Description and History of Site:-

Richard Hattersley (1761-1829) the founder of a business which would evolve into George Hattersley and Sons Ltd, started his business at this cotton spinning mill where he would utilise the premises as a blacksmiths to forge machine bolts and screws, also manufacturing spindles, flyers, spindles, rollers and mill shafts of varying types for the textile industry. Power looms or machinery as such were not produced at this mill, that would come later after Richard's death in 1829, when his son George took over the running of the business when the company had already moved to more spacious premises in Keighley at Northbrook Mills (see WYK00846) by 1805.Richard Hattersley was born in 1761 at Ecclesfield near Sheffield and started his working career as a nail-maker and employed as a striker at Sheffield. Later he was working at Kirkstall Forge (see WYK00132) in the screw forge and it was whilst working at Kirkstall that he came into contact with Thomas Binns who was a partner with James Cawood and Joseph Wright at Stubbing House Mill (Screw Mill) in Keighley, who conducted business with Kirkstall Forge.
Binns offered Hattersley a supervising job when Cawood, who had been the partner with the engineering expertise, left the business in 1789. Thomas Binns (1756-1810) had joined the new screw and bolt making business in 1787 in what was already a 'room and power' venture in a water powered cotton spinning mill but was soon known as Screw Mill with Binns calling himself a screw-maker, at a time when the manufacture of screws and bolts was an important occupation due to the demands of the machine makers in their manufacture of mill engines and locomotives etc.
The other screw-making partners James Cawood was a nail-maker and dealer in iron, Joseph Wright was a shoemaker. The company had a 20 year lease on the premises but the company wouldn't last for that period, Cawood's bankruptcy in 1789 would lead to his withdrawal. Wright became a minister at the Swedenborgian Church in Keighley, he would later baptize Hattersley's first child Elizabeth in November 1791 at the New Church, Beck Side, Keighley. Wright stayed as a sleeping partner and the business remained Wright and Binns until 1791 when a Keighley Attorney Rowland Watson joined the business as financier. Watson, Wright and Binns insured Screw Mill and its equipment in 1792 for £1000, £820 of this being for 'utensils and machinery'. The partners made regular purchases from Kirkstall Forge during 1787-93 mainly iron rod and bar and at times selling back screws to Kirkstall.
Richard Hattersley had been providing the companies technical drive since 1789 but was offered a partnership in 1793 when both Watson and Wright retired and the company dissolved. Wright continued to finance Hattersley and Binns. They continued to buy stock from Kirkstall Forge, occasionally part paying with spindles. On Binns death in 1810, Hattersley bought his share of the business for £2463 including interest which took years to be cleared.
Richard Hattersley was hugely influential in Keighley engineering and far beyond. Starting out he would take any kind of smith work, mending tools and wrought iron work but he was experienced with screws and bolts, rollers, spindles and flyers. Whilst never producing machines for sale he was at the centre of Keighley machine making, supplying machine makers with precision parts and acting as middleman for sheet metal and steel. His expertise enabled non-specialists to build machines in the years before 1805 and taught the skills to a new generation of Keighley engineers with Keighley eventually becoming recognised as a major centre of textile machinery production. By apprenticing his own son George as a roller-and-spindle maker from 1798 in the business, he was sowing the seed of a future textile machinery company in Keighley with international renown, George became a partner in the Hattersley business c1818.
Throughout Richard Hattersley's lifetime the firms main products were screws and bolts, rollers, spindles and flyers. Tentative orders for power looms were placed from 1827 and under his son George the business became primarily a power loom manufacturer by the 1840's at the Northbrook Mills.

Further Reading and References:-

The Age of the Machine, Gillian Cookson,The Boydell Press. pp 91-94, p267

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Key Words :- screws bolts textile rollers spindles

Viewing the Site :- Public footpath alongside road.

Address :- Aireworth Road, Keighley, West Yorkshire
Grid Ref :- SE 07280 41943
Co-ordinates :- Lat 53.873641 , Long -1.890762
Local Authority :- City of Bradford
Pre 1974 County :- Yorkshire - West Riding
Site Status :- Listed - Grade II
Historic England List No - 1134145,
Site Condition :- Site disused - but otherwise substantially intact
Contributor :- Andrew Garford - 27 August 2020

Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © Andrew Garford