industry

HEMSWORTH COLLIERY, Fitzwilliam. Was open at 1876, owned by a R. G. Fosdick and was known as Fitzwilliam Hemsworth Collieries Ltd. Up to 1904 it also had the names of Hemsworth Colliery Co. and New Hemsworth Colliery Co. The Owner of South Kirkby Colliery and Featherstone Main a Major J. R. Shaw who lived at Purston Hall took over the Colliery in 1906.

1952 -The colliery was situated at Fitzwilliam, which was in the Hemsworth Urban District,and at that time employed about 1,250 men, and produced 400,000 tons of coal each year. Four Fifths of this was hand-got. The Manager at that time was Mr. H. Towler.

Seams worked were -

Barnsley Bed at a depth of 606yds with a seam thickness of 4ft 6ins Haigh Moor at a depth of 678yds with a seam thickness of 4ft 3ins and Lower Haigh Moor at a depth of 688yds with a seam thickness of 2ft 9ins.

Hemsworth Brickworks (1956)
The Brickworks at this time belonged to The Yorkshire Brick Company Limited who bought it from Mr Sam Oakland who opened the Brickworks in 1903. The kiln consisted of 14 chambers each one capable of holding 23,000 bricks. An average of 84,000 bricks were turned out or "drawn" every week. Twenty two men and four women were employed there. About one third of the workforce got paid piece rates (paid according to their output) the rest were paid wages.
The clay and shale used for the bricks was quarried on the spot. There had been three working faces in the quarry. The North face was disused by this time and filled with water. The south face struck a thin seam of coal which, when mixed with the clay, caused the bricks to explode in the kiln. The West face was worked by four men who blasted the shales and shovelled it into tubs attached to a chain. Then tubs were pulled up a slope to a grinding machine.
When the clay had been ground fine enough, it went through a chute and up an elevator to be screened. The finer particles fell through the screen into a trough to be mixed with water by large blades into the required consistency. The larger particles went back to the grinder.
The clay paste was pressed into brick moulds and pushed on to rollers at the other side. After being "dinted" and printed, rollers took them through a series of knives which roughened the sides making them into rustic bricks. Not all bricks were rustic.
At the end of the production line the "raw" brick was known as a "green brick" and women loaded them on to barrows for the men to wheel to the chambers. The "green bricks" were built up in the kiln and the chamber was sealed. Flues extended from one chamber to another and once the heat built up, the chambers were bricked up.
The heat was produced by coal and "washed slack" (small coke) from South Kirkby Colliery because it was the nearest supply. The coal was kept on top of the kilns because they were stoked up from the top. Thirty tons of "washed slack" was used per week. After three weeks to a month, the bricks were ready. The men used a dipstick through a flue and when the shrinkage measured five inches the bricks were ready. When the kiln was opened the bricks had to be red. Any pink bricks were underdone and of no use for building. The kilns were still hot when the men were unloading, so they had to wear protective aprons and gloves. They put the bricks on barrows and stacked them to await transport.
The bricks were used in all parts of the West Riding. The broken bricks and underdone ones were sold for road making purposes.
The quarry was 25ft deep and all kinds of shales were used mainly blue and yellow shale. Beneath this depth, borings showed stone which could not be used. The brickworks bought fields behind the quarry in the1950s with the intention of extending horizontally rather than vertically and it was hoped at that time to extend the life of the brickworks for approximately another twenty years.
This information has been provided by Audrey Reilly who did a Special Study of the Hemsworth Area for her Teacher Training Course 1955-1957. The information was gathered during visits to the Brickworks at this time.

( © An extract from a college project researched by Audrey Carrington (now Reilly) between 1955 and 1957©)

HEMSWORTH TEXTILES LIMITED in 1952

The Factory which was opened on 20th March, 1947 was a subsidiary of Albion Mills, in Bradford. The Parent firm was founded in 1850 and shortage of workers in Bradford was the reason for opening the Hemsworth factory, which had been expanded. The company said the reason for the expansion was entirely due to the success of the initial venture, and the adaptability of the girls to learn the trade. The premises in Grove Lane were modernised to provide ideal working conditions for this type of work.

Cloth was brought from Bradford for 'burling and mending' and after inspection it was returned by road to Bradford. The company had a good export trade - the USA and Canada being the chief overseas customers. A good quality cloth was produced for home use, chiefly in the 'Utility' trade.

Girls at Hemsworth worked a 45hr week, with 1 weeks holiday with pay each year, and the wages ranged from £2. 9s 9d (£2.50p) at 15 years of age to £3. 13s 4d (£3. 67p) at 18yrs and over. The Manageress at that time was Miss. Dawson

The Textiles Factory (1956)
Opened March 1947
This factory only deals with the Burling and Mending part of the cloth industry. This consists of feeling the cloth for knots and imperfections, pulling them out and invisibly sewing them so that the cloth looks and feels perfect. The main factory is owned by Mr Scott and his sons and the main factory is in Bradford.
The girls employed are from 15 years old. The manageress will only take girls of 15 because it takes a year to train them in this semi-skilled job. The girls are paid wages for their training year and after that go on to piece rates and can earn up to £8 per week.
Seventy-five percentage of the cloth is for export to the Commonwealth and other countries but the rest is for the home market. The average output of this factory, employing 120 girls is 70 pieces of cloth per day. Each piece is 72 yards long. About 350 to 400 pieces of cloth are turned out in perfect condition from the factory. The cloth, worsteds, gabadenes and suitings, is passed to Hemsworth from the weavers and is not dyed.
Most of the employment is from the surrounding district, mostly from the Hemsworth Urban District. The factory is extremely well lit both naturally and artificially and is quite a model factory from that point of view. The photograph shows a bench for each girl to work at. At the back can be seen the frame over which the cloth is hung for inspection. Skilled girls mark faults with green chalk, for the girls at the benches to rectify. This ensures every piece of cloth is perfect when it leaves the factory.
This factory seems to be more liable to "short-time," a three or four day week instead of a five and a half-day week as normal.
(Author and copyright owner Mrs Audrey Reilly.)

BLAKEYS BOOT PROTECTORS LIMITED

1952 - The company had three small factories in the Hemsworth district. One in Grove Lane which employed 100 people, one on Kirkby Road which employed 17 people, and one in the nearby village of Fitzwilliam which employed 40 people.   The chief works of the company which was founded in1902, were at Armley, where a model factory had been built.   The founder of the firm Mr. John Blakey, a boot factor, made the first boot protectors about 1890, and the idea was such a success that the company was formed to produce them.

Photo - Mr Wylde explaining the work of a carding maching, which in 1952 was in the experimental stage (Maureen Oxley, ?Wilson, ?, Alan Parr, Elsie Tibble, Mr. Wylde, Doreen Cartwright.)

Raw materials at Hemsworth were Haematite Pig Iron from the West Coast, steel scrap, and iron ore from the Midlands. Red and Brown sea sand was also used, the latter making cores for casting.   Packing materials included strawboard from Holland, and chipboard produced from salvage. The Hessian for which the sacks and bags were made came from India.

The main processes carried out here were, sorting, carding, packing, and inspecting (Wing nuts were also manufactured). A 44 hr week was worked and most of the Girls were on piece work. Wages ranged from £2 to £6 per week.   The products were sold all over the world, over 30% being exported to USA., Canada, South America, India, Egypt, and most European countries.

The Hemsworth and United Coking Company Limited, Fitzwilliam.

This company is very closely connected to Hemsworth Colliery because only coal from this colliery is processed into by-products at these coke ovens. After the coal has been washed it is screened and graded into various sizes. The half inch or nothing size is conveyed to blending bunkers where the various seam coal is mixed. Then it is conveyed to a service bunker from where it is fed into a charging car. The charging car has four conical hoppers each containing approximately 3 tons 10cwts. This is electrically propelled to the oven waiting to be charged. From the charge, whole leads are extracted. The charging car hoppers are then moved directly over holes and the coal is released.

Attached to a ram is a leveller beam which levels the top of the coal. This leaves a clear gas passage between the oven top and the coal so that it can pass to the ascension pipes. The gas then goes into a common collecting main where it is spread by liquor sprays, from which it is drawn by exhausters through a foul main with a drain attached, which allows the liquor and tar to run off.

The gas then goes to the coolers, after which it goes to the benzole scrubbers. This is sprayed by oil, the oil extracting the benzole from the gas and this is given the term CRUDE BENZOLE. The gas goes straight on to be purified in purifiers and then to a gas holder to be boosted to works or to houses for domestic consumption. The heat of the ovens in making coal into coke is approximately 1100 c. After the coal is baked, the doors are opened and the coke is pushed out of the ovens into a coke car with an electrically driven engine to be quenched. After being quenched and drained, it is tipped onto a coke "whay" and conveyed to a screen house to be sized for dispatch.

The majority of large coke is used in blast furnaces at steel works in Sheffield. Small coke is used for domestic purposes. Tar is extracted and sent to the Yorkshire Tar Distillers to be rectified to pure benzole.

Every ton of coal produces approximately:-

11,000 cu. ft. of gas
4 gallons of crude benzole
10 gallons of tar

In January 1956 the final stage in connecting ten new ovens was completed. Fitzwilliam and Kinsley residents were told that this would be the end of the acrid fumes which caused so much complaint. The Coke Oven plant is very near houses and schools and had been causing a nuisance. Later in 1956 when the fumes became worse than before, there were more complaints from the residents. The women had to do more cleaning because of the dirt, and the work of 300 children in a near-by school was being affected. It was also said to be causing a decline in health among the residents of Kinsley and Fitzwilliam.

A suggestion was made by the council to move the plant, but it was turned down because it would make the 150 employees redundant, and because it was needed at Fitzwilliam to ensure the continued prosperity of the men who worked at Hemsworth Colliery. The management of the Coke Ovens was approached about the problem and it was found that it was doing everything it could to avoid the smoke nuisance. However, since then, many more complaints have reached the council, but, as yet, no solution to the problem has been found.
Footnote. The coke ovens were later closed, the date is not at present known.

(Author and copyright owner Mrs Audrey Reilly.)