Cotton, Coal, Bricks – and Sanitary Pipes: The Life and Times of a Victorian Whittle-le-Woods Entrepreneur

Half way along Town Lane in Whittle-le-Woods, just by a sharp right-hand bend as you ascend from Waterhouse Green to the canal bridge, is a gate flanked by two pillars made, unusually, from bricks. Not just any kind of bricks, though; these are thin, hard, blue-coloured industrial bricks. Beyond the gate is an overgrown wilderness, with wild flowers, brambles, nettles and trees stretching back to the field at the rear of the plot, but one can just see a ruined stone wall running parallel with the gate. The plot once contained a gentleman’s residence, comfortable but relatively modest - small enough to be managed by one female servant. In the last decades of the nineteenth century it was home to a landowner and businessman whose possessions and achievements were as modest as his house, but whose mark can be seen in Whittle to this day.

The mysterious gate on Town Lane, flanked by brick pillars. It was once the entrance to Old Fairleigh, the home of Charles Lowe Swainson and his wife Elizabeth from the 1870s to the 1900s

The overgrown site is a mass of wild flowers, nettles and brambles. The remains of a stone wall can be seen, possibly a garden feature. The house was to the right of this picture

The house was called Old Fairleigh (or Old Farleigh). I have not been able to ascertain for sure where the name came from but it is just possible that it was taken from a nineteenth century racehorse. Despite its name, it was not an old house, having been built some time after 1840, and possibly when the gentleman and his wife moved to Whittle in the 1870s. And by 1930 it was gone again, and the plot has apparently been left to nature ever since.

The gentleman who resided in Old Fairleigh, and who is the subject of this article, was one Charles Lowe Swainson (1816 – 1905), and his wife was Elizabeth Sarah Swainson (1839 – 1907). They apparently had no children. For brevity, and to distinguish him from other family members with similar names, I will refer to him from now as CLS. He was just one of a host of small landowners and businessmen who formed the backbone of the economy of Lancashire during the nineteenth century Industrial Revolution, and his life, with his ups and downs, may serve as a model of this important class of people.

The Swainsons were an ancient family, who once owned land in west Yorkshire, but who were also happy to embrace “trade” as the north of England became prosperous in the late eighteenth century. CLS’s grandfather, John Swainson, was a calico manufacturer and had several children. John’s eldest son Christopher (1775 – 1854), of whom more below, was CLS’s father. Another son, Charles (CLS’s uncle) embraced the textile business and became one of Preston’s leading “cotton lords”. His firm, Swainson and Birley, had interests in a number of mills, and in 1826 opened Fishwick Mill, known as the ‘big factory’, due to its size. Charles Swainson lived at Cooper Hill, a fine country house in Walton-le-Dale, and his son, also named Charles, followed his father as a successful cotton magnate, residing in Frenchwood House, near to Fishwick Mill. Other members of the family were also involved in the cotton trade, as was CLS.

A much abbreviated Swainson family tree

CLS’s father Chistopher, however, followed a different path. As the eldest son of John Swainson, he inherited the family lands, but he also attended both Oxford and Cambridge universities and took holy orders. Remarkably, an account of his life can be found online. In 1809, he married Elizabeth Lowe, daughter of a Preston physician and landowner, and from her acquired land in Whittle-le-Woods. He was however an absentee landlord, becoming Rector of Wistanstow and Vicar of Clun in Shropshire, and also owning land in that county. He had two sons: the elder, Rev. Edward Christopher, inherited both his estates in Shropshire and the rectorship of Wistanstow. The younger, CLS, inherited the family lands in Whittle on the death of his mother in 1854.

That land was not extensive, amounting to around 65 acres in total. It was sited in a single roughly triangular plot, to the north of Town Lane up to the river Lostock. The eastern limit of the land was just beyond the Lancaster canal. It included two farms, Martin House and Lowe farm (remember that CLS’s mother’s maiden name was Lowe), and it also included Lowe Mill print works and the Navigation Inn public house.

The estate in Whittle-le-Woods that Rev Christopher Swainson acquired when he married Elizabeth Lowe, and bequeathed to CLS

A view across the Swainson estate, with Lowe farm in the background on the right. Like most of the farms in Whittle in the 19th century, Lowe farm and Martin House were dairy farms

CLS did not inherit the estate until he was 38 and so had to generate his own income. Like his uncles and cousins, he immersed himself in the cotton trade, though never achieved the success of his uncle Charles. In 1841, aged 25, he was living in a (classy) boarding house in Manchester and described himself as a ‘Cotton Manufacturer’. By his early 20s he had formed a company named Swainson and Birchwood, which had interests in spinning mills and in weaving, at that time still largely done by handloom weavers, overseen by a ‘manufacturer’ who provided the raw material and sold the finished cloth. In 1837 an incident occurred in a weaving workshop in Ancoats run by the company, when a mob of 400 people besieged the shop, complaining that the 45 weavers there were “working under price”. The incident was apparently resolved peacefully, but it would not be the last time that CLS embraced controversy.

In 1847 a financial crash occurred in the UK, triggered by the bursting of the ‘railway mania’ bubble. A number of banks got into trouble (no oleaginous government bailouts for reckless bankers in those days), and the firms they supported suffered too. Swainson & Birchwood was identified by the newspapers as being a vulnerable firm, despite assurances that they had sufficient assets, and in 1850 the firm went bankrupt.

It is not clear what CLS did during the 1850s, however in 1855 he was involved in a court case against his brother, Rev Edward Swainson. His father had died the year before, leaving all his assets to his wife, who died intestate just two days after her husband. CLS took his brother to court, claiming that he, CLS, should administer their parents’ estate, rather than Edward. Unsurprisingly, given that his brother was older and a man of the cloth, while CLS was a recent bankrupt, the judge ruled in favour of Edward, and CLS had to pay costs. CLS did however inherit his mother’s land in Whittle-le-Woods at this time.

In 1858, CLS, then aged 42, married Elizabeth Sarah Bradley of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, who was 19 years old at the time. The wedding took place at Pancras, Middlesex – goodness knows why. The couple can’t be found in the 1861 census and may have been travelling abroad, for by the 1860s CLS had re-established himself as a textile merchant with an office in Manchester, exporting cotton fabrics and clothes to South America. By 1871, the Swainsons were living with two servants in an exclusive road in the village of Grappenhall, near Warrington.

An account of another court case brought by CLS in 1866 gives a flavour of his business dealings. CLS sued one Francis Deflinne, another Manchester merchant from whom he had bought a consignment of dresses. Once CLS had inspected the dresses, they were despatched to Rio de Janeiro with yet another firm, which sought to sell them at auction. However, it was reported back that some of the dresses, which had been put together from offcuts of fabric (“good enough for the people of Rio”, CLS was reported to have said), were made from pieces of cloth that did not match. Following a day of legal argument, the jury found in favour of CLS, awarding him £32 10s damages (about £2,000 at today’s value).

The good times were not to last. In 1873, when he was 57, CLS’s business collapsed, owing £20,000 (£1.2 million today). He then apparently decided to fall back on to his estate in Whittle-le-Woods, coming to live there for the first time. He and his wife moved into Old Fairleigh and embraced local society, CLS becoming a member of the parish church committee and the Chorley Conservative Registration Association and the couple attending charity events. CLS actively managed his estate, advertising for new tenants at various times for his farms, print works and inn.

Rental income was not apparently sufficient for CLS’s needs however, for in 1875 he began to exploit his estate for coal mining and brick-making. This was of course a major change from his previous lines of business and there are few clues as to why he undertook such speculative ventures. He appears to have had an interest in geology and was doubtless keen to exploit his land’s resources to the full. The first edition ordnance survey map of 1894 depicts an "Old Shaft (coal)" on the north-eastern edge of his estate, near to the river Lostock and the Lancaster canal, and next to it "Lostock Valley Old Brick Works". Lostock Valley mine is included in a list of mines published in 1880, but it is unclear how much success CLS had in extracting coal. A little more substantial was the brickworks, established to exploit deposits of fireclay around the mine, remains of which can still be seen today.

Fireclay was actually the soil that the prehistoric plants that formed coal originally grew upon. It was high in aluminium, which made it particularly impervious to fire and therefore good for making industrial bricks for use in settings where fire was present, such as furnace linings. Its ability to withstand heat also made it suitable (as we will see) for moulding into pipes. It seems likely that CLS's coal shaft was sunk to reach the fireclay underneath the coal seam, the coal itself being used to fuel the brickworks's steam engine. CLS’s firm was originally named the Lostock Valley Fireclay Works and in 1875 he took out a series of advertisements, extolling the virtues of his “Blue and White Firebricks, Ridging, Flooring and Chequered Tiles, and all descriptions of Staffordshire Ware…having every confidence that from the NATURE OF THEIR CLAY they will be able to give satisfaction”.

The clay was mined from the floodplain of the river Lostock, but the works were on top of a steep ridge, adjacent to the canal. Dug clay had to be loaded into wagons and hoisted by pulleys driven by the steam engine to an overhead tramway built on scaffolding and hauled 50 yards or so to the works. There it was machine-ground, moulded, dried, and fired in one of four low, round kilns sited next to the canal. The finished goods were finally loaded onto the company’s own barge, for sale in Chorley or Preston.

The site of CLS's brickworks, taken from the 1894 1:2500 ordnance survey map. Note that it is marked, "Old Brick Works", as it had already closed and much of the infrastructure had been sold off. Note also the "Old Shaft (Coal)" by the river Lostock. The works itself is on top of a ridge next to the Lancaster canal, comprising three small parallel buildings. The four circular features are (presumably) the kilns. Today, the coal shaft and kilns and the western end of the buildings are buried under the M61 motorway.

 

The remains of the Lostock Valley Brick and Tile Works today. The foundations of a building can be seen, running diagonally across the picture. Discarded bricks are scattered around the site

The western half of the site, including the kilns, are now buried under the M61 motorway (far left of the picture). The round scatter of stones in the foreground may be the remains of a chimney

It is not clear who actually did the work. In 1877, CLS advertised rather plaintively in a Staffordshire paper for “a man who thoroughly understands blue bricks, tiles, etc, etc”. The only national census during the company’s time of operation was in 1881, and no one in Whittle or the adjacent parishes was listed as being employed in a brickworks (CLS himself was listed simply listed as "Landowner"). It is possible that the Works had ceased to operate by then, or it could reflect the seasonal nature of brickmaking in the 19th century – it tended to be a summer occupation, to take advantage of better weather, while the census was carried out in April. In any case, when fully functioning the works would have employed fewer than ten men. CLS would have engaged a ‘Brickmaster’, who sub-contracted diggers, moulders and other workers. Many brickmasters and workers had other jobs in the off-season.

Business was likely slow, or the fireclay deposits were less extensive than expected, as after a few years the company changed its focus to manufacturing more general hardware, being renamed the Lostock Valley Brick and Tile Works. And among its products were sanitary pipes – ceramic pipes for taking waste from W.C.s to sewers. CLS had come a long way from selling dresses to ladies in South America.

By 1890 the firm had ceased trading and the contents of the works were auctioned off. Everything was recycled, including the scaffolding used to build the tramway, the wooden walls and joists of the buildings, the brick kilns and the canal boat, along with the machinery: a steam engine and boiler, a grinding machine, two brick presses…and a sanitary pipe maker. The site was abandoned and in the 1960s it was cut in two by the M61 motorway. Today the remains of the site are overgrown by trees, but the outline of at least one building is visible, along with a scatter of bricks and other debris – but I’ve not found any abandoned sanitary pipes!

This more or less ended CLS’s business career – in 1890 he was 74 years old. However he was not quite finished, for the next year he was hopefully advertising his discovery of white flag rock near the former works, and predicting that “in a few years hence the getting will form a large and important industry, which will in a great measure add to the benefit of the township”. Unfortunately, CLS’s discovery does not appear to have drawn any interest.

In the meantime, his wife Elizabeth had also been busy. In 1888, an article in the Isle of Man Times and General Advertiser reported that a large number of spectators had gathered on the Victoria Pier, Douglas, to watch a series of trials of a device that Mrs Swainson had designed and patented to prevent a small boat from capsizing. It consisted of an air- and watertight flap running along the side of the boat, an oil-filled container to reduce rocking, and lifelines strung with corks to right the boat if it did capsize. The article reported that the device had been “commended by the Mariner’s Home at Liverpool” and that Mrs Swainson had also patented a seat for use in boats that could in an emergency be converted into a lifeboat that could hold ten to twelve people. Where Elizabeth got her interest in sea safety from can only be guessed at - perhaps her father was a naval man?

Charles Lowe Swainson died in 1905, at the ripe old age of 89. Shortly after, in a rather sad coda to the couple’s sometimes colourful lives, his wife Elizabeth found herself summoned at Chorley Petty Sessions for keeping a dangerous dog. She was described in the newspaper report as “a refined but somewhat eccentric old lady” (she was 66 at the time). Her dog had attacked and bitten several people walking along Town Lane near Old Fairleigh, and tried to attack the police inspector called to investigate. Mrs Swainson claimed that following her husband’s death she had been persecuted by thieves and kept the dog as protection. Despite this defence, the magistrate ordered that the dog be destroyed, to which Mrs Swainson objected so fiercely that she had to be ejected from the courtroom. The report stated that “During the trying of other cases she could be heard exclaiming in the outer precincts of the court, ‘It is not justice. It will all have to go to London’”.

Elizabeth Swainson died in 1907. It is not clear what happened to the estate following her death, but it appears that Old Fairleigh was demolished not long afterwards and the site left abandoned. Today, Lowe farm, Martin House and the Navigation Inn are private houses, and the site of Lowe Mill is an industrial estate. The farmland in between is largely earmarked for housing. But the lonely brick pillars that once fronted the entrance to Old Fairleigh still stand, as a memorial to an, in their way, rather remarkable couple.

Sources Used:

Newspaper articles available at The British Newspaper Archive

Census returns available at UK Census Online 

Tithe maps available at Lancashire Archive, Preston.

Historic Ordnance Survey maps available at Old Maps
Watt K (1990) Nineteenth century brickmaking innovations in Britain: Technology and Change