It’s 1946 and Sough Mill has a new role in life. Bristol Tractors have moved in and set up three separate firms, Bristol Tractors, Forecast Foundry and Kelbrook Metal Products. They are employing 350 workers which is more than a weaving shed would have taken on the eight loom system. On the whole, Earby has come out of the war in good shape, increased skills, two new firms and a bright future. As I’ve said before, every cloud has a silver lining.
The Foundry and KMP not only did the Bristol Tractors work, they took outside contracts as well. I remember my father, an old time engineer by trade, coming in the shop one day after a visit to the foundry just to see what was going on and he was muttering to himself. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he had just been watching them casting rail chairs for British Railways. I asked him what was wrong with that and he said that the chairs they were casting were for bull-headed rails when he was quite sure that BR had standardised on flat bottom rail, a completely different article. I don’t know what came of that, I suppose BR paid up and took delivery. Not a good way to run a railway!
I have an idea that the sales director at the time was a man called Bill Gallemore. He must have known Bill Harrison the man I was driving for because we got the contract for delivering the rain water goods they made all over the country and that was my first load when I went on to the tramp. I remember my first job was guttering for a bonded warehouse at Menstrie in Scotland. They kept us going for about five years before I finished and went on the cattle wagons.
We got used to these little crawler tractors clattering past the shop. I think they gave them a test on the land behind the mill. I’ve been told that a man called Arthur Wood from Colne was one of the test drivers. Another name I remember from then is Chris Demaine from Foulridge. Chris was an old farm man originally and I have an idea he worked at Rovers at Sough during the war. We used to see a lot of him because he was the bookie’s runner for the works and was always popping in to use the telephone to put his bets on. Tom Ward worked in the office, my mother had a soft spot for Tom, she used to say he was a ‘nice young man’. Tom eventually left and started a tailor’s shop in Barlick on Rainhall road and retired about a year ago.
Here’s a list of some other names that cropped up in the research: H K West, shop foreman and his son John Michael West who was an apprentice. J Wilkinson, Colne. W Pickover, Earby. J Maxwell, Earby. Francis Clarke, Barnoldswick and Jennifer Rigby.
Much of Bristol’s production was exported and Eric Field the managing director travelled all over the world in the 1960s looking for trade. In 1969 Marshall’s of Gainsborough (a Thomas Ward Company) bought Bristol tractors and under their ownership the last Bristol, the Taurus, was built. I’m not sure when Bristol’s finished at Sough or whether the foundry and KMP carried on afterwards but Bristol Tractors itself was wound up in 1978 and once more Sough Mill was looking for a fresh role.
Today, the mill looks to be quite busy. It has been split up into units one of which is called Bristol House but the main occupier is Adapt Engineering and strangely enough, most of their work is aerospace related. So, all we need is a small weaving company to start up there and the wheel will have come full circle.
So there we have it, the story of Sough Bridge so far. I suppose that most people would pass the mill without a second glance but as we have seen from this brief history, it has been the scene of some important innovations. In the beginning it was room and power. This was the system whereby a group of entrepreneurs built a mill, installed the steam engine and shafting and let the space out to small firms. There were many such sheds in the district and they allowed a lot of manufacturers to get started for a very small capital outlay and one that could be financed from profits. Most of the new mills built after 1900 were financed by men who had started in room and power.
Percy Lowe and his role in setting up the self-help sheds came to the rescue of a lot of workers when trade got bad in the 1930s and it was as a direct result of this that Johnsons came to Earby. They provided constant high quality employment in Victoria Mill for 65 years, a fine record in the weaving industry.
What looked like a disaster in 1939 triggered off another phase of expansion and increased skills when the Rover Company came in and later in 1942, Rolls Royce. A spin-off from this was the number of small back street suppliers that serviced the aero industry. The conversion of Sough Mill to a modern electrified factory by Rovers allowed Bristol Tractors to come in and they lasted another thirty years and kept the skills going. Today the mill still serves a useful purpose 125 years on as accommodation for a variety of small firms.
The thing that strikes me about all this is that not one of the changes was as a result of a coherent industrial policy by the government. It all happened by chance and the right man being their at the right time. So, if you want a good question for a pub trivia quiz how about this one. ‘What is the connection between Percy Lowe, Clarence Jowett and Adolph Hitler?’ That one should get them guessing!
The Bristol Tractor made at Sough.
SCG/30 April 2003
