Who has not heard of Sir Titus Salt? His beneficence, especially, has made him famous; his name is a veritable household word. The founder of Saltaire is, in many respects, no ordinary man. He is one of those who have neither been born great nor had greatness thrust upon them. He has achieved it, and achieved it worthily. Possessed of large intellect, immense strength of mind, and remarkable business acumen, he gained a princely fortune, and made himself one of Yorkshire’s chief manufacturers.
Sir Titus was born in Morley, near Leeds, on the 20th of September, 1803. Some time after his birth, his father, Daniel Salt, removed to Bradford, where he became an extensive wool-dealer, and by-and-by took his son into partnership. At once the young man’s rare business qualities showed themselves, and the speculations of the firm—now Daniel Salt and Co.—grew larger than ever. Hitherto, however, the Russian Donskoi wool—in which they dealt extensively—had been used only in the woollen trade. The young man saw that it would suit the worsted trade as well; so he explained his views to the Bradford spinners, but they would scarcely listen to him. They knew, said they, the Russian wool was valueless to them. Young Mr. Salt was not disheartened by this. Not he! To prove his theory, he commenced as a spinner and manufacturer himself, and his fortune was assured. The wants of his trade led him occasionally to Liverpool; and it was on one of these visits that the scene took place which Charles Dickens, in his own inimitable way, described in “Household Words.” Says he:—
“A huge pile of dirty-looking sacks, filled with some fibrous material, which bore a resemblance to superannuated horse-hair, or frowsy elongated wool, or anything unpleasant or unattractive, was landed in Liverpool. When these queer-looking bales had first arrived, or by what vessel brought, or for what purpose intended, the very oldest warehousemen in Liverpool docks couldn’t say. There had once been a rumour—a mere warehouseman’s rumour—that the bales had been shipped from South America, on ‘spec.,’ and consigned to the agency of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. But even this seems to have been forgotten, and it was agreed upon by all hands, that the three hundred and odd sacks of nondescript hair-wool were a perfect nuisance. The rats appeared to be the only parties who approved at all of the importation, and to them it was the finest investment for capital that had been known in Liverpool since their first ancestors had emigrated thither. Well, these bales seemed likely to rot, or fall to the dust, or be bitten up for the particular use of family rats. Merchants would have nothing to say to them. Dealers couldn’t make them out. Manufacturers shook their heads at the bare mention of them; while the agents of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. looked at the bill of lading—had once spoken to their head clerk about shipping them to South America again.
“One day—we won’t care what day it was, or even what week or month it was, though things of far less consequence have been chronicled to the half-minute—one day, a plain business-looking young man, with an intelligent face and quiet reserved manner, was walking along through these same warehouses in Liverpool, when his eye fell upon some of the superannuated horse-hair projecting from one of the ugly dirty bales. Some lady-rat, more delicate than her neighbours, had found it rather coarser than usual, and had persuaded her lord and master to eject the portion from her resting-place. Our friend took it up, looked at it, felt at it, rubbed it, pulled it about; in fact, he did all but taste it; and he would have done that if it had suited his purpose—for he was ‘Yorkshire.’ Having held it up to the light, and held it away from the light, and held it in all sorts of positions, and done all sorts of cruelties to it, as though it had been his most deadly enemy, and he was feeling quite vindictive, he placed a handful or two in his pocket, and walked calmly away, evidently intending to put the stuff to some excruciating private torture at home. What particular experiments he tried with this fibrous substance I am not exactly in a position to state, nor does it much signify; but the sequel was that the same quiet business-looking young man was seen to enter the office of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co., and ask for the head of the firm. When he asked that portion of the house if he would accept eightpence per pound for the entire contents of the three hundred and odd frowsy dirty bags of nondescript wool, the authority interrogated felt so confounded that he could not have told if he were the head or the tail of the firm. At first he fancied our friend had come for the express purpose of quizzing him, and then that he was an escaped lunatic, and thought seriously of calling for the police; but eventually it ended in his making it over in consideration of the price offered. It was quite an event in the little dark office of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co., which had its supply of light (of a very injurious quality) from the old grim churchyard. All the establishment stole a peep at the buyer of the ‘South American Stuff.’ The chief clerk had the curiosity to speak to him and hear the reply. The cashier touched his coat tails. The bookkeeper, a thin man in spectacles, examined his hat and gloves. The porter openly grinned at him. When the quiet purchaser had departed, C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. shut themselves up, and gave all their clerks a holiday.”
Thus Mr. Salt (afterwards Sir Titus) became the introducer and adapter of alpaca wool; and in a few years his wealth was enormous.
Seventeen years afterwards Mr. Salt left Bradford, the scene of his great success. He saw with sadness that the great Yorkshire town was becoming over-crowded, dirty, and smoky to a degree, and he made up his mind that the condition of his factory workers, at any rate, should be improved. Hence he purchased a tract of land on the banks of the river Aire above Shipley, and founded Saltaire—a true palace of industry.
“For in making his thousands he never forgot
The thousands who helped him to make them.”
The new works were opened in 1853, when a grand banquet took place, at which members of parliament, mayors, and magistrates were present, besides between 2,000 and 3,000 of Mr. Salt’s workpeople, who had marched in procession from smoky Bradford to the fair country he had chosen for their future labours.
Sir Titus was made a baronet in 1869, and some years previously he held the position of president of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce. He has also been chief constable, magistrate, and parliamentary member for the Bradford borough, the inhabitants of which have shown their appreciation of his services and generosity by erecting a handsome statue to him.
CHAPTER VIII.
ECCENTRIC MONEY-MAKERS.
A CURIOUS romance adds one more instructive fact to point the moral of a miser’s life, and of “the love of money.” For many years past an old man might have been seen carrying an old bag on his shoulders, scraping up odds and ends from the gutter, and garbage from the streets. This man’s home was in a London suburb, a wretched room filled with rubbish—old pieces of iron and brass, bits of string, &c. Around the room were tin deed-boxes, which some of his friends half suspected must be possessed of properties of more or less value. The wretched man lived on what he chanced to pick up by the way, or what was given to him by the charitable, who thought him to be a beggar. He used to attend one of our metropolitan hospitals as an out-patient, receiving advice and medicine gratis. This man died in the midst of squalid wretchedness and apparent want. His friends at once proceeded to ransack the place in search for his money; the deed-boxes proved to be “dummies,” containing only strings and tapes, and for some time the search proved fruitless. At last, however, the old chair in which he used to sit was found to contain, in the worn-out cushion, a bundle of most valuable securities, amounting to £60,000, and a will. This will, after leaving £100 each to his executors, devised all the residue of his property to two institutions—one moiety to the Royal Free Hospital, Gray’s-inn-road, in which institution he used to obtain advice and medicine gratis, as above; and the other half to the Royal National Lifeboat Association. So that these two useful institutions will receive £30,000 each, and possibly more, as the result of this “miser’s” wealth! Search is being made for further documents amid the heaps of rubbish that have been allowed to accumulate in the wretched man’s attic. The case constitutes a sad and melancholy illustration of this fallen nature of ours, in one of its most afflicting forms of eccentricity and madness.