LONG ING SHED, BARNOLDSWICK.

[Stanley]

LONG ING SHED, BARNOLDSWICK.

State of the wicket Saturday, 27 January 2001.

Billy Brooks says the police slept in the engine house for two years around the weaver’s strike of 1895 to guard against sabotage of the engine.

1895 Long Ing was the first shed to come out on strike over Local Disadvantage.

Long Ing Engine. Newton Pickles info. Yates engines, pair of tandems. 700hp gear drive. In 1932 NP repaired the air pumps, rebored all cylinders and fitted new pistons. This came about after Stephen Pickles gained control of all the shares. As long as Rushworth’s were shareholders they did the maintenance on the engine and the engine had been very unreliable. Much of this unreliability was due to the fact that as soon as the shed design and equipment had been finalised in 1886/7 a decision had been taken to extend from 1200 looms to 1600 to accommodate Brooks Brothers looms. Brooks Brothers was Robinson and Christopher Brooks who had started in Clough mill with 86 looms. As with all the Barlick mills, the more you know about the others the better you can understand what’s going on. So, let’s look at the Brooks family.

The Brooks family were grocers in Newtown in Barlick, they later moved to larger premises in Church Street. Christopher Brooks, the head of the family gats mentioned as a shareholder of the Craven Bank and was evidently making money and rising in the community. He would be in touch with the developments in the cotton trade and saw an opportunity to get in on the ground floor. Here I have a bit of difficulty because it hasn’t yet become clear exactly when he took the plunge but there was a big shake out at Clough in 1860 when the Bracewell Brothers [Coates branch, not Billycock] interests in Barlick at Old Coates and Clough mill failed. John Slater was the major tenant, he also had shares in a silk mill at Galgate. He survived the Cotton Famine well because they experimented with other fibres and wove wool/cotton mixtures. Slater helped Bennett, the pastor of the local Baptist church set up in business in Clough to provide work for his parishioners. By 1867 Slater had bought Clough off Mitchell and then he died. His sons put pressure on Bennett and forced him into liquidation so in 1867/1868 there was spare space. I don’t know yet whether this is when Brooks Brothers started or whether it was 1878 when a new mill was built at Clough. I suspect it was in the 1878/79 extension because this was four stories and Billy Brooks says that Brooks Brothers were in the ‘Top Hoil’. And the number of looms would be about right for one storey of this building.

Long Ing was building by 1886/87 and one source says that one of the original shareholders was ‘Mrs Elizabeth Brooks’, looks like the widow of Christopher the grocer. Whatever, in 1889/90 Brooks Brothers moved out of Clough with their 86 looms and made up to 421 in the new shed at Long Ing. Billy Brooks says that the looms at Clough were Pilling’s looms and when Brooks went down to Long Ing they made up with Cooper’s looms, 38” and 40” and 43”. Eventually they smashed the Pilling’s looms up and replaced them with Coopers.

This shed was gear driven and the drive always gave trouble from the start. Billy Brooks says that in 1892 the gearing to the shed collapsed and the main shaft was found to be cracked. It was a fairly serious event, pieces of broken wheel burst through the roof. They were stopped for three weeks while this was rectified and then shortly afterwards there was a big problem with the jack wheel on the engine flywheel. He says they were stopped six weeks in all. Billy says that after the initial repair there was a lot of vibration in the drive and in the end a new jack wheel was fitted. He says that when the new wheel was fitted it was wrong, ‘too much shoulder on it’ and they had to ‘shive some off’ and bar the engine round by hand all night to get it to run somewhere near right. No barring engine at that time?

Later evidence makes it clear that the original engine was overloaded, the boiler pressure was too low and the gear drive to Brook’s shed was still unsatisfactory. All these problems were resolved by installing a Buckley and Taylor engine alongside the Yates and driving the back shed directly by ropes. This was a 250hp tandem and NP says it was very modern for its time. ‘78/AG/3. Page 18. Newton says that the B&T engine put in to drive Brook’s shed was 250hp, 75 rpm, tandem, blue steel lagged, all corliss valves, vertical air pump in the cellar, ‘a bonny little engine’. Very long rope drive direct on to Brook’s shed shaft. NP says you could see the original stonework for the gearing and it had evidently been spur wheel and pinion. Billy Brooks said there were three gears. NP also said the engine house was very hot with having two engines in.’

Later on, round about 1938 Pickles’s decided to modernise Long Ing and Barnsey, they owned them both. Here’s an extract from NP tapes that describes what the plan was and what actually happened.

78/AG/3. Page 18. They decided to put a new engine in, they’d have one of them engines from Bankfield. [Closed down1934. SG] Which were a 900ihp cross compound like Crow Nest. Oh, it were a bonny engine, there were two engines in Bankfield, a 750ihp and this 900ihp.and they’d have this 900ihp down at Long Ing just afore the war broke out. We pulled the engine out of Bankfield and stored it in the yard at Long Ing, put all the bits in the cellar, it were going to be done were this job. Th’engine house were going to be lengthened and they were going to run the mill with an electric motor while the engine were put in there. We got a 500hp motor off Collins at Leeds and we got all that in and it were run, there were a crown wheel and pinion put on and a big wall bracket and a new line shaft, to get gear into speed you know. They were 14 inches wide were the teeth and three inch pitch them two pinions, just like an engine flywheel race and pinion running to it. And a countershaft with Dawson’s rope pulleys on and about twenty odd ropes on and we get all that finished and ring oiler bearings, it were a real job and t’blooming war broke out.

When we were going to replace the Yates and Thom, with this new engine from Bankfield, the Buckley and Taylor were going to have to be taken out you see. So we were going to run all the lot with this motor. Now then, the Buckley and Taylor, we brought it to the shop, we had it all up at t’shop except for the bed. We were going to do it all up, rebore the cylinders and when the new engine house were built it were going to be built big enough to put the Buckley and Taylor back on its original beds and run an alternator off it for lighting at Long Ing and Barnsey Shed. That’s it and it never developed, it would have been a marvellous set up. The engine at Barnsey weren’t big enough to put an alternator on to run the lights.

Aye, and you could have run a wire across the road…..

R-We were going to, on poles yes and light both sheds with that engine.

78/AB/4. Page 4. Billy Brooks talks about Jack Trayford being firebeater at Long Ing before David Akrigg. He says that Jack was always dashing about because they were hard-fired but David seemed to ‘laik with it’. David Akrigg wanted the engine job but when a bloke called Oliver ? was appointed over his head he left. Billy says that it was a pity. This was sometime after 1900 as near as I can make out.

78/AB/4. Page 3. Billy Brooks says that Calf Hall, Wellhouse, Butts and Long Ing all had steam whistles. They used to call them ‘donkeys’. Tells story of David Akrigg lighting fires at Long Ing one Sunday morning and then locking himself out of the boiler house. Unknown to him, the weight of the handle on the cock which supplied the steam for the whistle off the tape connection at the back of the boiler had dropped as the valve cooled down and came loose. As the pressure built up the whistle started moaning and gradually increased in pitch. All Barlick could hear it and in the end Billy’s great uncle Willie Brooks who was manager at Long Ing had to go down to open the boiler house and shut it off.

78/AB/3 Page 4.
What was the lighting at Long Ing?

R-Gas, ordinary split burners, th’old fashioned split burners. Aye and t’tacklers used to go round wi’ a lamp wi’ oil in and some holes in it and they used to touch it you know [the oil lamp] it used to smoke up, it filled th’hoil wi’ smook, aye. Ha ha ha! Aye it did. They were waiting on ‘em turning t’gas on you see wi’ them lamps, they were smooking, it were loom oil that they had in ‘em you know, wi’ wicks on and they just used to go round and touch ‘em you know. And then there were a manager at that time after me uncle Willy had died (William Brooks) [the new manager was George Brooks] , he used to turn the gas on and you know there were a handle on it. It were one of them with a mark across you know, [What Billy is describing is an old fashioned plug cock that turned 90 degrees to be fully open. The mark he talks about was a line scribed across the top of the cock which corresponded with the hole through the plug. When the line was aligned with the pipe the cock was fully open, when across the pipe it was closed.] He used top turn it reight round and then he turned t’damned lot out you know and they’d to light ‘em again, aye, he did that regular! (Laughter from both) Aye he did, George Brooks they called him aye, instead of going back you know he turned it reight round you see and he’d shut it off and they’d all went out, they had to go round again aye. (More laughter) That happened many a time.

That ud be towns gas Billy?

Oh yes, it came from here. [Billy’s house on Cornmill Terrace was alongside the gas works.]

78/AB/3. Page 3.
I’d asked Billy who was in Long Ing Shed in 1890s.

R-Robinson Brooks.

How many looms did they have?

R-Brooks? Four hundred and twenty one.

And who else was weaving at Long Ing then Billy?

R-Well, there were Ormerods, Slater Edmondson’s, Boocock’s and later on Jim O’Kits, Jim Edmondson, Jim O’Kits aye. There were 1200 looms up that side, it were built for 1200 looms but they built an annexe for Brooks two year after it started, in 1890. Long Ing were built in 1888 and them engines were put in by Yates and Thom from Blackburn [W&J Yates actually. Yates and Thom didn’t amalgamate until later.] for twelve hundred looms and they spoilt t’job wi’ shoving another four hundred and twenty on to ‘em, it wasn’t made for that.

Billy Brooks says that sometime around 1890/1900 as near as I can make out, the mill was closed for a fortnight while the two old boilers were taken out and two new, higher pressure boilers were put in. He says the old ones were 100psi and the new ones 150psi. He also says that as the old ones were being pulled out he saw ‘Hyde Junction’ painted on one of them. Dan Adamson’s works was at Hyde Junction where they had a private siding. This is now called Hyde North but there are two streets, Adamson St and Junction Street. Adamsons started on Newton Moor in Hyde in 1851 but later moved to the thirteen acre site at Hyde Junction.

It seems fairly obvious that there was a fundamental mistake made during the building of Long Ing Shed. At a guess Id say that this was because George Rushworth was an engineer of sorts and I should think had a big say in the design as he was a major shareholder. Some estimate of his and his firm’s worth in this regard can be deduced from the fact that Rushworths never made any headway as engineers and millwrights and reverted to scrapmen, and Newton’s evidence as to the state of the engine when Stephen Pickles got control in the 30s and brought Brown and Pickles in. Billy Brooks evidence in 78/AB/1 when he talks about the gearing breaking is that ‘They were always stopped’.

The engines would perhaps have been adequate for 700 looms but were an old design with SV all round. The boiler pressure was very low at 100psi and when the new shed was added the engines could only just cope with the power demand. I have little doubt that this was the root of the cause of the Jack Wheel breakage.

Apart from the matter of poor maintenance, raising the pressure with new boilers and installing the B&T engine cured the fundamental defects. It’s significant that Long Ing was the first modern shed completed in one build and the technology wasn’t as well understood as it was in later years.

78/AB/4. Page 4. Billy Brooks says: ‘I’ve seen many a time when Robinson Brooks ’ud say to me father, Don’t come while breakfast time, it were in winter time, he says [Wait] while things get warmed up. A bit hard fired you see and he didn’t want the tapes pulling at it until everything had getten going. So many a time he knocked the tapes off while after breakfast at Monday morning in cold weather.’
This tells the whole story about the boilers. I know from my own experience of running Bancroft with one boiler what the problems can be on a winter morning. Everything in the mill is cold so your friction load is right at the top. You’ve got the heating full on in the mill. In Bancroft’s case you also had the lights on. I’ve asked the tapes to hang back myself many a time. Part of the problem with the tapes is that before they can start they have to boil the size in the becks and the sow box and even with just one tape extra, this was a major load on the boilers. (one standard tape did for 400 looms) Another, less well known fact is that on Monday morning the brick settings under the boiler are relatively cold. They do not warm up to full temperature until Wed. dinnertime. Coal consumption in winter dropped noticeably round about Wed. dinnertime for this reason.

Weavers in Brooks shed in 1890s mentioned by Billy Brooks. Maggie Barker, Jim Dux, Preston Jimmy, Bill Pollard, Tillotson Family, Dickson Family, Jabez Soni.

78/AB/3. Page 3. Billy Brooks says; tenants in 1892 were Ormerod’s, Slater Edmondson, Boocock’s and Robinson Brooks. All had about 400 looms. Brooks had 421 definitely. Reckon 1 tape machine for each 400 looms.

BUDC Rate Books. Tenants at Long Ing in 1892. (Half Year rate) Eastwood and Maudsley, 400 looms, £187/10/0. Edmondson and Ormerod, 400 looms, £187/10/0. Slater Edmondson, 400 Looms, £187/10/0. Robinson Brooks, 400 looms, £187/10/0. [There is no conflict with Billy’s evidence as by 27th September, Eastwood and Maudsley had moved to Butts Mill. Boocock Brothers are mentioned as tenants in Long Ing in 1912 M/c Exchange Directory. However there are also mentions of them applying for space at Wellhouse in 1897. They never amounted to much and were probably playing the ‘chase the grace period’ game. (New tenants were often given a rent free period and help with the expense of loom shifting)]

BUDC Rate Books. 26th March 1894. (This is a half year rate) James Edmondson, £188, Edmondson and Ormerod, £188. Thos S Edmondson, £188. Robinson Brooks, £188. Long Ing Shed Co paid £752 for Poor Rate and £752 for the buildings. ( note these figures, they are a serious expense)

GS engine details. 1887 W&J Yates twin tandem condensing. All slide valve, HP valves had Meyer expansion gear. Single slipper guides, no tail rods, wood lagging with brass bands. LH named Lizzie, other was Minnie.

Willy Brooks was manager of Brooks Brothers in 1892. He was uncle to Jim Brooks who was Billy Brooks father. All of them related.

BUDC papers. 1900. Letter to Samuel Slater who was acting as secretary to Long Ing Shed Co. saying that the Council will vacate an office they have rented there.

78/AB/3. Page 4. Billy Brooks says that in 1892 there were four tacklers for 421 looms at Robinson Brooks. Tom Smith, Wilson Horsfield and Matthew Horsfield had about 115 looms each. Jim Brooks, Billy’s dad had 70 or 80 looms
Newton Pickles evidence on Long Ing Engine. (some of this is a repeat of evidence above but all pertinent.)

Now then, Long Ing were built in 1888. What were the engine?

R-Yates and Thom pair of tandems, not so very big, about 700ihp no more. 650 or 700, four cylinder, pair of tandems. High pressure, low pressure each side going on to a common shaft with two cranks. Gear drive, cast iron wheel with a soft, spongy boss. Aye, now then…

Hang on a minute, I know what you mean but explain what you mean by a spongy boss.

R-It had been a bad casting and it were very spongy and as you drove keys in they used to sink into the spongy metal, you never could fit them properly. [The boss was the casting that fitted over the shaft with keys on flats and was the basis for the spokes and the rest of the wheel. SG] The boss of the flywheel were crumbly, all spongy at one side. Anyway, we can start at this as we mean to go on. We never worked at Long Ing while it belonged to Rushworths at Colne. Rushworths used to maintain the engine and just before I came out of me time, Pickles, as I’ve told you, had all of Butts and about 400 or 500 looms at Calf Hall. Well, they took them looms out of Calf Hall and went to Long Ing. Well, we moved all the tapes, cut-looking machines and all that for them.
(365)
That were’t first time I’d ever worked at Long Ing. Well, we were working there doing tapes and tape drives and donkey engines and the ruddy mill kept stopping. It’d stop about an hour and then they’d start up again and sometimes it wouldn’t start at all and that’s how it went on like. Well, that were nowt to do with us because we never went to them engines at all. This went on for about six month and one afternoon, we were in’t shop, me father shouts Newton! Come here. I went outside into t’thoroughfare [This was the passage that divided the right hand shop at Wellhouse from the laundry and the office. SG] he says, you know Mr Pickles don’t you? Oh aye I says, from Butts. [Mr Pickles] says come on, we’ve to go to Long Ing, it’s stopped again and I’m not going to have any more of it, we don’t run more than a day and a half a week so I’ve told Rushworths to keep away and you’re going to Long Ing. So I surmised then like, which I learned later were right, that Pickles had bought a load of shares in Long Ing which made Rushworths a bit lower down the ladder.

[The minutes of the Calf Hall Shed co. show that S Pickles and Sons and their associated firms Butts Manufacturing Company and Craven Manufacturing Co (the latter two were sole tenants in Butts Mill) moved out of Calf Hall and Butts in April 1932 so this must be the date of the changes Newton is referring to. Butts Mill never ran again after Pickles moved into Barnsey and Long Ing. SG]

So off me and me father goes to Long Ing and it were stopped and th’engine driver were a nice chap and came from Foulridge, he hadn’t been there so long. So me father goes to him and says What’s up and what do they call thee? He says They call me Jack and I live at Foulridge and I’m stopped because I’ve got no vacuum. So me father says We’d better have look at them air pumps hadn’t we.

So we all went back to the works and got some blocks and some tackle and two fitters, Bob Fort and Leonard Parkinson, good fitters, and we went to t’Long Ing. We pulled the delivery plate off one air pump, they weren’t so big you know them pumps. [Being a tandem it would have an air pump/condenser set on each side. SG.] I just takes one look down the bucket and I says Bloody Hell. Old Len’s up on top and he says What’s up Newton? I said I don’t know Len but I’ve getten t’block chain fast down t’side o’t bucket and I can’t get it out! He says Tha what? I says I’ve getten t’hand chain down t’side o’t bucket and t’buggers kaiked over and I can’t get it out! He says I’m coming down there, I want to see this! And believe it or believe it not, he came down did Leonard and he says Hell fire, I’ve been all over’t country but I’ve never seen owt like this. He rolled his smock sleeve up and says I can get me fingers in. he shoved his hand down t’side o’t bucket and when he did that I pulled the chain out. I bet there were 5/8 of an inch wear. Well, we couldn’t do owt with that at night. We changed all the big rubber on the bucket and all the top rubbers, they were all shrivelled up and we did the other side and be about twelve o’clock we’d getten it all together. Len says Ho Newton, there’s sommat wrong here, has ta looked at them pillars? They were like yours at Bancroft Stanley, round pillars up each side for the crosshead slide. Len says Come over here and have a look. We’d nowt down there but a stink lamp and a lantern, there were no electric. Leonard held his lantern up back and says What do you think about them pillars? That bugger, that pillar leans over about half an inch at t’top! Aye he says, look at the bushes [In the crosshead arms. SG] They were all worn bell mouthed were the bushes. Anyway, we got the new rubbers on and I remember me father saying to us, Think on, before you come away take the injection valve tops off and have a look in the pipes and so we did so. There were two injection pipes that came in from the canal you know. We took the tops off, it weren’t much of a job, they were only held on be four bolts, you know, the injection valves for the water to the air pumps [Via the condensers. SG] and they were ordinary mushroom valves and Old Len says we’re having these out, Take em out Newton and just put t’tops back because by the look of these pumps we’re going to need all the water we can get here.

Anyway, we got running sometime during the night and I think the vacuum gauge went up to about 25 inches and t’chap nearly had a fit. He says they’ve never been up there since I started! And it were summertime and the canal were warm. Anyway this’d be about Wednesday and it ran the week out. So we told me father about these guides and old Stephen had given me father a point blank order to do whatever was needed so first of all at weekend we went and took these guides off. I got one into t’lathe on Sunday morning and it were an inch and a half bent and they were two and a half inches in diameter. Well, I couldn’t straighten it meself.

Our Mr Brown from Horton rolled in, he were all dressed up. He says What ta doing Newton, making a crankshaft? I told him it were one of the pillars of the engine at Long Ing. Never! He says, And it’s run like that? Anyhow he helped me off with it and we warmed it in the fire and straightened in the lathe. It weren’t so long, about three feet.

How did you straighten it, a block and bar?

R-Aye, we straightened it reasonably and I filed it up and polished it. We did the motion up at weekends, took a lot of the shake out of it. It were clonk bang, clonk bang when it were running, and we took particulars of new buckets. And it ran a fortnight and it never stopped no more and then we took the buckets out. We hadn’t time to rebore them, the liners weren’t too bad you know, they were an ordinary air pump so we put the new buckets in and made them fit the hole as best we could. All new rubbers on’t buckets again and we made new saucers with a bit more dish so they’d relieve themselves better. Them air pumps never gave any more trouble.

Then me father says We’d better have a look in them cylinders. Well we took the high pressure cover off one Saturday morning off one side and I put me fingers right over it [The piston. SG] So he rang Stephen up and he said Remember what I told you John, you’ve to do to that engine what you want, so at Barlick holidays we rebored one side, high pressure and t’low and them were the first two cylinders I rebored on me own. I were supervised on them but I more or less did nights on em and I bored them two. I did them but I weren’t entirely left with em, me father came over and Dennis came and Len were there.

Now then, sometime between then and the September holidays the flywheel came loose during the week.

Just explain here Newton how the flywheel is held on the shaft.

R-The flywheel was fastened on to the shaft with four keys about three inches wide and two foot long. Tapered keys what we call staked on.

That’s it, so the shaft wasn’t round, it was a round shaft with flats planed on it.

R-It was a round shaft with four flats planed on it to suit the keys.

And there’s a gap between the flywheel boss..

R-There’s a gap of ¾ of an inch between the flywheel and the shaft. You get your flywheel true of course before you fit the keys with staking wedges. Taper wedges in the gap, that’s the way to do. Anyway, it came loose and it rolled off the keys and landed up one side of the wheel pit and started rubbing.

Anyway. In the time available and t’time it happened we couldn’t make any new keys for it so we refit the old uns and thumped em in and we were only stopped about two and a half days. We refit them and thumped em in and got going. Then, in the September holidays I got landed reight. Bore t’other two cylinders and we’d made all these pistons, four altogether. I got instructions, they were going to stop two days extra and I’d all four cylinders to do. At holidays when we bored two cylinders we were stopped a week, that gave me two full weekends as well didn’t it. At September holidays they stopped while Wednesday, they stopped at Thursday night for me and gave me Friday extra and gave me the Wednesday as well. They normally started Wednesday morning under normal circumstances at September holidays but I’d still got two cylinders to bore. I’d one advantage, I were used to stripping it because I’d done one side. Anyway, there were four of us and we bored em. Put new piston rod in that were all ready, new pistons and bored two cylinders. And after that I don’t think that engine, more or less, didn’t ail anything till all at once one day me father says They’re stopped at Long Ing Newton, let’s go on. And we were busy, by God we were busy. Oh I says, what’s up wi’ it?
(430)
We got there and asked Jack and he said I don’t know but it’s been making a din in’t flywheel. And when me father found it, it were in two halves were that flywheel, wi’t jack wheel bolted on’t side. [Gear drive to spur gear on shaft. SG] It had broken one of the dowels in’t rim which would be about five or six inches square dowel with cotters through each end that held the joints together. Me father says We can’t do that job Newton, we haven’t got the tackle to lift it. So he rang Stephen Pickles and Rushworths men came on. George Carr Rushworth and me father meantime had got best of pals. And with the work what we had on already he says we can’t do it and I were mad. I were barmy then you know, I wanted to do it. I thought we could borrow t’blocks. It’d weigh oh, about twelve or thirteen ton would half o’t wheel. Anyhow, they decided between them they’d let Roberts do it from Nelson. So Johnny Waddington, he were a damn good fitter were Johnny Waddington [JW was fitter who installed Bancroft engine]. He came and put new dowels into t’flywheel and they were stopped a fortnight. And I went on, I did part work for him like planing cotters and I think I planed the dowels so’s it wouldn’t go up into t’cores you know in his way. I planed the dowels at one end and I used to go on a lot and anyway, eventually they got running,

I think they got running at Tuesday and me father comes down into t’shop again. He says, go to Long Ing, they’re stopped, t’bloody flywheel’s rolled off the keys. Well I says, never, he’s only just keyed it back on! [Johnny Waddington. SG] He says I know, tha’d better go and do it again. So I’d to go and rekey the wheel on and I put four new keys in, he’d never put no new keys in, he’d used the old uns. He must never have tightened em, it’d chewed one or two of them. I’d to put four new keys in and I were stopped nearly a week. I used to pull Johnny Wadding ton’s leg, he went engine driving after in Nelson you know [I’ve temporarily forgotten the name of the mill but he installed an engine there and liked the shop so much he stayed on as engineer. SCG], he were a right awkward bugger to work for you know. One day he were being awkward with me, one Saturday and I just said to him Ho Johnny, what the hell did you tighten the keys with at Long Ing, a seven pound hammer? It only run one day! By gum, I’d never no more bother with him, he he!

So after that I don’t think that engine ever ailed more than sommat or nowt only normal maintenance. And then, coming up to t’war, Pickles bought the whole mill then. They decided to put a new engine in, they’d have one of them engines from Bankfield. [Closed down1934. SG] Which were a 900ihp cross compound like Crow Nest. Oh, it were a bonny engine, there were two engines in Bankfield, a 750ihp and this 900ihp.and they’d have this 900ihp down at Long Ing just afore the war broke out. We pulled the engine out of Bankfield and stored it in the yard at Long Ing, put all the bits in the cellar, it were going to be done were this job. Th’engine house were going to be lengthened and they were going to run the mill with an electric motor while the engine were put in there. We got a 500hp motor off Collins at Leeds and we got all that in and it were run, there were a crown wheel and pinion put on and a big wall bracket and a new line shaft, to get gear into speed you know. They were 14 inches wide were the teeth and three inch pitch them two pinions, just like an engine flywheel race and pinion running to it. And a countershaft with Dawsons rope pulleys on and about twenty odd ropes on and we get all that finished and ring oiler bearings, it were a real job and t’blooming war broke out. You see we could have rebuilt, taken the Yates and Thom out and left the Buckley and Taylor in, there were two engines at Long Ing you know, there were a Buckley and Taylor run down t’side of th’engine house, a bonny little thing about 250 horse.

Now then, wait a minute, just let me tell you something about that and you tell me if it’s right. I’m checking something that Billy Brooks told me, now remember, Billy Brooks is 97. He said one big trouble they had there. Now Long Ing were originally built for 1200 loom weren’t it.

R-Aye, like I said, the engine were no bigger than 700 horse.

That’s it, yes. And when Brooks moved in there they built them an annexe for 400 looms.

R-That’s right.

Now that 400 looms, let me tell you and then you tell me whether this is right, that 400 loom were driven with a gear off the shaft .

R-Originally.

They said it were never anything but trouble.

R-Aye, it never were any good.

Now Billy told me that he remembered , when he was learning to weave there, and this would be about 1892, he said that he came in one morning and he realised that his looms were covered with little bits of metal and he said that he couldn’t reckon up what this were. He said That gear wheel flew in pieces, he said it were too much for it and what they did was put another engine in the engine house.

R-They did.

And he said they put a long rope drive off it and they drove that 400 loom shed straight off that. Now is that right?

R-They did, and it were a length and all, that’s right. It’s quite true is that but all that were done afore my time. No I just worked on the Buckley and Taylor and it were a bonny engine. Buckley and Taylor’s of Blackburn built it. A bonny engine of about 250horse and it ran at about 75rpm.

Single cylinder?

R-No, it were a tandem with a vertical air pump down in the cellar. Oh it were a bonny littlie thing and it never ailed anything, I think we just did a couple of Corliss bonnets up on it all the time I knew it.

It were a Corliss as well?

R-It were a Corliss, it were a bonny engine, it were like modern and old all in one engine house you know. It were beautifully lagged wi’ blued steel and t’other were wooden lagged cylinders you know. It were a real nice set up to look at were Long Ing engine house wi’ them two engines. But you talk about it being hot! Cor, I mean, you’d be working on the big ‘un and t’liittle un would be running you know. When you were keying flywheels on and that during the day. Big engine were stopped and t’little un were still running. Albert Hartley’s were in there with sheeting looms when I started working. They were at Long Ing where Brooks were because Brooks went to Westfield. [Brooks were the major shareholder in Westfield]

It’s nice to know Billy was right, he’s very accurate for his age.

R-Oh he were right, he were very accurate about that. There were even stonework in the wall where the spur wheels had been. Spur wheel and pinion you know to run that shed.

Aye he said they were never anything but bother. He said the wheels used to fly to bits and they used to come…

R-Oh aye, they were and the engine weren’t big enough anyway.

That’s it, Billy said it was overloaded.

R-Overloaded to blazes yes and that were all done away with. They were good at that, yes, he was quite accurate.

When we were going to replace the Yates and Thom, with this new engine from Bankfield, the Buckley and Taylor were going to have to be taken out you see. So we were going to run all the lot with this motor. Now then, the Buckley and Taylor, we brought it to the shop, we had it all up at t’shop except for the bed. We were going to do it all up, rebore the cylinders and when the new engine house were built it were going to be built big enough to put the Buckley and Taylor back on its original beds and run an alternator off it for lighting at Long Ing and Barnsey Shed. That’s it and it never developed, it would have been a marvellous set up. The engine at Barnsey weren’t big enough to put an alternator on to run the lights.

Aye, and you could have run a wire across the road…..

R-We were going to, on poles yes and light both sheds with that engine.

Long Ing Shed. Mentioned as still weaving after the war and Ernie Roberts worked there on knitting machines in 1966 for S Pickles and Son. Newton says it was taken over by the Admiralty during WWII and used as storage space. After the war Pickles started again with new looms but all with individual motors.

Long Ing Shed. Craven Herald reports.
27/1/1887. Applications for looms in shed are 1200, full complement.
8/9/1888. Decision made to add 400 loom extension. Building to start next week.
18/10/1889. Shed almost full of looms

LONG ING SHED. TENANTS IN 1915.
(Wm Atkinson Page 86) Says that a recent extension has brought number of looms up to 2009 including 274 large sheeting looms. Difficult to work out what he is saying but it looks like: Brown and Bailey, 589 looms. Dewhurst Ltd, 386. J Wilson Ltd, 396. Wilson and Pearson Ltd, 200. Albert Hartley Ltd, 420. (my total 1991 looms)

UDBk 19/1 PCRO 29. 1893. Eastwood and Maudsley have moved to Butts Mill from Long Ing.

There is a strange entry in Barrett’s Directory of 1887 of John Brown, manufacturer and engineer of Long Ing.

Slater Edmondson mentioned as tenant in 1888 at Long Ing was in partnership with James Nutter until 1890. At this point James Nutter went to Calf Hall on his own. Slater Edmondson stayed at Long Ing with 400 looms.

Tenants in 1906. James Edmondson, 400. Boocock Brothers, 400. Brown and Bailey, 400. Robinson Brooks, 400. [we know this was actually 421, a lot of these figures were rounded down or up for lists]

78/AG/3. Page 15. Long Ing Shed. Newton Pickles talks about taking the Buckley and Taylor engine out of the engine house. He doesn’t say it here, but what they did was store it up at the shop at Wellhouse. They got a 500hp electric motor from Collins at Leeds and set it up to drive the shed while all the alterations were going on. The W&J Yates was to be taken out and replaced with the 900hp Burnley Ironworks engine from Bankfield which was taken out by B&P and stored in Long Ing Yard. It rusted during the war and was scrapped afterwards.

Elizabeth Brooks, the wife of Robinson Brooks is mentioned by Billy Brooks as being one of the original shareholders at Long Ing. (78/AB/6)


SCG/Saturday, 27 January 2001

[Invernahaille]

Good to see you are still going strong Stanley

[Stanley]

Not too sure about the 'strong' bit Robert but so far I am refusing to lie down. Mind you, I do get tired easier these days.... Have a look at Shed Matters Robert, I try to keep my hand in!