Henry Brown, Son and Pickles. Engineers - Part 2

In 1880 all seemed set fair for the Bracewell empire but tragedy was lurking in the wings.  Billycock had two sons, William Metcalfe and Christopher George.  William Metcalfe lived at Calf Hall and died suddenly in June 1880.  He had been Billycock's favoured successor as Christopher wasn't regarded as being committed enough to work.  At 67 Billycock might have been thinking of taking it easier but had to carry on in charge.  This almost certainly proved to be too much for him and he died in 1885 leaving only Christopher George who was living at Bank House, Coates.  Billy Brooks and Stephen Pickles both told me that he was a neer-do-well and not fit to run the business.  

The bank obviously shared this sentiment.  There is little doubt that the Craven Bank was deeply involved in the financing of Bracewell's interests because when he died they stepped in as administrators of the estate.   This was a disaster for the town as Wellhouse closed down, Butts staggered on under new management but everything was sold in 1887 to pay back the bank.  Contemporary reports said that workers left the town in droves and 'grass was growing on the streets'.  It was this vacuum that triggered the formation of the Long Ing Shed Company in 1888 and the Calf Hall Shed Company in 1889, both Room and Power companies but that's another story.

Inside the Bracewell family there was more trouble.  Christopher George proved the will at Wakefield in August 1885, the estate was £18,640-15-11.  Billycock left his personal fortune to his daughter Ada and Stephen Pickles told me that Billycock's brother Henry, who was the main manufacturer in Earby at the time and living at Thornton Manor, contested the will.  It was thrown into Chancery and the effect was that Ada was penniless.  She was taken in by Mrs Mary Wilkinson who was the wife of a coloured manufacturer in Colne.  At the same time there was another case in Chancery, Christopher George versus the executors.  Christopher died in 1889 aged 43 years.  Definitely a troubled family.   We'll leave the Bracewells there even though there is much more to tell.  In our story, the important thing is the vacuum created by the collapse of the Bracewell empire.

When the Bracewell interest collapsed there was another consequence for the town.  Bracewell, with his connections in Burnley had been his own provider of engineering maintenance and it seems he had also provided services for others.  There was a fully equipped machine shop at Wellhouse Mill and that survived the break-up intact.  The earliest reference I have to it is that up to 1900 it was rented by an engineer called Sutcliffe for £25 per annum.  It looks as though he was in business as an engineer and millwright servicing the mills in the town.

Up at Ouzeldale Mill there was another resource.  In 1822, Baines Directory notes that John Mitchell was a woodturner there.  The 1851 census gives John Robinson, a joiner as the occupant and on both the 1853 and 1892 maps it is marked as a saw mill.  Harold Duxbury told me that the man who had it was father to Bob and Dan Robinson and they were wheelwrights and cart makers as well as a bit of wood turning.  By about 1890 a man called Henry Watts had started an iron foundry there.  This becomes important later in our story but for now, we have to slip down to Earby.

Down in Earby a man called Henry Brown was noted in Barrett's directory for 1896 as 'machinist and blacksmith'.  The Notice board outside the Wellhouse machine shop said 'founded 1889' so this must be when old Henry set up in Earby.  He didn't do major repairs but made a good living as an independent maintenance engineer for the local manufacturers.  He had a very good reputation.  In 1900 he heard that the machine shop at Wellhouse was up for rent and took it over after Sutcliffe for the same rent, £25 a year.  Henry's uncle, John Duxbury of Crook Carr, was a director of the Calf Hall Shed Company and Owen Duxbury once told me that it was through his influence that Henry Brown got the machine shop.  By then of course, the Calf Hall Shed Company owned Wellhouse Mill.

Once he was working in Barlick Henry found he needed castings from time to time so he went to Henry Watts at Ouzeldale for them.  He became the main customer, went into partnership with Watts and when Watts died he took over the foundry and set on 'Father' Ashby, George Ashby's father, as foreman.  George lived in the house at the mill.  I can't put a date on when Watts died, all I know is that he bought the water wheel for £5 off the Calf Hall Shed Company who owned the mill and broke it up for scrap in 1911 so he was still active then.

I want to leave the scene-setting for this week because I'm going to have to make another jump now to pull in another part of our tale.  What fascinates me about the story so far is the enterprise of the men who saw the need for a service and stepped in to fill the gap.  Barlick was relatively isolated in those days.  It wouldn't have paid the new firm in Burnley that had taken over the Bracewell Foundry, The Burnley Ironworks, to start doing relatively small jobs in Barlick.  They were into much bigger jobs by then and had plenty of work close to home.  

It's worth mentioning here that the Long Ing Shed Company were a bit of an odd-ball in this story because they had their own source of expertise.  One of the major shareholders in 1898 in the new shed company was George Rushworth from Colne.  In later years we knew Rushworth's as scrap merchants but in the latter part of the 19th century their main trade was as engineers and millwrights.  They were contractors during the building of the mill and did all the engineering once it was running.  Truth to tell they weren't very good at their job and later in the story we'll see how they were sacked and new engineers brought in.  

My picture this week is from 'Barnoldswick. A Century of Change'.  It's a picture of Ouzledale Foundry.  All I can tell you about the date is that it must be before 1937 because the brick extension that was built that year isn't there.

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© Stanley Challenger Graham 2003

Page updated: 13 OCT 2003