THORNBERS, BARNOLDSWICK. CHRIS ASPIN

[Stanley]

THORNBERS, BARNOLDSWICK
Water-Spinners by Chris Aspin. Page 396.

At Runley Bridge on the southern edge of Settle, George and I found another barn that started life as a factory. And we wondered as we approached the small three-storeyed building how many of the thousands of people who see it from the Settle by-pass or from a passing train link it to the early cotton trade. Yet here among the green meadows grew up a compact industrial settlement that produced both warp and weft for the best part of a century.

In June, 1786, James Brennan, a Settle merchant, acquired Runley Close "on the west side of the highway' at Runley Bridge and quickly built a twist factory beside the old (but now vanished) road to Clitheroe. Water courses and a dam were already in place, a series of Anley Mills having ground corn since before the Domesday Book was written.

On December 2, 1786, Brennan insured the factory with the Sun fire officer for £400 and the utensils and stock for £600; but by May, 1791, it had passed to the brothers John, James and Thomas Thornber, of Colne, who continued the insurance cover at the same level. Four years later John Thornber, who appears in the Universal British Directory as a linen draper, grocer and cotton manufacturer, insured both Runley Bridge and Higher Mill, a mile distant on the top side of Settle. He valued Runley Bridge [the Lower Mill] and two cottages at £200, the mill work at £40 and the machinery at £98. The figures for its companion, later to be called Dog Kennel Mill, were; building £200, mill work £31 and machinery £2,66.

The brothers remained co-partners, however. and James, who went to live at Runley Bridge, took over the day-to-day running of the business. James and Thomas also became partners with William Garth and Giles Redmayne in Bridge End Mill on the far side of the town.

The addition of weft spinning at Runley Bridge suggests that all of the brothers became manufacturers, though Thomas farmed at Barnoldswick and was a butcher there before becoming a butcher at Colne. The business traded as John Thornber and Co. John lived for a time in Manchester where he probably purchased cotton and sold cloth. In their return made in 1803 under Peel's Act. the brothers called themselves cotton merchants. but on 24 September, 1807. they dissolved their partnership by mutual consent. James then ran the business until his death in 1810. The Runley bridge site came on the market; and the Blackburn Mail, Of 3 October, gives details in a sale notice. The twist factory measured eighteen by nine and a half yards and was driven by a wheel twenty one feet high and four feet wide. Two other miniature mills along with blacksmith's and Joiner's shops and four cottages stood nearby. The machinery~ "almost new and in excellent repair", included eight spinning frames (four with eighty four spindles, two with eighty and two with seventy six) and eight spinning jennies (three with a hundred spindles and two with a hundred and twenty). A "reservoir of two roods" held water for the wheel.