position as a trade centre and was usurped by Liverpool and Manchester in the north west and Birmingham in the midlands?

The Zinc operations at Acton Bridge worked by John Budd & Cooper Ewbank were a consequence of the investments of the lead smelters in Flintshire who took advantage of new technology for the smelting of zinc ores pioneered in Bristol. They produced 'the spelter of commerce' which was traded and exploited by merchants like Budd & Bevan in Liverpool. This was a story of enterprise in science ...

Industrialised lead smelting in Flintshire was started by the london lead company at Gadlys and by 1849 one quarter of all lead mined in the UK was smelted in Flintshire in coal fired reverberatory furnaces concentrated at Bagillt and Flint. But by 1840 lead smelting had fallen on hard times ... cheap importation was a constant threat.

 Lead and zinc ores were found together in Flintshire limestones but the local practice had always been to reject the zinc ores as useless waste because zinc smelting was a problem. The production technology for the extraction of zinc metal was unknown in Europe and other countries in the western world, until William Champion produced zinc from its ore in Bristol in 1750.

william champion (1709–1789) unwittingly offered the lead smelters of Flintshire a life line ... and, significantly, Thomas Pennant records that as early as 1758 in the valley from Holywell to the sea 'Edward Pennant Esq granted a lease of it to Mr Champion, partner in the Warmley Company of Bristol, who there calcined 'black jack'. He was the first who engaged in such a concern in this country, which carried on under the protection of a patent'.

Champion's invention led to opportunities for new zinc works which could exploit the accumulated waste dumps from centuries of lead mining. As foreign competition started to erode profitability in the lead industry, the mining and preparation of zinc provided fruitful employment for capital which was ceasing to be productive. Profitable zinc could now be recovered from waste dumps!

Following the lead of The London Lead Company and bankers like john freame, a new breed of capitalists opened up new scale & techniques of production in Flintshire. One industry after another responded to the inputs of capital & technology which characterised the industrial revolution and typical were two new zinc works were opened in Greenfield and Bagillt in the 1840s.

In 1842 william crockford (1775-1844) opened a new spelter process at Greenfield. Was the Greenfield Spelter Works, Holywell, Flintshire supplying spelter through the Liverpool brokers to the Acton Bridge zinc works? Or was it one of the other zinc smelters operating at that time -

Bagillt Zinc Smelting Co Ltd, Mold, Flintshire - National Archives - BT 31/3056/17373 - 1882 ??

minera mine - Wrexham ??

alfred courage & co ??

Walker, Parker & Co ??

Whoever the supplier, the 'waste' zinc ores from Halkyn were converted in the furnaces of these companies into 'the spelter of commerce' ... zinc metal ingots ... some of which were shipped via the Flintshire wharfs on the Dee to the rolling mills at the Acton Bridge factory site on the Weaver.

'The Northwich Tonnage Book of Goods & Coals', records of the River Weaver Navigation, indicate that in 1842/43 The Anderton Carrying Company were regularly shipping zinc and bones in the Weaver flats 'Bee', 'Despatch', 'Davenham', 'Pigott', 'Shamrock', 'Thistle' and 'Yankee' up the river to the Acton Bridge wharf. The Anderton Carrying Company ran a fleet of Weaver flats from the Anderton basin, Daisy Bank Lane, opposite the Winnington Works, right on the Anderton boat lift site.

But what was the shipping route from the smelters to John Budd's mill around 1840? Round the peninsular to Liverpool and then Weston Point on the Weaver or via silts of the Dee to Chester and the canal of 1795 to Ellesmere Port and then the Weaver?

For sure road transport was not on. With impoverished and ineffective central governments, the North Wales roads were a joke. Even in less remote Cheshire, the roads had never been satisfactory since the times of Roman elegance. Inspired land owners, and even enterprising innkeepers, had tried their best and from 1750 the Turnpike Trusts also tried to tackle the job. But serving the needs of local farmers and through traffic to & from London proved difficult ... and there remained a stolid Anglo Saxon resistance to 'state control' and the inevitable intrigue and corruption as London bureaucrats spent other folks' money ... in spite of Telford's expertise and showers of money the roads never really made it ... although eventually by the 19th century, pack horses and sledges had slowly given way to wagons and even scheduled coaches ...

The Dee estuary was another problem. Canalisation in 1737 had been a flop, expensively pushing a new port at Connah's Quay at the expense of Flint, Bagillt, Greenfield and Mostyn. The investors in the Dee canal made their money, not from the canal but from reclamation of vast areas of marsh land around the new cut which now became available for rental. The London Lead Company had opposed the improvements to the Dee, they already had a reliable shipping route for their lead from Bagillt via the cheese ships of Parkgate. The Bagillt creek retained traffic and a daily Bagillt to Liverpool steam packet was established in 1821.

Long before 1840 the Dee and Chester had lost out to the flourishing deepwater facilities in Liverpool. Thomas Pennant recorded that the Greenfield Valley hosted the 'great behemoths of commerce' like thomas williams, and he confirmed the dominance of the Greenfield to Liverpool route, 'the number of vessels immediately employed by the copper companies on the river (our little Jordan), to convey the several manufactures, or materials, to and from Liverpool, and other places connected with them, amounts to between 30 and 40, from 30 to 50 tons burden'.

 Clearly as John Budd was a Liverpool metal broker and the sands of the Dee were impassable, he would have sourced his spelter through the exchanges in Liverpool and shipped it across the Mersey to the Weaver Navigation and up to Acton Bridge.

Liverpool and Liverpool merchants dominated the development of the riparian sites on the River Weaver. And from 1837 the Acton Bridge Mill Site claimed another fortuitous advantage ... it was only a mile or so from the new Birmingham, Crewe to Warrington railway via Acton Station ...

The Acton mills functioned around the clock six days a week. Perhaps unhealthy by today's standards but they gave good work and good prospects to the inhabitants of Acton Bridge. The spelter with up to 1% lead impurities was heated to 100 - 150 degrees C where it was malleable and ideal for rolling into sheets and cylinders. Iron increased the hardness of the zinc and was undesirable. The Halkyn ores were <0.15% iron and ideal but the merchants of Liverpool would have sourced their 'spelter of commerce' from a variety of competing sources.  John Budd was a smart cookie ...

Thus the commercial rationale for the 'zinc works' at Action Bridge involved cheap waste from the lead spoils of Halkyn as input and the valuable zinc products for the Manchester cotton printing industry as output ... it was a successful business. The essential business strategy was the application of patentable technology for the exploitation of waste material to produce innovative products serving a growth industry.

The tithe maps of Cheshire indicated that John Budd was operating his zinc works in 1843 but by 1850 Bagshaws Directory of Cheshire names richard lloyd & Co as the zinc works proprietors, which now included a saw mill. The 1853 Gore's Directory of Liverpool indicates Richard Lloyd was in partnership with W E Maude, a Liverpool merchant and commission agent. maude & lloyd had offices in Peel Buildings at 3 Harrington Street. Although John Budd was still in the metal broking business at this time, it seems he sold the Acton Bridge Rolling Mills sometime between 1843 and 1850. By 1857 the Post Office Directory just lists w e maude & co, at the Acton Bridge site. A dusty report from the law times indicated William Maude & Richard Lloyd parted company in 1854 ... I wonder why?

Francis White & Co, History, Gazetteer &  Directory of Cheshire in 1860 describes W E Maude's zinc works adjacent to the stone bridge as 'extensive' and names their local representative as Thomas Priestly.

The Weaver tonnage records also indicate that in 1860/61 W E Maude & Co were shipping both zinc and bones in the Weaver flats 'John & Mary', 'Croydon', 'William', 'Sarah' and 'Garside' up the river to the Acton Bridge wharf.

It appears that William Edward Maude was not only exploiting the economics of waste associated with lead spoils which John Budd had initiated but he had also diversified into a multitude of profitable by products associated with waste from the animal carcase!

The mill by the weir was cashing in on the water head and hot rolling ingots of zinc and grinding bones for chemical manures. When the water level was raised in 1882 and water power ceased, Maude's compensation of £1,680 would have financed a coal fired steam driven mill or retirement?

Who was this guy, william edward maude?

Why a Manure Works?

Cheshire cows had long been linked with Cheshire salt to produce scrumptious Cheshire cheese and their posthumous gift of leather to the shoe makers was established in antiquity and then at the start of the 19th century the ubiquitous cow made another contribution to the farming revolution. 

In 1813 'Elements of Agricultural Chemistry' by Sir Humphrey Davy recommended the use of bones as a form of manure. Chemistry was beginning to be applied to farming. The importance of a balance of nitrogen, phosphate & potassium in the soil to increase yields was being pinned down and bone meals, acid phosphates and sulphate of ammonia began to appear as chemical manures.

1874 Morris & Co Directory of Cheshire identified the two works as Astles, Thomas & John, and The Lowwood Gunpowder Company.

In 1876 Worrall's Directory confirmed William Maude was owner of the manure business and John Astles was the manager.

1877 O S map showed the land at Acton Bridge was occupied by a 'manure works' and a 'saltpetre works'.

1878 Post Office Directory listed the 'manure works' as the business of Thomas Astles, Acton, Northwich - Bone Grinders.

In 1879 the Farmer & Gardeners Almanack advertised - acton bridge FFF bone meal - 'Full Particulars of Analysis Supplied to Intending Purchasers. Prices and Terms on application. Thomas Astles, Acton Bridge Bone Mills, Weaverham'.

1883 Slater's Directory of Cheshire & Liverpool noted Mr Thomas Astles, Winnington under 'Nobility, Gentry & Clergy'. And Thomas Astles as a 'Salt Manufacturer' - 'Astles, Thomas (brine agent), Anderton'.

Thomas Astles (1833-1918) was a pillar of the local community, an enterprising Mechanical Engineer who ran a corn milling & bone grinding business at Acton Bridge and a brine pumping operation in Anderton. He was born in Winnington in 1833 on top of the Cheshire salt deposits. He married Harriet Reader in 18?? and his step daughter Mary Elizabeth helped out as a Clerk in the Acton Bridge factory. The family lived on the site at Acton Bridge Mill House and his daughter Mary Adelaide married the Foreman at the saltpetre works next door, Mr William Wakefield.

It is likely that Thomas & John Astles subleased the Acton mill from W E Maude sometime before 1874 and when the Weaver lost water power in 1882 due to the new Dutton locks a decision on whether to invest in steam would be necessary.

Tommy Astles was ideally qualified to handle the introduction of steam at Acton Bridge, he was a practiced 'mechanical and steam engineer' and had been running steam engines for brine pumping at Anderton for some time. Not only did he understand the technology, but he also championed the manufacturers case which balanced the riches of the industrial revolution and the common law of nuisance.

In 1869 this balance occupied Tommy Astles, the Magistrates at Daresbury and the royal sanitary commission at Westminster ...

What a kerfuffle ... but in retrospect Thomas Astles came out well ... he was not only developing technology that turned rotting cow waste into jobs, manures, glues and gelatines, but also well aware of the cost of the residual waste of incomplete combustion and was actively working with the Engineers Society of Salford on technology to consume smoke ... the Magistrates seemed to be floundering as they wrestled with the associated law of nuisance ... with hindsight it is clear the problems of pollution and disease which righty occupied the Royal Commission in 1869 were solved by understanding the science and developing the appropriate technology ...  

Although Maude had been compensated for the loss of water power, the economics of milling at Acton Bridge were changing, steam power was now cheap & available everywhere but there were nuisance costs and the rotten cow business produced much of value but had an unenviable reputation with local residents ...

At this time Cornwall Colliery in Tasmania were recruiting engineers to manufacture and install a much needed tramway for transporting coal. Big projects were afoot and Thomas was tempted ...

In 1884 the family split up and Thomas and step daughter Mary Elizabeth Reader emigrated to tasmania in search of fame and fortune, his son Hugh (1865-1911) followed two years later. Tommy applied his skills to building tramways for coal at the cornwall colliery which started mining in 1886 when the branch railway from St Mary's to Conara was opened. Tramways were needed down Mount Nicholas to the railway siding. The tramway worked on a gravity system where the loaded carts pulled the empty ones back up and ran a distance of about 1 mile. No engine was required, just a braking system. Just Tommy's cup of tea! Maybe some of the engineering work was done in England and shipped out, this would have kept him busy from 1882 until he went to Tasmania in 1884? At the time the prospects at Acton Bridge & Anderton probably seemed paltry and burdensome in comparison to Tasmania where new mines were being discovered including silver, tin, lead, gold and high grade iron ore, many dependent on coal from Cornwall Colliery.

Hugh followed his father into engineering, training at Salford before following him to the Antipodes where he enjoyed considerable success. 

Thomas died in Brunswick North, Melbourne in 1918 shortly after this last photo was taken. The family often speculated about Tommy's fortune seeking exploits down under and how much better he would have fared had he stayed with salt in Northwich! Perhaps he would have expanded his brine pumping operations and joined the Brunner Mond juggernaut ... Brunner Mond & Astles ... ?!

Whatever Tommy's motivation a manure works was pretty grotty when the alternative was Tasmania & sunshine. In 1882 an Alkali Inspector described a general scene at the works - 'the manure is made from carcases, shoddy, leather, slaughter house refuse and some mineral phosphate. The method is to heap twenty to thirty tones of shoddy in a shed, onto this is poured blood and refuse. Any carcases that the owner may buy are, after being skinned, buried in the heap, the heap is allowed to stand and rot for five or six months. This is then shovelled into a mixer with some leather, crushed bones and acid. After mixing this is let into an open den and a man shovels onto it a certain quantity of mineral phosphate. The stench is simply intolerable. This maybe a public nuisance but my responsibility concerns the acid and mineral phosphate. I consider nothing chemical as alien to myself'.

But the chemical manure trade was modernising and the industry pioneered the chemical analysis of its products and helped mobilise chemists and the Royal Institute of Chemistry in 1877. Why should farmers trust the manure manufacturers? No one could 'see' the potash, nitrogen or phosphate in the meal and the results in the fields could not be evaluated until next season. Fraud and adulteration were always suspected, and some inevitably succumbed to temptation. But reputations for quality & reliability had to be earned and jealously protected if customers were to be loyal and premium prices secured. The industry led the way in establishing British Standard methods of analysis.

Edward Hindley recognised the relationship between quality and price when he sent his son Edward junior away to Manchester to study analytical chemistry before he was put in charge of the laboratory at The Weaver Refining Co Ltd and entrusted with the task of maintaining product quality.

Roger Duncalfe, a founder of British Glues & Chemicals, became President of the British Standards Institute in 192?. But we get ahead of ourselves ...

Why a Saltpetre Works?

There seemed no end to the versatility of the cow as these prolific beasts now began to contribute raw materials to the chemical manufactories through the nitre beds.

As has been noted, the 1877 O S map showed the land at Acton Bridge was occupied by a 'manure works' and a 'saltpetre works'.

In 1876 Worrall's Directory of Warrington listed the Lowwood Gunpowder Co Ltd, Acton Bridge under the management of John Edward Harrison, confirming that the Acton bridge saltpetre works was operated by the Lowwood Company. clearly Tommy Astles managed William Edward Maude's manure works and John Edward Harrison managed the Lowwood Saltpetre works next door.

On July 1st 1876 an article in the Northwich Guardian reported the launch of the Lowwood coaster ‘Leven’ by Wincham Co, followed by trials in October/November and at sea in December. The 'Leven' was owned by The Lowwood Gunpowder Co and shipped saltpetre from the Acton Bridge works up the coast to Ulverston.

The 1881 Census recorded that the Manager of the Saltpetre Works was John E Harrison (1826-??), a local Northwich born man who lived on site at Salt Petre Works House with his wife Mary Wakefield who he had married in 1846 at St Mary's Great Budworth. Also resident in the household was John's 23 year old nephew William Wakefield who was an Engine Tester & Driver at the Works ... more of William later ...

The Lowwood Gunpowder business originated in Low Wood, near Ulverston on the river Leven in Cumbria, in the late 18th century. The first licence to manufacture gunpowder at the works was issued at the Lancaster Quarter Sessions on 2nd October 1798. The company was formed by Daye Barker (the senior partner), James King, Christopher Wilson junior and Captain Joseph Fayrer (who also acted as the company's Liverpool agent). The company officially traded as Daye Barker & Co, but was always know as The Lowwood Gunpowder Co.

The Lowwood site on the Weaver at Acton Bridge may have provided similar attractions to the parent site by the Leven - close proximity to timber and the charcoal that was derived from it, the sparse population which meant that the dangerous processes did not impact on residential areas, and a ready made power supply in the form of fast flowing water. However the Acton factory was only involved in saltpetre ... perhaps W E Maude of Blawith was involved in the Lowwood Company's choice of Acton Bridge as a site for sourcing saltpetre? Blawith and Low Wood were neighbours ... ?

Lowwood manufactured black powder which was prepared by intimately mixing three ingredients - saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. The mixing was done formerly in barrels with lignum vitae balls, but at Lowwood a new incorporating system was used with a limestone edged running mill. To avoid dust and the associated explosion risk, the latest methods involved dampening of the cake. The objective was to coat every charcoal and sulphur particle with a layer of saltpetre. The Acton Bridge plant supplied the saltpetre from its nitre beds.

Initial sales of gunpowder were for fighting ships, but the black powder was known as 'Africa' powder as sales were boosted by the slave trade. Until the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1807, the gunpowder formed part of the triangular trade route, being exported to Africa where it was exchanged for the slaves who were then transported to the Americas, the ships returning to Liverpool laden with sugar, cotton & tobacco. After the end of slave trading, Low Wood concentrated on the manufacture of blasting powder for use in the mining and quarrying industries.

Daye Barker died in 1835 and his son (also called Daye) succeeded him in partnership with one of his brothers, John Barker. The firm suffered a decline from the 1860s, with the advent of modern explosives. In 1882 it was sold to a competing gunpowder firm, W H Wakefield & Co also from Cumbria.

W H Wakefield & Co (National Archives BT 31/31886/77740) acquired its name from William  Henry Wakefield (1828-1889), a banker and gunpowder maker, of Sedgwick House, Kendal. He was a descendent of John Wakefield who opened the first gun powder mills in Cumbria, at Sedgwick near Kendal in 1764. The mills moved from Sedgwick to Gatebeck, near Endmoor in 1850. John, an entrepreneur of wide ranging interests, also opened a bank in Kendal in 1788. In 1890 the London Illustrated News reported the passing of W H Wakefield - 'Wills and Bequests include - Mr W H Wakefield JP and Chairman of the Quarter Sessions late of Sedgwick House near Kendal'.

In 1883 Slater's Directory of Liverpool confirmed the liverpool offices of both The Lowwood Gunpowder Co and W H Wakefield & Co in the centre of town at Orange Court, Castle Street.

Also in 1883 J A Berly's British, American and continental electrical directory indentified the Acton Bridge works as The Lowwood Gunpowder Co, Saltpetre Works, Acton Bridge, Northwich indicating the business continued to trade under the Lowwood name.

In 1882 at the Congregational Church in Over, Northwich, a local William Wakefield (1858-1936), John Edwards Harrison's nephew, married Tommy Astles' 19 year old daughter Mary Adelaide (1864-1929). John Harrison was the manager of the Acton bridge Saltpetre Works. Tommy's  Manure Works was right next door to the Saltpetre Works. Was this love across the steaming nitre beds at Acton Bridge?

By 1884 when Maude Alice their first born arrived, William had risen to Foreman at the Saltpetre Works and the family had moved to Juniper Street, Kirkdale, a stones throw from the Orange Court offices. By the time of their second son Herbert Victor in 1891 they had moved back to Little Leigh. Was this imposing gentleman related to the gunpowder dynasty?

Perhaps not ... William's Dad Samuel, was a joiner & cabinet maker from Castle, Northwich. William's Mum, Alice Bostock, had died when his birth was registered on 24/5/1858. This could explain why he went to live with his uncle John Harrison at Salt Petre House. John had married Samuel's sister Mary Wakefield at St Mary's Great Budworth in 1846. Samuel & Mary's father was Thomas Wakefield who married an Elizabeth? No sign of any connection with the 'gunpowder' Wakefields here ... just robust Northwich stock with trades & enterprise!?

 saltpetre manufacture in the nitre beds was a filthy process, the potassium nitrate came from rotten decomposing organic material ... dung heaps!

Cheap imported sources of saltpetre were always a threat to local production and the main supplies came from India. But it was the invention of dynamite and nitro-glycerine based smokeless propellants in 1887 that made the Acton Bridge production of saltpetre uneconomic. Alfred Nobel (1833-96), a founder of ICI in 1926, was a pioneer of this technology. Gunpowder, black powder, produced 55% solids as 'smoke' in addition to the gases powering the explosion. Smoke was not only a visual clue to gun location but it was also hydroscopic and corrosive and gummed up the works when fast reloading could be the difference between life & death ... and black powder was ruined by water, 'keeping your powder dry' was a perpetual problem on the battlefield.

Although black powder operations were maintained at Ulverston until 1935 W H Wakefield & Co closed the Acton Bridge unit around 1896?

As a wartime expedient all gunpowder producers in the country, including W H Wakefield & Co, were merged into Nobel Industries Ltd in 1918. In 1926 Imperial Chemical Industries was formed from an amalgamation of Nobel Industries, Brunner Mond, United Alkali Co and British Dyestuffs. Although ICI modernised the Low Wood plant in 1928 this proved to be a last gasp of obsolete technology and the mills finally closed in 1935.

However nitre beds and saltpetre were not only needed for explosives. Saltpetre was used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid ...  

But what was the salt connection?

'Witton Flashes - Anderton Hill on the left, Marbury Pumping Station on the right. View taken from waste land on Warrington Road showing buildings occupied by the Weaver Refining Company'. (1907 CRO DIC-BM-16-51)

Everything in the Northwich district was connected to salt!

When Edward Hindley & Joseph Neill put together their business partnership in 1900 their assets included the lease of land and buildings at witton brook.

The factory site at Witton Brook was bang in the middle of the northwich salt operations.

From the start the chemical industry was a prodigious user of salt as a raw material and coal as a source of energy. Coal was shipped up the River Weaver and salt was shipped down, no vessels were empty. The steam engine had been around to help after Watt's triumph in 1776 and then, in Newcastle, in 1884, Charles Algernon Parsons (1854-1931) developed his steam turbine and the generation of electricity to small grids took off. The 'on tap' electrical power gave a further fillip to growth by extending the working day through Joseph Swan's incandescent light bulb which had been developed in Sunderland in 1878.

There was talk at the Acton Parish Council about generating electricity at the Dutton falls in 1897. But electricity didn't start to reach the Acton Bridge factory until 1912 and subsidence arrived at Witton Brook before electricity!

It was salt & coal that energised the Northwich industrial revolution.

By 1900 the chemical industry was thriving. Alkalis and acids were fundamental to the chemical industry. Wood ashes had been used as a source of alkali until soda ash and potash became commercially available from kelp. But it was salt and sulphuric acid that led to industrialised alkali production in the 19th century via the leblanc process. The Leblanc method required nitre from agricultural waste for the production of sulphuric acid via the lead chamber process together with salt from the Northwich mines. 

Thus sulphuric acid became an important chemical for the manufacture of alkali, but clearly the Lowwood investment at Acton Bridge did not involve sales to sulphuric acid manufacturers, their priorities were elsewhere at Ulverston ... furthermore from 1835 Joseph Gay-Lussac had developed new technology which replaced saltpetre as the oxidising source in sulphuric acid manufacture.

19th century chemistry had been concerned with optimising the Leblanc Process, William Losh on Tyneside, Charles Tennant in Glasgow, James Muspratt at Newton-le-Willows and William Gossage at Widnes led the way with attempts to solve the inhuman working conditions and the horrific problems of hydrochloric acid fumes and obnoxious, though valuable, sulphur being sprayed all over town. The industry was partially resuscitated by Deacon's chlorine recovery work which led to profitable production of bleaching powder and the Chance-Clause process helped with sulphur recovery, but problems and inefficiencies persisted. The sparkling Tyne became a stinking ditch and the foul stench of rotten eggs pervaded Widnes. From all this intolerable complexity the interests of the Leblanc producers were merged into The United Alkali Company in 1891 as they watched helplessly as the new technology of Brunner Mond's ammonia soda process triumphed in Northwich from 1873.

Edward Hindley was in the middle of all this trauma, change and development. But he operated the only way he knew ... chasing profits and cutting losses ... wherever and when ever they were spotted ... and he spotted something at Witton Brook ...

The history of the Witton Brook site is a fascinating central feature of the history of salt in Northwich ...

No doubt there were wild brine pumpers around Witton Brook from early days, using their lead pans and charcoal fuel. Then around 1650 irons pans and coal firing raised production just before the discovery of rock salt at Marbury in 1670 ... thereafter activity increased and things began to change.

The Witton Brook area in the 18th century was the province of the rock salt miners, who shipped down the Weaver to the new salt water refineries at Frodsham Bridge (1690), Liverpool (1696) and Dungeon (1697). This trade was dramatically enhanced by the opening of the Weaver Navigation in 1732. And improved again with Lancashire coal shipped down the Sankey Canal from 1755.

Rock salt pits were everywhere and, Heywoods Meadow & Yates Field, the land on the banks of Witton Brook which, much later, was occupied by The Weaver Refining Company was part of the venables Estate.

Here in 1721 we see the evidence of the industrial revolution underway, Stella Davies describes the scene ... note her words ... industry was 'invading' and the agricultural community had been 'distorted' ... salt was needed for the Mersey refineries ...

The Venables-Vernon family had owned the Witton Manor for centuries. The Witton Brook site was typical many commercial salt extraction operations throughout Northwich ... dig around here and you were sure to find salt, but only if the putrid waters of 'Roaring Meg' didn't bring things to a premature halt at about 22 yards. The job was never easy and the rock pits were constantly abandoned as they fell in or flooded. But the Witton Brook cut & locks from 1789 greatly improved the river transport for the rock pits on the banks of the brook.

In 1758 the Venables estate was sold to the Leycesters of Tabley. By 1765 another of Calvert's maps showed the land owned by Sir Peter Leycester and John Jervis Esq. Swynfen Jervis Esq. now owned the 'Witton Hall Estate' and Sir Peter owned the land known as Yates Field where John Jeffreys, an innkeeper and merchant from a Northwich butchering family, had his rock pit. Charles Foster suggests John purchased the lease from Benjamin Claridge, a Frandley Quaker, who rented from Hugh Wade. Benjamin ceased trading in 1735 and John and his family took over and were regularly shipping salt down the Weaver until 1767 when his rock pit fell in.

 The rock salt miners divide into what Charles Foster described as 'grander' families - Venables, Barrons, Warburtons, Lyons, Blackburnes and Pattens and also some significant lesser families - Antrobus, Claridges, Jeffreys, Vernons and Barrows.

In 1828 the Tabley Estate sold 500 acres of land in the heart of the Northwich salt fields, including the salt works by the brook, which were by now a 'brine pits'. The sitting tenants firth, stock & co purchased the freehold of this 18 acre site where Occupation Road ran through Yates Fields at the foot of Tivis Hill. This purchase was confirmed on the 1840 tithe maps of Cheshire where the site was described as jeffreys field owned by Thomas Firth, a rock salt merchant.

Who was Thomas Firth? Thomas Firth (1786-1860) was a gentleman and a power in the community. He was born near Halifax in Yorkshire, he first married eliza in 1813. The 1841 census found him at Hartford Lodge with his second wife, ann from Middlewich, and son Fredrick (1826-). He had established a bank in Northwich in 1817 with his partner Samuel Buckley and his son Frederick Hand Firth. The firm did well and opened a branch at Winsford, but banking was always risky and bad debts a constant threat. As reported in The Banker's Magazine in 1866 Messrs Thomas Firth & Son was taken over by parr's banking company from Warrington. Parr's also took over The Consolidated Bank Ltd of Manchester & London, in 1896. Robert Neill junior was a director of consolidated and he was also the uncle of Joseph Oswald Neill who was to become Edward Hindley's partner in The Weaver Refining Co Ltd. It was a small world ...

The Parr's banking business flourished and was merged with The Westminster Bank in 1918 and eventually with The National Provincial Bank in 1968 and The Royal Bank of Scotland in 2000.

Thomas Firth was also an investor in Broad Oak and Sankey Brook collieries in St Helens where he helped to finance the deep shafts which were sunk in the mid 1800s. The Weaver Navigation and the Sankey Brook Canal were the economic links between St Helens coal, Northwich salt & the Port of Liverpool. A triangle of trade with significant importance to the industrial revolution in the North West.

Thomas was a considerable land owner in Northwich and also involved in The Marston Salt Co with Thomas Lyon who was Joseph Parr's partner in the Warrington bank. It seems Cheshire business men were an incestuous lot! 

The Firth, Stock & Co was dissolved in 1839 ... profits were hard to come by in the salt industry at this time?

Thomas Firth died at Hartford Lodge on the 30th of March 1860 at the age of 74.

The 1828 Tabley sale also records an interesting sale of some Lime Kilns to William Worthington, however, by the time of the 1843 tithe maps this plot was also owned by Thomas Firth.

a bryant's map of Cheshire in 1831 does not name the buildings or salt works around Witton Brook, although the larger works else where are named ... but the map clearly shows the flashes were about to engulf the dockyard!

The OS map of 1875 identifies the salt works which were operated on Jeffreys Field. These are the salt works which can now be positively identified as Thomas Firth's works on 'Occupation Road' and the Lovett's 'Lime Kiln Salt Works', see below. Calvert's 1873 map marks 'Occupation Road' and Colin Edmondson's OS map of 1910 marks 'Lime Kiln Lane'. Calvert identifies the two salt works as belonging to The Cheshire Amalgamated Salt Works Ltd?

The maps also shows that although Tivis Hill survived the subsidence which started slowly in 1798, Heywoods Meadow had all but disappeared and Jeffreys Field was rapidly sinking into the cavernous holes that were left after the mining of salt and the pumping of brine ... Witton Brook was being transmogrified into an expanse of water ... Witton Flashes! Calvert documents the sorry saga of subsidence around Witton Brook and includes the alarming story of the day in 1881 when the River Weaver flowed the wrong way up Witton Brook and into a void!? Perhaps Edward Hindley thought he was lucky in 1905 when he acquired one of the few old salt works sites to have survived ...

In 1876 the white salt association was to try again to organise some profit 'in the face of the very dismal prospects of the trade'. This time the membership included a Mr James Lovett (1841-88), who with his father, James senior (1813-86), and his brother George (1839-74) were established salt boilers, salt merchants & salt proprietors operating 10 pans in the Northwich area. It is likely that James purchased the Witton Brook salt works from Thomas Firth. According to The Inspector of Mines, Joseph Dickinson, in his 1873 report to The House of Commons re subsidence, in Witton-cum-Twambrooks brine was being pumped by the cheshire amalgamated salt works for George Lovett. Was Lovett's brine being supplied to Amalgamated or more likely, was Amalgamated supplying brine to the Lovetts for evaporation? The Amalgamated prospectus from 1865 clearly anticipates an 'inexhaustible' supply of brine and 'extra revenue of £2,000 pa was to be derived from selling brine to other salt manufacturers'. The Dickinson report confirms Lovetts were producing salt from brine in 1877.

In 1882 the Witton Brook salt works was identified as James Lovett's lime kiln salt works in the House of Commons papers: Volume 57, Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons, under the alkali & co works regulation act 1881 ... the salt works at the end of 'Lime Kiln Lane' ... extracting salt from brine ...

The lovetts had been in salt since at least the 1841 census when they were all living on London Road, Davenham. Although in 1861 it appears James senior was farmer of a couple of acres and George & James junior were ships carpenters. George had moved to Runcorn by 1871 but remained in the salt business. All three men died soon after each other, George in 1874, James senior in 1886, James junior in 1888, this left Catherine, James junior's, wife owning the business which was sold to The Salt Union, see below.

More and more salt ... it was all too easy ... dig a hole anywhere in Northwich and brine would start to flow ... no wonder prospects for trade were variable and usually dismal! Salt was a commodity, all salt was a 'me too', product differentiation difficult, and over the years there was almost no technological innovation. Sure there were productivity improvements with iron pans and coal, and a spurt of production once the salt tax was removed ... but little else ... Calvert summarised the problem ... there was more money to be made from monopoly trading and legal & political shenanigans than technology ... William Funival's 'Narrative of the very extraordinary case of Mr William Furnival' written in 1829 describes his efforts to exploit his patent for increasing the efficiency of the open pan process by utilising the heat of the steam from the boiling brine. Tenacity against all the odds succeeded in establishing operational 'patent salt works' employing
the new technology at Anderton & Wharton. But Furnival earned the opprobrium of the other salt makers by undercutting their controlled prices. According to his 'narrative' he was framed by the salt coalition and was last heard of in a debtor’s prison!

In 1888 the salt union was formed in yet another tragic attempt to solve the profitability problems of the industry by creating a monopoly from the multitude of small firms in the industry.  Some 64 businesses, 90% of the salt works in the country were bought up at inflated prices in an attempt to exploit greater competitive strength and expand exports of salt which had boomed following the abolition of the salt tax in 1825. Two businesses, the Anderton Salt Works and the Witton Brook Salt Works, were owned by James Lovett's wife, Catherine, when they were purchased by The Salt Union in 1888. James and Catherine Jones had married in 1864, James died at a young age in 1888. The Salt Union paid £6,750 for the business and then closed them down.

In 1899 after cutting capacity The Salt Union were leasing out their acquired lands for alternative use and  they leased the land at Witton Brook to Martin Collins, a horse slaughterer from Seath Street. And this was the business that aroused the interest of Edward Hindley and Joseph Neill in 1905. They were well aware of the folly of the Salt Union monopoly, but was 'horse slaughtering' a better bet? And who was Martin Collins?

Martin Collins was born in Northwich in 1855. The 1861 census reveals the Collins family in Derby, James & his wife Ann recently over from Ireland, with daughter Mary born in Ireland in 1853 but Martin (1856-), Thomas (1858-) & John (1860-) all born in Northwich, Cheshire. No doubt James had come over after the great potato famine (1845-52) to seek his fortune on the Cheshire farms as a labourer.

Martin is nowhere to be found in 1871 and there is ne record of any marriage? But the 1881 census is illuminating, Martin Collins, married, an ex bricklayer was being entertained by His Majesty at Gorton Prison in Manchester! Who on earth were Edward & Joseph doing business with?!

The 1891 census shows Mr Collins as a 'Marine Store Dealer', single and a lodger at Market Court, Tarporley.

In the 1901 census confirms the occupation as a 'Marine Store Dealer', a widower, back in Northwich at Sheath Street, Northwich. So what was a 'Marine Store Dealer'? Chambers's encyclopaedia to the rescue, and a quick scan of Google reveals all ... Martin Collins was a dealer in scrap & junk !

By 1911 Martin Collins was in Shropshire, 14 Lower Bar, Newport, apparently married again and still occupying himself as a 'rag gatherer'. But it seems the Witton Brook site had been left to Edward Hindley & Joseph Neill. Could they develop a suitably profitable alternative to salt?

Industrial economics doesn't stand still. In the late 19th century Brunner Mond had transformed the salt industry. Clearly there was more money to be made from dead horses than trying to compete with Brunner Mond!

By 1913 The Salt Union had sold the Witton Brook site to Brunner Mond. And in 1937 Brunner Mond (then ICI) completed the inevitable and took over The Salt Union ... Jeffreys Field became a sump for ICI's calcium chloride waste, then a refuse dump for the local Council and finally a country leisure park, the northwich woodlands!

Complex economic interactions & synergies at Acton Bridge and Witton Brook?

Water power for milling provided opportunities for zinc rolling (from lead mining waste) and bone grinding (from animal waste).

Animal waste processing provided opportunities for manures and saltpetre and a host of valuable by products. The value progression, which required technical innovations and capital investment, was from manure to glue to edible gelatine ... the economics of refining and value added ...

Saltpetre from the nitre beds provided raw material for the manufacture of gunpowder and sulphuric acid.

Sulphuric acid and Northwich salt provided raw materials for the chemical industry and the Le Blanc Process.

Problems with the economics of the Le Blanc process opened up the opportunity for the ammonia soda process and the runaway success of Brunner Mond and the Northwich chemical industry ...

... and whatever the raw material and whatever the product cheap water transport to the factory and to the customer made the economics buzz. The rule of thumb carrying capacity figures had settled down - pack horse 250 lbs, wagons on poor roads 1400 lbs, wagons on metal roads 2 tons, river flats 35 tons and canal barges & flats 50tons ...

And after the demise of water power in 1882 the site by the Weaver was powered by coal fired steam raising boilers ... it was the triangular trade of the cheap water transport on the Sankey Brook Canal and the River Weaver Navigation that maintained the economic buzz!  -

for the coal from the pits in St Helens,

salt from the Northwich fields and

the international port of Liverpool ...

The Gelatine Handbook summarised the requirements for the location of gelatine plants in the early days -

nearby raw material supply, mainly tanneries ... long transport routes for material comprising 80% water was expensive, especially as the raw material degraded rapidly

adequate availability of fresh water wells or good quality river water

location away from housing areas because of the odour of the raw materials and the plant

close to a river or the sea shore, primarily for disposal of the effluent, but also to transport raw materials and final products

the availability of wood or coal for fuel for firing the boilers

a  location close to forests was also an advantage because of the requirements for the drying of the gelatine ... a forest cleans the air of dust and also has a moderating effect on the climate ... this was important because in the early days no air conditioning for drying the air was available ... because of this the gelatine quality in winter months was superior of that of summer months ... some companies even manufactured only during winter.

Gordon Rintoul described in his 1984 article, 'Chemical Manufacture in Runcorn & Weston 1800 - 1930' - on the 4th of February 1860 an advertisement had appeared in the Warrington Guardian for a large piece of land to be let on a long term lease - 'To Manufacturing Chemists and others. To be let on the bank of the Weaver ... the land is admirably adapted for manufacturing purposes ... lying on the banks of the Weaver Canal, it communicates with the salt districts of Cheshire, being within a short distance of the St Helens Canal and Railway, it communicates with the coal districts of Lancashire. The Weaver Canal, opening into the Mersey affords communications to Liverpool. The local rates are very low. Articles conveyed to and from the land along the canal are free from tolls'.

No wonder Edward Hindley & Joseph Neill were excited in 1900 about the potential of the manufactories at Acton Bridge & Witton Brook ...

The Weaver Refining Co Ltd.

The land by the side of the River Weaver just before the old swing bridge was owned by the Milner family and had seen a variety of successful enterprises before Edward Hindley expressed his interest. Edward's shoemaking trade in Barnton was under pressure, mass production in the Northamptonshire factories was taking over. Sick of the toil of hand made shoes & cheap competition and with a flourishing wife and exploding family to support, it was time to move on. There was real money to be made from the muck left over after the slaughterhouses had taken their prime cuts of meat from the cows for the hungry folk in the towns.

But processing rotting animals? What a stench of death! The appalling conditions would have deterred all but the most ambitious. But out of the piles of putrefying filth, flies, festering flesh and fat emerged vital products to satisfy the diverse desires of discriminating customers ...

No wonder Edward called his manure works 'The Weaver Refining Co' ... the craftsmanship of the Cordwainer had been swapped for the technology of waste management and the production of valuable by products, a recycling factory! ... 'waste not want not' ... it was a goldmine!

Around 1900 Edward Hindley and Joseph Neill, a local barge owner from a respected banking and building family, were involved in business together in partnership as 'Chemical Manufacturers', 'Manure Manufacturers' and 'General Dealers in Animal Products' at Acton Bridge, Witton Brook and St Helens.

The details of their assets were summarised in an agreement dated November 13th 1908 which formed the basis for the incorporation of The Weaver Refining Co Ltd on November 28th 1908 -  

on July 20th 1903 the duo purchased the freehold of 1241 square yards of land with warehouse, cottage and buildings from william edward maude. This was the land that hosted the saltpetre works of The Lowwood Gunpowder Co. It appears some 20 years after Maude lost the water power to his zinc rolling mill, he finally sold out and opened up opportunities for Edward Hindley's new enterprise. But when did W H Wakefield & Co close down the Saltpetre Works?

Edward Hindley's eldest son samuel operated an offshoot 'animal products' business from properties at Nos. 42, 44 & 46 Waterloo Street, St Helens. These properties were subleased from a James Galway, and covered by an agreement dated April 30th 1908. A dwelling house was at No 42 and adjacent were stables, yards & outbuildings.

a more distant investment in Westhoughton in Lancashire was leased by Edward and Joseph Neill from  john haworth and covered by an indenture dated August 27th 1903, comprised 2904 square yards together with messuages and buildings.

the lease on 1600 square yards of land at Acton Bridge including the old Mill chimney, cottage buildings and premises. This was the land that hosted Tommy Astles' Manure Works. But what happened to the business when Tommy emigrated in 1886? Edward & Joseph also leased the corner of the field opposite, some 339, on the road to Acton Bridge including piped water rights. And also 656 square yards hosting two further cottages. All were leased from the owners, the Milner family from September 29th 1903 for 99 years by an agreement dated September 29th 1903 with William Milner, Reginald Ernest Milner, Frances Milner, Arthur Godley & Mary Milner.

on the 14th of February 1905 a lease on 1 acre 20 perches of land at witton brook in Northwich, adjoining the Witton Flashes, was purchased from The Salt Union via a Mr Martin Collins with the option of taking a further lease on the same premises. 

All these properties and were injected into The Weaver Refining Co Ltd which was incorporated in 1908.

When the Memorandum of Association was drawn up it was clear the directors were keeping all options open and all opportunities on the boil -

animal products of every conceivable type

food products for human beings and animals of every conceivable type

salt processing of every conceivable type

metal processing of every conceivable type

electricity & gas generation, distribution and supply

'manufacturers & merchants of all articles & things made or capable of being made from the waste products & refuse of such businesses and of or from the by products thereof'

including patenting inventions, property development, mining rights, licensing, transportation, storage, insurance, subcontracting, trading, dealing, merchanting, brokering, advertising, importing & exporting ... anywhere in the world ...

Although it was normal practice for the 'Memorandum' to avoid unnecessary restrictions on future business opportunities, the activities mentioned do tell us something of Edward's thinking. He certainly didn't want to get stuck again in obsolete hand crafts, he also knew all about the successful history of the Acton Bridge & the Witton Book sites and he certainly knew about change. Living in Northwich he was acutely aware of the River Weaver, salt & the success of Brunner Mond ... there was money to be made in the chemical industry ... so from the start he described himself quite generally as a 'Chemical Manufacturer' ...

Chemical Manufacturing at Acton Bridge.

At Acton Bridge the company concentrated on the  most profitable products from the Cheshire cows & bones which were collected in profusion from local farmers, butchers and even some imports found their way up the Weaver to the riverside boilers.

In 1902 Kelly's Directory of Cheshire lists Edward Hindley - rate collector, assistant overseer and clerk to the Parish Council. But the 1902 Kelly's also indicated The Weaver Refining Co was a manure, size and tallow manufacturer occupying the site at Acton Bridge Mills.

Inevitably the 'refining' company was soon emitting their trade mark stench and the locals were complaining. Although I guess the workers, suppliers and customers were not involved, by 1902 The Acton Parish Council went into action as a note in the minute book reveals. 

No doubt the Company response was similar to that proffered via Tommy Astles to the royal sanitary commission some years before in 1869 ... hard work was going into the technology and organisation required to reduce the degradation of the organic matter which was the source of the odour. The company's efforts were doubly focused because the degradation was a significant cost which reduced product quality and subsequent revenue and profits.

Of course the battle was never ending ... however fast technology progressed a residual nuisance remained ... after all was said and done some 'waste' resulted from the laws of chemistry which were beyond the reach of even the most successful companies ...

The Parish Council minuted more pressure again in 1916 ... this time it was smoke from the furnaces ... some were no doubt wishing for a return to the idyllic waterwheels ...

Sometime after 1907 The Weaver Refining Company abandoned the Witton Brook site. Maybe there was trouble with the lease, maybe they feared the site would sink into the great flash that had relentlessly appeared? More likely they simply pursued the good cost savings to be had from rationalising their production facilities at the Acton Bridge site.

In 1910 Kelly's indicate the prominent position of The Weaver Refining Co Ltd in Acton - The Weaver Refining Co Ltd - pure bone manures, tallow, cut bones, glues, gelatines, sizes, acid phosphate - Acton Bridge Mills.

Kelly's Directory records the Weaver Refining enterprise at Acton Bridge in 1902, 1906, 1910 & 1914.

April 13th 1911 was a great day for the Weaver Refining Co as Joseph Neill published a patent for improvements in the manufacture of acid phosphates. The company was making progress with their quest to apply science to the upgrading and refining of added value products from animal waste.

1912 The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain reported, 'Design - acid phosphates of calcium for manufactures. The Weaver Refining Co Ltd, Acton Mill, Acton Bridge, Northwich, Cheshire. Chemical Manufacturers'.

In 1915 electricity came to the factory! The Electrical Review: Volume 76, 1915 - 'The Weaverham Electric Supply Co Ltd has entered into a contract with the Weaver Refining Co Ltd for a minimum supply of 50,000 units per annum for three years'.

By 1916 The Weaver Refining Co Ltd boasted a london office in Holborn.

In 1917 the Board of Trade Journal noted - Phosphates - Weaver Refining Co Ltd, Manufacturers, Acton Bridge.

There were other interesting diversions at the factory. In 1918 The Royal Entomological Society reported the finding of two specimens of 'Apterygida Albipennis' (a short-winged or hop-garden earwig!) at the Acton Bridge Bone Works. Mr J R Le B Tomlin was a bug collector, entomologist and regular visitor, visiting on 19th Oct 1916 & 16th Oct 1917 as he attempted to track down these little beasts.

The 1918 Department of Employment Gazette on page 10 mentioned The Weaver Refining Co Ltd.

The Weaver Refining Company purchased the freehold of the remaining 2.827 acres of the riverside site for £2,300 from the Milner Estates at auction on Wednesday 13th November 1918.

Problems required solutions and the factory's greatest asset, the River Weaver, also caused a major problem - erosion of the river bank. Cheap bulk transport on the river was critical to profitability but who was responsible for erosion, The River Weaver Navigation Trustees or the factory owners?

In 1919 an exchange of letters records the efforts of Edward Hindley to secure the river bank (BWWN14/15 1920). Initially he located a supply of tongue & groove piling timber offered at a good price by James Webster & Co of Liverpool. Expertise in gelatine production did not stretch to pitch pine specifications and the necessary dredger & piling and Edward called in the Trustees who quoted £2,855-18-0 for the job. A significant amount in those days, £751,368 in today's money. The matter became urgent following a complaint from the northwich carrying co concerning safety of their steamers accessing the jetty. Alternative facilities for loading/unloading and the Acton Bridge wharf were expensive in time, labour & transport. Furthermore coal contracts for 1920 involved heavy demurrage charges if turnaround exceeded 24 hours, and the installation of a new crane and grab could not be finalised until the piling was completed. And there was more, the piling required the elimination of red hot cinders from the boilers which were still smouldering many feet below the ground. How was this to be done? The problems queued up! Disputes over the line of the piling were of little consequence when the Trustee foreman, Mr J Elson, insisted completion using the timber was impossible and expensive concrete was now necessary. The return of excess timber had to be negotiated with Websters and there were further cost negotiations with Colonel Saner, the Trustees Chief Engineer. Saner had a formidable reputation, he had built the 'pontoon' swing bridges at Northwich in 1898/9 and also redesigned The Anderton Boat Lift in 1908, and questioning the engineering details of the new jetty and controlling the escalating costs was an awesome task for Edward ...

Lots of minor projects were a feature of everyday factory life as investment in new and replacement facilities was essential. An engineering design drawing for a new pier at the Acton Bridge factory has survived the ravages of time ... 

Shareholders in The Weaver Refining Co Ltd.

Edward Hindley (1858-1935) - 6,000 shares allotted by agreement. edward was my maternal great grandfather, an inspirational man ...

Joseph Oswald Neill (1871-1934) - 6,000 shares allotted by agreement. Joseph Neill was Edward Hindley's partner from the start in 1900. Born in Manchester in 1871, he lived with his wife Chris and two servants in a big house, Willow Green, Little Leigh, across the Weaver and just across the Trent & Mersey canal at the top of the hill near to 'blue bell wood' and overlooking the Weaver Valley and The Weaver Refining Co Ltd. Joseph built this house around 1900, a splendid home similar to The Poplars and where, later, the Howards and Joyce & Graeme Andrews used to live.

Joseph came from a remarkable family of business men ...

'The Times' of London reported that Joseph Oswald Neill died in Llandudno on November 19th 1934, just five months before the death of his old partner Edward Hindley ...

James Evans Grimditch (1872-1961) - 4,025 shares allotted payable in cash. Grimditch lived at Hersham Green, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey and joined the two partners as a Director in the Weaver Refining Co Ltd. when it was incorporated as a private limited company 28th of November 1908, with an investment of £4,025.

The third partner in Edward's venture into chemical manufacturing also came from a successful business background ... the grimditches were butchers ...

James Evans Grimditch died at Putney Heath in 1958 at the ripe old age of 86. In 1961 The Times of London reported he left an estate of £314,058 some £16 million in today's money as a share of GDP. His investments in cows had proved to be propitious!

Harold Moreton Moss (1880-1954) was the Company solicitor with 1 share. Milling & Moss, Bull Ring Chambers, Northwich, handled the incorporation of the company in 1908. From 1906 to 1916 Harold Moss was in partnership with William Milling, after 1916 Harold continued trading as H M Moss. Moss & Haselhurst was formed in 1946 when John Shand Haselhurst joined. The business continues today and has traded as mosshaselhurst since 2005.

Harold Moreton Moss drew up Edward's will in 1929 and filed for probate on Edward's death in 1935.

Harold died in 1954 at the age of 74. Admitted a solicitor in 1906, and in the Honours Examination of that year he was placed First in the First Class and awarded the scott scholarship. He was the senior partner in Messrs Moss and Haselhurst, Northwich, Cheshire; formerly Chairman of the Northwich Urban District Council, he had for some years been Deputy Registrar of the Northwich County Court.

William Moss (1851-??) was the Company bank manager with 1 share. He lived at Westfield, 158 Chester Road, Northwich. William was Harold Moreton's father. He had a second son William Herbert, born in 1882, who also went into banking.

William Sharp Galloway (1863-1920) was a nail manufacturer and appeared on the murky share register in 1914 with 350 shares. A nail manufacturer in a chemical works! Who was this chap? Was he following in the footsteps of Cooper Ewbank who occupied the same Acton Bridge factory site in the 1840s? Remember the Memorandum of Association for The Weaver Refining Company included - 'metal processing of every conceivable type' ... ?

The 1901 census records - William S Galloway, born in Timperley  aged 38, married to Maud Constance from Salford, aged 31, 3 servants but no children, living at Oakleigh, Dunham Road, Dunham Massey. A wholesale hardware merchant.

The 1911 census confirms William was at the same address and in the same condition.

The mystery was not easily solved. William Sharp was unrelated to another William Galloway who manufactured nails in Sunderland Road, Gateshead, established in the late 1850s. In 1900 this firm employed about 25 to 50 people, many of them women, but, nevertheless, it took business from the local giants, Hawks & Abbot. Specialist manufacturers were more successful than general engineering firms such as Hawks who tried to make everything. One interesting aspect of this business was the fact that it had an agency for French and American steam cars ...  Galloways moved to Blaydon in 1952 and were taken over by the industrial giant GKN in 1965 ... but no, this was the wrong Galloway family ...

William Sharp Galloway (1863-1920) was the grandson of John Galloway (1804-94) a partner, with his elder brother William Galloway (1796-1873), in the firm w & j galloway of Knott Mill, Manchester ... and this Galloway family were successful innovative engineers specialising in steam engines of repute ... this was a big company ... cashing in on the industrial revolution in steam ...

 William Sharp was not a misfit, a family renegade. When he was 18 he was a loyal engineering apprentice in the family business ... but by 1891 he had followed his dad into sugar refining ... it seems it was his dad William Lewis Galloway (1832-) had left the family business to try his hand in sugar in 1854.

But W & J Galloway were manufacturers of sugar refining equipment in partnership with the great henry bessemer and supplied new refinery equipment to Messrs Sharp & Scott of Salford in 1853. William Lewis' move was a reasoned opportunity as he joined Sharp & Scott as a partner on the death of Mr Scott. William Sharp was made a partner in 1886.

Sugar refining had been well established by the 18th century with more than 50 English refineries but the necessarily imported raw material always seemed to present problems associated with disruptive wars, protective tariffs (continental bounties), refining at source in Jamaica and the higher wage & tax costs in England ... and the South Sea Bubble? ... the usual culprits on the debit side ... nevertheless, as John Hutcheson points out, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Watt, William Wilberforce and the Wesleys were  around on the credit side!

In this competitive quagmire, together with the English commitment to free trade, it was clear the industry only survived because of the advanced technology available from firms like Galloway & Bessemer! However, as always, technical advances need persistence and acquired 'know how', Henry Bessemer experienced expensive failures before the success of his famous process ...

Sharpe & Galloway in Manchester, although close to coal, was perhaps further disadvantaged as the economics seemed to favour the great port cities where the raw material was unloaded and refined close to population centres ... London, Liverpool & Bristol had more refineries ... then later advantage moved to the producing countries themselves ... it was easy to feel that William Lewis made a bum decision moving into sugar ... but it doesn't work like that ... as things evolved unpredictable it became much more profitable to make steam boilers than refine sugar, the sugar growing countries became a market for boilers only if they refined sugar themselves, how else could they afford to by Galloway boilers ... similarly the protection of the French sugar refining industry provided additional profits for the boiler makers ... funny business, the French subsidies were ending up as Galloway profits! Predicting the path of new technology is impossible Bessemer himself failed with his sugar initiatives and then saw spectacular profits from his steel making process ...  

By 1897 William Lewis' refinery was closed down reportedly due to 'bounty fed competition from the continent' and William Sharp was looking for a new opportunity ... he eventually went into iron monging ... but he also made an investment at Acton Bridge ...

This was not a surprise unconnected move ... from 1842 to 1847 the Galloways were in partnership, as Galloways & Company, with Joseph Haley, in Manchester & Paris, as 'Patentees of Machines for cutting, punching & compressing Metals; and Rivets and other articles constructed by the said last-mentioned Machines' ... this was the period when John Budd & Cooper Ewbank were having a spat over their success as partners at Acton Bridge! For certain the Ewbank nail and the Acton Bridge factory would have been well known to the Galloways ...

... and there was more, perhaps, old William Galloway (1768-1836), the millwright, supplied equipment to the original water mill on the Weaver at Acton Bridge ...

... William Sharp Galloway was continuing his family tradition and seeking good investment opportunities in the water mills and steam driven manufactories of the industrial revolution?

People - Happy & healthy workers were productive and Edward insisted on discipline in the work place, tippling, fisticuffs, night rambling, mischief, immoral idleness and bad language were all forbidden ... Friendly Societies were encouraged like The Independent Order of Rechabites and The Ancient Order of Foresters, both had 'tents' and branches in Barnton and these self help organisations proved remarkably successful as a means of securing some health and death insurance ... some said all this was fruitless paternalism but Edward  promoted health & safety at work ... but, of course, the Acton Bridge folk all had independent minds of their own ...

no 9 warrington road was one of a group of cottages along the river where some of the workers had their homes ... the company office block was on the site of the 'Rheingold Restaurant', now renamed the riverside inn ... but who were these folk who worked or had connections with The Weaver Refining Company? ... we know a little about some of them and their stories ... Jack Barker, a man of substance ... Bernard Pickering, the Factory Chemist ... George Foster, barge master ... the Phipps brothers who came all the way up from Surrey to roll zinc ... and nicholas bower who supplied copious beers and accommodation ...

The Weaver Refining Co Ltd moves on to greater things ...

1919 was The Weaver Refining Company's most successful year, a good business had been built up over 20 years in the face of fierce competition.

The business strategy involved processing & refining the cow carcase to add value by minimising the inputs & operating costs at the factory and maximising the value of the product delivered to the customer. Superior logistics & technology minimised quality degradation & waste and the marketing efforts were focused on those products with the highest margin. The jewels in the crown of The Weaver Refining Co were glue & gelatine.

 But ominous clouds were gathering. The animal reprocessing industry had continuously modernised and moved into higher value added products. But now increased technological innovation & capital investment were required as more sophisticated refining took the business into better quality manures to glues to gelatines. Investment in R&D and plant & equipment made larger scale units and pooling of resources essential. Ever present threats from foreign imports and much tighter regulation of abattoirs, odours and effluents eroded margins and suggested the industry had few friends ... by 1920 the logic of amalgamation was irresistible ... and just in time ... just before the 1921 slump ...

The Weaver Refining Co Ltd, Acton Bridge was merged into british glues & chemicals on the 7th of May 1920. The company was valued at £102,500 including £27,408 goodwill (£24.7 million in today's money). Edward Hindley, Joseph Neill & James Grimditch held 6,850, 6,350 & 6,900 shares in the Weaver Refining Co Ltd at the time of the merger.  There was a public offering for £2,000,000 of British Glues & Chemicals stock. The three directors took £61,842 in cash, £13,553 in preference shares & £277,105 in ordinary shares to the value of £102,500 from the sale. 

The Directory of Directors published by Thomas Skinner & Co listed Mr Edward Hindley, The Poplars, Barnton, near Northwich, as a director of British Glues & Chemicals, Limited.

Edward Hindley would have been pleased with the price he got when he sold the business in 1920 but he had no inkling that the income from his ordinary shares in BG&C was to be delayed ... it was only after the depression in 1936 that BG&C started the payment of ordinary dividends ... a year after Edward's death ...

After the British Glues & Chemicals merger the attractiveness of the Acton Bridge site was further questioned -

- cheap water power had long ago disappeared in 1882 with the Dutton Locks

- cheap river transport proved less flexible and much slower than the railways which now ran between population centres direct from raw materials to customers

- other British Glues & Chemicals factory sites were now in more favourable locations

- the Acton Bridge site was closed in 1923 when further erosion of the wharf threatened additional reclamation costs only three years after the 1919 trauma. Liability for remedial work was an issue. Edward maintained the erosion was due to the wash of Weaver traffic. Colonel Saner had other ideas, explaining 'the Trustees liability was confined to keeping water from overflowing the land. The river, when in flood, was causing the erosion of the banks, especially on the concave sides of the bends, and the total amount could not be nearly as great in a canalised river as it would have been had the river been in its natural state'. The Weaver Trustees desperate to maintain their tolls offered to pay for the renovation work if the Refining Works were reopened and all materials were shipped via the Navigation ... Edward brought in the big guns from British Glues & Chemicals, Mr Clarke, the Chief Engineer visited the site and a letter was sent from the Company Secretary in London ... to no avail the Acton Bridge site was uneconomic and remained closed ...

... but Edward was ahead of the game, British Glues & Chemicals were focussing their R&D and capital investment on new technology in glues and gelatines ... under threat from foreign imports, BG&C were not inclined to waste resources repairing unused river banks ... remember Edward would have been well aware of the tragic history of the shoemaking craft and the Salt Union as he wrestled with the amalgamation of glue makers & tallow renderers to form British Glues & Chemicals in 1920 ...

Subsequently British Glues & Chemicals proved to be a very successful company and was acquired by Sir Freddie Wood and croda on September 18th 1968.

 

measuring worth - a website that makes sense of money

some significant dates

some indispensible sources

The picture of Acton Bridge Mills available courtesy of the weaverham history society

The picture of Witton Brook Works available courtesy of cheshire archives and local studies

 

Any corrections and additional information gratefully received contact john p birchall