Love and Money (16 page)

How does all this concern the Whin Head Mutual Spinning Company? Well, it seems it was in talk with Mrs. Boocock that the idea of the mill first entered Dr. Tom's head. The young man was squeamish about sending out bills for his professional services and for the first year or so nobody received any; then it seemed that one of his Thornton cousins scolded him for this and took the matter in hand, for a whole flight of accounts reached Whin Head on the same day, all bearing the High Roebuck postmark. On his next visit to the Delph, Rosa Boocock told him frankly she could not pay it.

“May I see the account?” said Dr. Tom politely.

Rosa handed it to him. Dr. Tom took it with a slight bow, gazed down at it with mild thoughtfulness, then quietly tore the paper across and dropped it in the taproom fire.

“You're too good, too kind!” exclaimed Rosa. Now that she had got what she wanted, she was ashamed and began to make excuses. “Custom's dropping at this inn all the time,” she said.

It was one of Dr. Tom's characteristics to be always genuinely interested in other people's difficulties. He asked now:

“Can you ascribe this decline in custom to any special cause?”

“Aye, that I can!” said Rosa with feeling. “Every year there are fewer folk living here. It's been years since anybody but you put up a new house in Whindale, Dr. Tom, and some of the old ones are standing empty.”

“But why? Where do the people go?”

“They get drawn away down to Roebuck Foot and Lower Whindale and even right away to Annotsfield, where the mills and the jobs are,” said Rosa bitterly. “In my childhood there was many a weaver busy at his loom in Whin
Head——” She named some she had known who had now

left the district.

“It's true the day of the hand-loom weaver is over,” said Dr. Tom thoughtfully.

A man of education, interested in West Riding history, he knew where to look for information. (No doubt he used the same sources as I did later.) He soon found that Rosa was right. The population of Whin Head had decreased by a fifth in the last ten years, and in the last fifty years—that is, since the coming of machines to the wool textile trade—had practically halved itself. During the same period the population of the town of Annotsfield had risen by leaps and bounds, till it was a bustling, teeming city, with fresh buildings going up all over the place.

That Whin Head should be a decaying community was for many reasons a cause of distress to the earnest young doctor. From affection he felt sad that Whindale should not flourish; the sight of the empty cottages pained him. As a physician, concerned for the hygienic welfare of the people, he deeply regretted these new machine-made concentrations of population. The fetid slums of the northern manufacturing towns were not unknown to him. How much more salubrious was the pure wild air of Whindale! How sad that the young men of the neighbourhood should be drawn away from the home of their forefathers, and venture themselves into all the temptations offered by the town! And all the while, the Whinburn ran down from the moors, a strong regular water-supply which textile mill-owners in towns would gladly pay thousands of pounds for, with a fall of some forty feet in a couple of miles, so that it would be the easiest thing in the world to run a mill by a water-wheel and water-power. Then the Whindale men could work in their own valley, within easy distance of their own ancestral homes. Why should they not work in their own mill too, thought Dr. Archibald enthusiastically.

And so the idea of the Whin Head Mutual Spinning Company was born.

At first when the doctor began to lay his project before the men of Whindale, they received it with some scepticism. Aye, it would be grand it there were a spinning-mill in Upper Whindale; aye, the Whinburn ran pretty well as strong up here as it did down the valley in Roebuck Foot, where there were several mills run by water-power. Indeed in the old days there had been small cloth-fulling mills whose wooden stocks were driven by a water-wheel, in Whin Head itself, but they had long fallen into disuse. So there isn't a mill here, d'you see, doctor, and it would cost thousands of pounds to build one and fit it up like. Right out in the wild, too—no use denying, Whin Head's a long way from most places.

“It's only three miles or so from High Roebuck,” said Dr. Tom impatiently.

“Aye—as the crow flies. But spindles, you see, Dr. Tom, they aren't crows.”

“The stone is here, right on the spot. We could buy the field containing the quarry, and build in that very field, by the river, not a hundred yards from the stone. For eight or ten thousand pounds we could build a handsome spinning-mill which would give employment to generation after generation and make Whin Head prosperous for all time.”

The weaver addressed, whom Dr. Tom in his trap had met at the corner of a lane, driving his donkey with his week's piece of cloth on its back down to Annotsfield, fell silent and looked up at the doctor dubiously.

“But where should we get ten thousand pound?” he said at last.

“We should form a company—a limited company,” explained Dr. Archibald eagerly. “I've been into the matter with my cousin at High Roebuck. We should issue shares— ten thousand shares, perhaps, at five pounds apiece. The Whindale men would take up the shares. Then when the mill was running, each share would bring in interest—a little income, you see, for every shareholder.”

“There's not many folk i' Whindale could find five pound to spend on a share.”

“They need only put down one pound at first, then save up and pay off the rest gradually. I myself,” said Dr. Tom, colouring a little, “am prepared to take a thousand fully paid-up shares at once.”

“That's five thousand pound,” returned the weaver after some cogitation.

“Precisely,” returned Dr. Tom.

In those days five thousand pounds was a very large sum, and the weavers to whom in turn Dr. Archibald made this approach gazed at him with something like awe.

“He must be better off nor we thought,” they concluded when they discussed the matter at the Delph Inn or in the “neddy-field” of one of the large mills down the dale. (The neddy-field was the place where the weavers parked their donkeys while they took their cloth into the mill, received payment and were given the yarn for their next week's work.) The reply was usually: “Aye—Thorntons were always warm men. Well-lined. He can well afford it.”

They were mistaken; the five thousand comprised all Dr. Archibald's fortune, which with eager optimism he was risking in the service of Whindale. But it was a very persuasive argument to these unfortunate men, who were being squeezed out of their livelihood by mechanisation. Each week, when they arrived at Roebuck Foot or Annotsfield with their woven piece of cloth thrown over the back of their donkey, they met sourer looks, as the automatic loom gained wider and wider acceptance; each week their employers doled out yarn to them for a fresh piece, more grudgingly. Their work, uneven and slow compared with the product of machinery, was criticised and derided; their employers, if benevolent, constantly urged them to give up their loom and come into the mill; if less kind, constantly grumbled at their cloth and threatened them with unemployment.

So it was that when a printed leaflet was thrust under their doors inviting them to come to a meeting in St. Matthew's Sunday School, Whin Head, to consider the
formation of a Whin Head Mutual Spinning Company, they all attended.

The mood of the meeting was at first somewhat doubting. It had been hoped that some of the High Roebuck Thorntons would attend to support their cousin's scheme, but none of them came, and the presence of the Vicar of Whin Head in the chair was a poor substitute in the weavers' opinion. But Dr. Tom's earnest, eager face, his manly eloquence, his kindly smile, the trust experience had taught the Whin Head folk to repose in his integrity, above all his committal of his own capital, overcame their fears; besides, they wished to be convinced, they longed for this solution to their economic problem. A burst of applause greeted the conclusion of the doctor's speech, then the men leaned towards each other and began to discuss the proposal with animation. Suddenly Eli Boocock's voice was heard above the hum of chatter.

“I suppose it's all right for someone who's not a weaver, to take up some of these shares, eh?”

“That would be perfectly in order,” replied the doctor, rising courteously to reply. “The shares will be open, of course, to the public.” He hesitated, then added: “May we hope that you yourself will join us, Mr. Boocock?”

“I don't mind taking a hundred or so,” replied Eli complacently.

Immediately there was a rush to give in one's name for shares—men sprang to their feet and quarrelled about the order in which they had done so, so eager were they to get their turn before the shares were exhausted. Just like Eli Boocock, that shrewd old scoundrel, to get in ahead of them! Trust him to be first on to a good thing! Eli, cousin to the late Michael, a square bald man with dewlaps like those of his own cattle, bushy black whiskers, a high colour and small twinkling black eyes, had a great reputation in Whindale for astute dealing, and many amusing anecdotes were told of the sharp practices which made him wealthy—he cheated so entertainingly and brazenly that even his victims could scarce forbear to smile. At one time, so rumour said, he had fancied Rosa, but she had preferred his cousin, so Eli was
unmarried; but it was thought that he enjoyed the favours of the fair sex while he was away on his cattle-buying trips in Ireland. If Eli meant to invest his precious money in the Mutual, to invest in the Mutual was a shrewd thing to do.

By the end of the meeting the men of Whindale had covenanted for a thousand shares, and a Committee of management, with Dr. Archibald as chairman, had been nominated. Whindale had committed itself to the Mutual project without ever actually voting upon it.

Perhaps the next part of the story can be told most simply and concisely by quoting from an advertisement which appeared in the
Annotsfield Recorder
on Saturday, June 22nd, 1861. It runs as follows:

Registered capital £30,000, divided into 6,000 shares of £5 each. 1,000 shares already issued. Only 1,000 more to issue at present.

It is acknowledged by all parties who have seen the mill site belonging to this Company, that it possesses many important advantages. There is a water-fall of 48 feet on the adjacent Whinburn river. The ground purchased by the Company possesses some of the finest quarries of white rock stone in the kingdom, and the Company have already purchased 26 acres of this valuable land. A first-rate road of easy gradient from Delph Lane to the works is under construction, and powers are being sought to widen the aforesaid Delph Lane, from the Delph Inn to where it joins the main Manchester-to-Annotsfield road.

The foundation-stone of the mill was laid on Saturday last by Thomas Thornton Archibald, M.D., of Whin Head, who is an extensive shareholder in the Company.

A Committee has been formed, which meets at ButterwortKs Temperance Hotel, Cloth Hall Street, Annotsfield, on Friday evenings, from half past Seven to Nine o'clock. Applications to be enrolled as shareholders should be addressed to this Committee.

So there it is, the project is in full progress. Dr. Archibald and Eli Boocock have paid up for their shares in full, the weavers have paid a pound per share. The land has been bought, the quarry set in action, plans drawn up, building contractors employed, a road begun, the foundation stone laid. One wonders why, when the mill was to be driven by water-power, a mill chimney, which presupposes steam power, should have been envisaged—some people believe that this was due to foresight on Dr. Tom's part; he saw that though textile processes would always need water, which the Whinburn would abundantly provide, yet steam was the power of the future and provision should be made for future transference to it. But I think the chimney was more likely due to Dr. Tom's ignorance, for after all he had been brought up in the south of England. All the new mills of that period were provided with high chimneys, and he, poor young man, knowing no better, not understanding that high chimneys were made to take away the smoke from the boiler fires which created steam, thought the Mutual mill ought to have a high chimney like the rest. The point has its interest as illustrating the doctor's ignorance of the business sphere, which ignorance played its part in what followed. But at the moment nobody troubled about this. The mill lay almost exactly opposite Dr. Tom's windows across the Whinburn; he could watch its progress as he sat at table. This must have been a happy spectacle for him.

Indeed at this stage the mill became quite a noted meeting-place. Young people courted in its precincts, older people took their children there on Sunday afternoons. Shareholders described the Mutual scheme with gusto to uninformed strangers, slapping the rising walls—their own property—with happy pride. And it was not only in the daytime that the mill was visited. One of Eli Boocock's young Irish drovers tripped over a stone in the dark and sprained his ankle—a fine strapping curly-haired lad he was, Daniel O'Prunty by name; it was rumoured he was making love to young Annie Callaghan under cover of the new warehouse; certainly she was there that night—and why not?
Only natural after all, Dan being as Irish as Annie herself, and they both Ulster Protestants. After this incident of the ankle, large billboards were put up announcing: NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS, but bless you, nobody took much notice of these Why, people walked from as far away as Annotsfield on Sundays to see the mill; what with the quarry men, the builders' men, the road men and the sightseers, the Delph Inn did a roaring trade. One afternoon a shareholder's child fell into the quarry! Fortunately he wasn't much hurt—it is said that the people there waved and shouted across the valley at Dr. Tom's windows, and he came running down through the trees and across the stream and soon had the child soothed and examined, and its little arm, which had suffered a greenstick fracture, comfortably set. This child, Nat Sykes, son of the shareholder Ben Sykes, is still living today, hale and hearty in his ninety-fifth year; it is he who has given me many of the personal details of this Mutual mill affair, his father having been an eyewitness of several of the incidents recorded.