In
the Middle Ages Bradford became an important centre for the woollen
and textile trades. From 1774 Bradford
was connected to the canal from Leeds to
Liverpool. This encouraged the building
of woollen mills and by the end of the 18th century, six had been
built in the town. The development of worsted manufacture increased
the number of mills in the town. By 1810 Bradford was responsible
for 25% of the West Riding's production of worsted and the town became
known as Worstedopolis.
The introduction of the steam engine to drive machinery increased
the number of mills in Bradford. With over 200 factory chimneys continually
churning out black, sulphurous smoke, Bradford gained the reputation
of being the most polluted town in England. Bradford's sewage was
dumped into the River Beck. As people also obtained their drinking
water from the river, this created serious health problems. There
were regular outbreaks of cholera and
typhoid, and only 30% of children born
to textile workers reached the age of fifteen. Life expectancy, of
just over eighteen years, was one of the lowest in the country.
Titus Salt, who owned five textile mills
in Bradford, was one of the few employers in the town who showed any
concern for this problem. After much experimentation, Salt discovered
that the Rodda Smoke Burner produced very little pollution. In 1842
he arranged for these burners to be used in all his factories.
In 1848 Titus Salt became mayor of Bradford.
He tried hard to persuade the council to pass a by-law that would
force all factory owners in the town to use these new smoke burners.
The other factory owners in the town were opposed to the idea. Most
of them refused to accept that the smoke produced by their factories
was damaging people's health.
The growth of Bradford was helped by the opening of the Leeds &
Bradford Railway in 1846. This resulted in a dramatic increase in
Bradford's population. The number of inhabitants rose from 26,000
in 1801 to 106,000 in 1861. A large number of Irish immigrants found
work in the town and in 1861 only just over a quarter of the inhabitants
had been born in Bradford.
(1)
George Weerth, a young German on holiday in England, described
Bradford in an article that he wrote for a German newspaper in 1846.
Every
other factory town in England is a paradise in comparison to this
hole. In Manchester the air lies like lead upon you; in Birmingham
it is just as if you were sitting with your nose in a stove pipe;
in Leeds you have to cough with the dust and the stink as if you had
swallowed a pound of Cayenne pepper in one go - but you can put up
with all that. In Bradford, however, you think you have been lodged
with the devil incarnate. If anyone wants to feel how a poor sinner
is tormented in Purgatory, let him travel to Bradford.
(2)
After the cholera epidemic of 1848, Titus Salt, at that time the mayor
of Bradford, made a speech on the lessons of this tragedy.
The cholera
most forcibly teaches us our mutual connection. Nothing shows more
powerfully the duty of every man to look after the needs of others.
Cholera is God's voice to his people.
(3) Angus
Reach, The Morning Chronicle
(1849)
Mr. Smith of Deanston, in a sanitary report made about 1837, describes
Bradford as being the dirtiest town in England. Mills abound in great
plenty, and their number is daily increasing, while the town itself
extends in like proportion. Bradford is essentially a new town. Half
a century ago it was a mere cluster of huts: now the district of which
it is the heart contains upwards of 132,000 inhabitants. The value
of life is about 1 in 40. Fortunes have been made in Bradford with
a rapidity almost unequalled even in the manufacturing districts.
The houses of the work people are very inferior. They are one and
all constructed back to back, or rather built double, with a partition
running down the ridge of the roof. This is the case even in rows
and streets at present building. "The plan," said my informant,
"is adopted because of its cheapness, and because it saves ground
rent."
Bradford is well suited for drainage. There is ample fall, and the
"Bradford Beck," a rapid stream which flows through the
town, would, if arched over, make a capital main sewer. The brook
at present runs the colour of ink. The relieving officer with whom
I inspected the town, showed me a spot where the foul water washed
the grimy walls of half a dozen steaming mills. "There,"
he said, "when I was a boy. I used to catch trout in as bright
a stream as any in Yorkshire."
(4)
Margaret McMillan visited Bradford for
the first time in 1892.
We arrived on a stormy night in November. Coming out from the
entrance of the Midland station, we saw, in a swuther of rain, the
shining statue of Richard Oastler standing in the Market Square, with
two black and bowed little mill-workers standing at his knee.
Next morning we awoke in a new and quite unknown world. It was a Sunday,
and the smoke cloud that usually enveloped the city had lifted. Tall
dark chimneys reaching skywards like monstrous trees, made dark outlines
against the faint grey of the sunny morning. On weekdays these big
stone monsters belched forth smoke as black as pitch that fell in
choking clouds.
The condition of the poorer children was worse than anything that
was described or painted. It was a thing that this generation is glad
to forget. The neglect of infants, the utter neglect almost of toddlers
and older children, the blight of early labour, all combined to make
of a once vigorous people a race of undergrown and spoiled adolescents;
and just as people looked on at the torture two hundred years ago
and less, without any great indignation, so in the 1890s people saw
the misery of poor children without perturbation.
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