Henry Brown, Son and Pickles. Engineers - Part 1

I've just finished a big piece of research which has taken me three years and so I decided to give myself a treat.  It's time we had another proper chunk of Barlick history and so I want to tell you about my mate Newton Pickles.  However, in order to do this properly we've got to step back a bit and look at the history of the steam-powered cotton industry in the town.  If we don't understand that we can't really make sense of the story.  This is why my title is what it is, we have to look at how this great Barlick firm started and then follow Newton's part in it.

There was a textile industry in Barlick long before the arrival of steam power.  As late as the 1851 census we had hand loom weavers working with silk, wool and flax even though cotton was flooding into the North West of England. Two factors coincided which triggered off the steam powered mills.  One was the availability of steam engines in the area and the other was the opening of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal through the area at the turn of the 18th century as this meant that Barlick had easy access to coal both from Lancashire and Yorkshire.

For reasons that will become clear shortly we have to start by looking across the border at Burnley.  In 1808 Burnley had a population of 3,365, a domestic textile industry, connection to Liverpool by canal (except for one short stretch beyond Blackburn which was by-passed by road transport and finally opened in October 1816.) and easily accessible coal reserves in the town.  In 1800 the first American cotton was landed in Liverpool.  All the ingredients were in place for an explosion of activity, all it needed was men with imagination and capital to take advantage of the opportunity.  Bennett, in his History of Burnley says that the first engine in the town was erected by Peel's in 1790 in their new spinning mill at the bottom of Sandygate.  Another engine was installed in 1800 at Goodham Hill and by 1830 their were 30 steam engines in the town.  In 1808 the Leeds and Liverpool Canal company received a request from Mr Hargreaves at Habergham Eaves for permission to extract condenser water from the canal.  This was granted at a cost of 1/- a week.  Something was stirring in Burnley.

By 1827 Mitchell had installed an engine in what later became Clough Mill.  By 1846 William Bracewell was building Butts Mill which was to have the second engine in the town.  Bracewell was 33 years old at the time and came from an old Earby family that had been active in the water-powered industry and 'putting out' to domestic weavers for many years.  He had capital and a voracious appetite for money and power.  By 1854 he had built New Mill or Wellhouse as it came to be known and in 1860 went into partnership with a man called Griffiths and bought Marsland's iron foundry in Burnley.  Soon afterwards Griffiths dropped out and until 1887 the works specialised in the manufacture of steam engines.  By 1867 Bracewell had obtained an Act of Parliament and built the branch railway line from Barnoldswick to the Midland Railway  at Sough.  In 1874 he broadened his interests further by purchasing coal mines at Ingleton.  

By 1885 when Bracewell died aged 72, his engineering works at Burnley had expanded to include two 'room and power' weaving sheds and was making very large engines.  The bank had taken over administration of Bracewell's interests when he died and the entire works was sold to a new limited company with a share capital of £20,000 and became The Burnley Ironworks who carried on engine manufacture on the site.

We are looking at an explosion of investment here on a heroic scale but what is often lost sight of are the service industries which allowed the accumulation of capital to take place which fuelled the expansion.  Who made the machinery that spun and wove the cotton before the machines came?  All the early textile machinery could be made by the local carpenter and blacksmith.  Wooden frames and wrought iron parts were all that was needed.  It wasn't until the advent of the early improvements at the end of the 18th century that any form of gearing, or 'wheelwork' as it was called, was needed.  There was only one trade skilled enough to produce these, the clockmakers.  They understood gears and wheels and had been using them for centuries.  They became an essential part of the early industry.

By about 1800 the demand for wheelwork had outstripped the ability of the clockmakers to fill the demand and we see firms starting up which  specialised in machining parts for the textile industry.  As early as 1792 there were two loom makers in Burnley and a two men called John Sagar and John Webster were in partnership as 'Cotton Machine and Wheel Makers'.  The water-powered spinning industry in Barlick wasn't big enough to sustain specialist manufacturers like these but would certainly have used the resources of Burnley.  

The coming of the steam driven industry triggered off massive innovation in the engineering industries, machine tools were needed to make the new engines and machinery.  As iron-founding and machining improved it transformed the machinery in the mills.  Wood was out, iron was the new wonder material.  A new demand arose for men to maintain the new machinery in the mills.

Up to the time of William Bracewell's death he was well placed to satisfy the demand for maintenance and repairs in Barlick.  He had access to the skills in his new works in Burnley and we have evidence which leads us to suspect he provided services for people like Mitchell.  Atkinson records that when the old pan boilers were replaced at Mitchell's and Butts Mills in the Cotton Famine, it was Bracewell who did the work.  All this was to change when the Bracewell interests collapsed in 1885 and an opening appeared for local men to step in and fill the gap.

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© Stanley Challenger Graham 2003

Page updated: 13 OCT 2003