BRACEWELL AND GREEN END SHED

[Stanley]

Bracewell and Green End Shed, Earby

I got a request for info on the above from Geoff Shackleton and it lay fallow while I sorted some families out in Barlick and Earby. Then I started tidying up and this is the reply to the query.

The first thing to say is that I got a surprise because I have always assumed that Green End Shed was at Rostle Top on the opposite side of the road from Green End House. It is not, it is on the side of what is now New Road where Preston’s Garage and the housing development above were built.

I printed out the 1853, 1902 and 1950 maps of the area and sure enough, Green End shed is on the first two and there is no building that corresponds on Rostle Top Road. So, no doubt about that, it was a steam driven mill of unconventional shape fronting on to what was in the early days when it was built, a private road from Green End house. The evidence of this is in a council debate on road adoption in 1930.

We know from the research into the Bracewells in Barlick that William of Coates built a water powered twist mill at Old Coates around 1803 and that he was engaged in putting out to domestic weavers. Christopher his son moved to Thornton Hall Farm in 1813 and to Earby in 1845, this was the build date for Green End House. The house was built on land belonging to Green End Farm which Christopher had bought. No doubt the mill was built on part of the farm also. Earby Local History society give 1840 as the starting date for the mill, I had 1839 so I think we are near enough. There is fleeting evidence that before the steam driven mill came into being the Bracewells had a warehouse in Earby on the same spot for their manufacturing business, most likely using twist from Old Coates Mill and therefore the name of William Bracewell as cotton manufacturer crops up. This is entirely credible and I shall go with it until contrary evidence crops up. I have another reference which is slightly suspect that Christopher started in Earby with 4 hand looms in ‘a shed near Green End in 1821’. It has the ring of truth but there are mistakes in the rest of the article so…..

My build date for Victoria Mill is 1852. Nothing on the OS map for 1853 but this is no surprise as the survey date for Earby could have been well before 1853. In 1896 Henry Bracewell is noted as cotton manufacturer at ‘Old Shed’ and Albion Shed so the old mill was still active then.

From the maps it is clear that Big Mill, the Victoria Mill extension was built on green fields below the beck. Prince Albert Street was known locally as ‘The Dockyard’ because of the number of Liverpudlian families who lived there, brought in as labour for the mill. Incidentally, the reference on the 1853 map to Island Row and Square is erroneous. It was ‘Ireland’ and so named because this was the Irish ghetto in Earby, again, labour attracted after 1852.

Henry Jackson is a fleeting figure. My reckoning is he was one of the hundreds of budding entrepreneurs who jumped on the back of the water twist opportunity around 1800 and failed. I have a reference to a Henry Jackson paying land tax in Barlick in 1760, before him a John Jackson that looks as though it could be his father paid the tax to 1757. So, a Jackson family with capital. George Ingle says that Henry Jackson took over Dotcliffe after Wormwell failed in 1818. Billy Brooks told me that when he was working at Coates Mill in 1905 it was run by a consortium of Earby men, Walter Wilkinson, Hartley King and others who later became the Seal Manufacturing Co in Earby. Billy says that this group took Coates over off a man called Jackson. Same family? I’ve never come across any connection between Christopher Bracewell and Dotcliffe. Smallpage was at Dotcliffe by 1835 at the latest as it was from him that Wilson at Lothersdale poached Riddihough a warp dresser. Wilson was working with worsted and so it looks as though Smallpage was doing the same as warp dressing is a typical worsted dying process.

George has another reference to a partnership in Earby Joseph Cowgill and William Harrison who were cotton spinners and manufacturers until 1806 when the partnership was dissolved. William Harrison was trying to let the mill in 1810. I suspect this was Earby Corn Mill up at the end of Red Lion Street which as far as I can tell never worked again afterwards despite the fact it is a superb water power site. The Cowgill family were landowners in Earby right through the 19th and 20th c.

SCG/07 December 2003