MONEY-MAKING MEN IN THE PROVINCES.
IN 1875 a sensational paragraph appeared in most of the daily papers,
announcing the death of “an old Mr. Attwood,” who was declared to have
been a bachelor, and “the giver of all the anonymous £1,000 cheques.” It
was further stated that he had given away £350,000 in this way—£45,000
within the last year; that he had died intestate, leaving a fortune of
more than a million sterling, and that a thousand-pound note was found
lying in his room as if it had been waste paper. The truth of the
matter, as we are informed by a connection of the family, is this. Mr.
Benjamin Attwood was a brother of Mr. Thomas Attwood, who was well known
forty years ago as a leader of the Birmingham Political Union, and one of
the first members for that borough. He was not a bachelor, but a
widower, and the fortune which he has left is believed to be much less
than the above-named sum, though its exact amount is not yet known.
After making a competent fortune by his own industry, Mr. Attwood, some
time ago, inherited enormous wealth from a nephew, the late Mr. Matthias
Wolverley Attwood, M.P., and he determined to dispose of this accession
to his income by giving it partly to his less prosperous kinsfolk, and
partly to charitable associations. He would often call at a hospital or
other benevolent institution, and leave £1,000, asking simply for an
acknowledgment in the _Times_, and never allowing his name to be
published. In this way he distributed larger sums than that mentioned in
the original rumour. It would be wrong to regard Mr. Attwood as an
eccentric man. His life was quiet, gentlemanlike, and unassuming, with
no special peculiarities, and his only motive for secret almsgiving was
the desire to do good in an unobtrusive manner. He was one of those
truly charitable men who loved to do good without letting his left hand
know what his right hand did, and he would probably have been better
pleased had his secret been kept after his death as well as it was during
his life.
They are fortunate men these provincial Crœsuses, and don’t let the grass
grow under their feet. In the art of money-making they need learn
nothing of Cockneys or Americans, but perhaps might teach them something
as to the way to get on in the world. One of the most successful of this
class was Sir Richard Arkwright, the famous inventor and the improver of
cotton-spinning machinery. Sir Richard was born in 1732, and married,
first, Patience Holt, of Lancaster, and second, Margaret Biggins, of
Pennington. He was the son of poor parents, and the youngest of thirteen
children. He was never at school; and what little he did learn was
without aid. He was apprenticed to a barber; and after learning that
wretched business, set up for himself as a barber in Bolton, in an
underground cellar, over which he put up the sign-board with the curious
wording, “Come to the Subterraneous Barber—he shaves for a Penny,”
painted upon it. Carrying away, by his low prices, the trade from the
other barbers in the place, they reduced their prices to his level.
Arkwright then, not to be outdone, and to keep the lead in the number of
customers, put up the announcement of, “A Clean Shave for a Halfpenny,”
which, no doubt, he found answer well. After a time he quitted his
cellar, and took to tramping from place to place as a dealer in hair.
For this purpose he attended statute fairs, and other resorts of the
people, and bought their crops of hair from girls, bargaining for and
cutting off their curls and tresses, and selling them again to the
wig-makers. He also dealt in hair-dye, and tried to find out the secret
of perpetual motion. This led to mechanical pursuits; he neglected his
business, lost what little money he had saved, and was reduced to great
poverty. Having become acquainted with a watchmaker named Kay, at
Warrington, and had assistance from him in constructing his model, he
first, it is said, received from him the idea of spinning by rollers—but
only the idea, for Kay could not practically tell how it was to be
accomplished. Having once got the idea, Arkwright set to work, and
neglected everything else for its accomplishment; and, in desperation and
poverty, his poor neglected wife, who could only see waste of time and
neglect of business in the present state of affairs, and ruin and
starvation in the future, as the consequence, broke up his models, in
hope of bringing him hack to his trade and his duties to his family. And
who can blame the young wife? The unforgiving husband, however,
separated from her in consequence, and never forgave her. His poverty,
indeed, was so great at this time, that, having to vote as a burgess, he
could not go to the polling-place until, by means of a subscription, some
clothes had been bought for him to put on. Having re-made and pretty
well completed his model, but fearful of having it destroyed, as
Hargreave’s spinning-jenny had been by a mob, Arkwright removed to
Nottingham, taking his model with him. Here, showing his model to
Messrs. Wright, the bankers, he obtained from them an advance of money on
the proper condition of their sharing in the profits of the invention.
Delay occurring in the completion of the machine, the bankers recommended
Arkwright to apply to Jedediah Strutt (ancestor of the present Lord
Belper), of Derby, who, with his partner, Reed, had brought out and
patented the machine for making ribbed stockings. Strutt at once entered
into the matter, and by his help the invention was completed. Thus the
foundation of the fortune of the Arkwrights was laid, and thus arose
their cotton-mills, and their residence (Wellersley Castle) near Matlock.
Arkwright was knighted in the year 1786, and in the same year was High
Sheriff of Derbyshire. He died in 1792.
Mr. Thorneycroft, who realised an immense fortune in the iron-trade, at
the Shrubbery Works, near Wolverhampton, was the son of a working-man,
and himself educated to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. In his
youth he proved himself a most skilful and trustworthy servant to his
employers in the iron-trade; and when about twenty-six years of age
commenced a small business on his own account.—Mr. Thomas Wilson, whose
work, the “Pitman’s Pay,” had a national reputation, who died at
Gateshead in 1858, at the ripe age of eighty-four, after having achieved
a large fortune, began life by working in a colliery. At nineteen years
of age he was a hewer in the mine. At sixteen he had sought more
congenial occupation, in which he might profit by the little culture he
had won by the sacrifice of needful rest; but he failed in the attempt,
and retired to his darksome drudgery. In time he got to be a
schoolmaster; and afterwards the humble pitman became a merchant
prince.—Andrews, a famous Mayor of Southampton, passed the first years of
his life in utter poverty, working as a farm lad, at threepence a-day,
from nine to twelve years of age; then getting employment as a sawyer;
next as a blacksmith; but always with aspirations for something better.
The first Sir Robert Peel was the third son of a small cotton-printer in
Lancashire. Enterprising and ambitious, he left his father’s
establishment, and became a junior partner in a manufactory, carried on
at Bury by a relative, Mr. Haworth, and his future father-in-law, Mr.
Yates. His industry, his genius, soon gave him the lead in the
management of the business, and made it prosperous. By perseverance,
talent, economy, and marrying a wealthy heiress—Miss Yates, the daughter
of his senior partner—he had amassed a considerable fortune at the age of
forty. He then began to turn his mind to politics; published a pamphlet
on the national debt; made the acquaintance of Mr. Pitt, and got returned
to parliament (1790) for Teignmouth, where he had acquired landed
property which the rest of his life was spent in increasing. In
Greville’s journals we read:—“Grant gave me a curious anecdote of old Sir
Robert Peel. He was the younger son of a merchant; his fortune very
small, left to him in the house, and he was not to take it out. He gave
up the fortune, and started in business without a shilling, but as the
active partner in a concern with two other men—Yates, whose daughter he
afterwards married, and another, who between them made up £6,000. From
this beginning he left £250,000 a-piece to his five younger sons, £60,000
to his three daughters, each; and £22,000 a-year in land, and £450,000 in
the funds to Peel. In his lifetime he gave Peel £12,000 a-year; the
others £3,000, and spent £3,000 himself. He was always giving them
money, and for objects which, it might have been thought, he
under-valued. He paid for Peel’s house when he built it, and for the
Chapeau de Paille (2,700 guineas) when he bought it.”
In his biography, Sir William Fairbairn describes the heroic way in which
he mastered the difficulties of early years, and became famous. It
really seems that there is something in the air, or in the nature of the
inhabitants, of the northern districts of the kingdom, which has a
tendency, more or less, to make a man rise in the world. The poet tells
us how
“Caledonia, stern and wild,
Is meet nurse for poetic child.”
Though, as to that, neither Burns nor Scott had much to do with that part
of Scotland we call stern and wild. But the country may claim to do more
for her sons. Every one of them seems born with a thirst for getting on
in the world, for revolving not to be contented with that position in
life in which Providence has placed him; and thus it is, that when we
come to examine minutely into the lives of our heroes, industrial or
otherwise, we find that most of them were Scotchmen, or, more or less,
had Scotch blood in their veins.
Of this we have a remarkable illustration in the case of the late Sir
William Fairbairn, who was, moreover, a worthy representative of a class
of men to whom we owe, in a large measure, the wealth and prosperity our
country now enjoys.
William Fairbairn was born in the town of Kelso, in Roxburghshire on
February 19th, 1789. His father, Andrew, was descended, on the male
side, from a humble but respectable class of small lairds, or, as they
were called, Portioners, who farmed their own land, as was the custom in
Scotland in those days. On the female side the pedigree may have been of
higher character, for Andrew’s mother was said by him to have claimed
descent from the ancient border family of Douglas. She was a tall,
handsome, and commanding woman, and lived to a great age. William’s
mother was a Miss Henderson, the daughter of a tradesman in Jedburgh, and
the direct descendant of an old border family of the name of Oliver, for
many years respectable stock-farmers in a pastoral district at the
northern foot of the Cheviots. The lad was early sent to school, and
made fair progress in what may be called a plain English education. He
was fond of athletic exercises, and one of his feats was to climb to the
top of the mouldering turrets of the old abbey at Kelso. In the autumn
of 1799, the position of the family materially altered. The father was
offered the charge of a farm, 300 acres, in Ross-shire, which was to be
the joint property of himself and his brother, Mr. Peter Fairbairn, for
many years a resident in that county, and secretary to Lord Seaforth, of
Castle Braham; and there, in an evil hour, the family removed. But it
was there that young William, who was compelled to make himself generally
useful, first exhibited his taste for mechanics. The father next became
steward to Mackenzie, of Allan Grange; and at the school at Mullochy,
which the boy attended, he describes the advantage derived by himself and
his brother from wearing Saxon costumes instead of Tartan kilts. The
master was a severe disciplinarian, and he found English trousers very
much in the way of his favourite punishment. After two years the family
moved south, and William’s father became steward to Sir William Ingleby,
of Ingleby Manor, near Knaresborough. After a few months spent in
improving himself in arithmetic, in studying book-keeping and land
surveying, William, being a tall lad of fourteen, was sent to work at
Kelso. About this time the family were in much difficulty; but the
father got a better post at Percy Main Colliery, near North Shields, and
his son followed him there. Wages were very high, and the demoralisation
amongst the men was such as, Sir William tells us, he never saw before or
since. Pitched battles, brawling, drinking, and cock-fighting, seemed to
be the order of the day. Among the pit lads boxing was considered a
necessary exercise. And Fairbairn tells us he had to fight no less than
seventeen battles before he was enabled to attain a position calculated
to insure respect. In March, 1804, he was put into a better and more
definite position by entering regularly on a course of education as
mechanical engineer. He was bound apprentice to the millwright of the
colliery for seven years, and was to receive wages beginning with five
shillings a-week, and increasing to twelve. Sometimes, he tells us, with
extra work he doubled the amount of his wages, by which he was enabled to
render assistance to his parents. This, we take it, shows the lad was a
good one, and the bad manners of his mates had not corrupted him. This
appears still further when we see how resolute were his efforts after
self-improvement. “I became,” he writes, “dissatisfied with the persons
I had to associate with at the shop; and feeling my own ignorance, I
became fired with ambition to remedy the evil, and cut out for myself a
new path of life. I shortly came to the conclusion that no difficulties
should frighten, nor the severer labour discourage me in the attainment
of the object I had in view. Armed with the resolution, I set to work in
the first year of my apprenticeship, and having written out a programme,
I commenced the winter course in double capacity of both scholar and
schoolmaster, and arranged my study as follows:—Monday evenings for
arithmetic, mensuration, &c.; Tuesday reading, history, and poetry;
Wednesday, recreation, reading novels and romances; Thursday,
mathematics; Friday Euclid, trigonometry; Saturday, recreation and
sundries; Sunday, church, Milton, and recreation.” In this noble course
the young man persevered, in spite of the ridicule of his mates. The
battle thus manfully begun was fought bravely to the last. He was aided
in his studies by a ticket, given him by his father, to the North Shields
Subscription Library; and by the same tender passion which turned Quentin
Mastys from a blacksmith into an artist. We quote Sir William’s account
of his intellectual improvement whilst making love to the lady whom,
however, he did not ultimately marry. During his courtship, he tells us,
“I was led into a course of letter-writing, which improved my style, and
gave me greater facilities of expression. The truth is, I could not have
written on any subject if it had not been for this circumstance; and my
attempts at essays, in the shape of papers which I had read with avidity
in the _Spectator_, may be traced to my admiration of this divinity.
“In the enthusiasm of my first attachment, it was my good fortune to fall
upon a correspondence between two lovers, Frederick and Felicia, in the
‘Town and Country Magazine’ for the year 1782, Nos. 3 and 4. This
correspondence was of some length, and was carried from number to number
in a series of letters. Frederick was the principal writer; and although
greatly above me in station, yet his sentiments harmonised so exactly
with mine, that I sat down at Frederick’s desk and wrote to my Felicia
with emotions as strong as any Frederick in existence. Frederick, by his
writing, was evidently a gentleman; and in order to prepare myself for so
much goodness as I had conjured up in Mary, I commenced the
correspondence by first reading the letter in the magazine, and then shut
the book for the reply, and to write the letter that Frederick was
supposed to have written. I then referred to the book, and how bitter
was my disappointment at finding my expressions unconnected and
immeasurably inferior to those of the writer. Sometimes I could trace a
few stray expressions which I thought superior to his; but, as a whole, I
was miserably deficient. In this way did I make love, and in this way I
inadvertently rendered one of the strongest passions of our nature
subservient to the means of improvement. For three successive winters I
contrived to go through a complete system of mensuration and as much
algebra as enabled me to solve an equation, and a course of trigonometry,
navigation, heights and distances, &c. This was exclusive of my reading,
which was always attractive, and gave me the greatest pleasure. I had an
excellent library at Shields, which I went to twice a-week, and here I
read Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ Hume’s ‘History of
England,’ Robertson’s ‘History of Scotland,’ ‘America,’ ‘Charles the
Fifth,’ and many other works of a similar character, which I read with
the utmost attention. I also read some of our best poets, amongst which
were Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ Shakspeare, Cowper, Goldsmith, Burns, and
Kirke White. With this course of study I spent long evenings, sometimes
sitting up late; but having to be at the shop at six in the morning, I
did not usually prolong my studies much beyond eleven or twelve o’clock.
“During those pursuits I must, in truth, admit that my mind was more upon
my studies than my business. I made pretty good way in the mere
operative part; but, with the exception of arithmetic and mathematics, I
made little or no progress in the principles of the profession; on the
contrary, I took a dislike to the work and the parties by whom I was
surrounded.
“The possession of tools, and the art of using them, renewed my taste for
mechanical pursuits. I tried my skill at different combinations, and,
like most inventors whose minds are more intent upon making new
discoveries than acquiring the knowledge of what has been done by others,
I frequently found myself forestalled in the very discovery which I had
persuaded myself was original. For many months I laboured incessantly in
devising a piece of machinery that should act as a time-piece, and at the
same time as an orrery, representing the sun as a centre, with the earth
and moon, and the whole planetary system, revolving round it. This piece
of machinery was to be worked by a weight and a pendulum, and was not
only to give the diurnal motions of the heavenly bodies, but to indicate
the time of their revolutions in their orbits round the sun. All this
was to be done in accordance with one measure of time, which the
instrument, if it could be completed, was to record. I looked upon this
piece of machinery as a perfectly original conception, and nothing
prevented me from making the attempt to carry it into execution but the
want of means, and the difficulties which surrounded me in the complexity
and numerous motions necessary to make it an useful working machine. The
consideration of this subject was not, however, lost, as I derived great
advantage in the exercise which it gave to the thoughts. It taught me
the advantage of concentration and of arranging my ideas, and of bringing
the whole powers of the mind with energy to bear upon one subject. It
further directed my attention to a course of reading on mechanical
philosophy and astronomy, from which I derived considerable advantage.
“Finding the means at my disposal much too scanty to enable me to make a
beginning with my new orrery, I turned my attention to music, and bought
an old Hamburgh fiddle, for which I gave half-a-crown. This was a cheap
bargain, even for such a miserable instrument; and what with new bracing
of catgut and a music-book, I spent nearly a week’s wages, a sum which I
could ill afford, to become a distinguished musician. I, however, fresh
rigged the violin, and with a glue-pot carefully closed all the openings
which were showing themselves between the back and sides of the
instrument. Having completed the repairs, I commenced operations, and
certainly there never was a learner who produced less melody or a greater
number of discords. The effect was astounding; and after tormenting the
whole house with discordant sounds for two months, the very author of the
mischief tumbled to pieces in my hands, to the great relief of every
member of the family.”
As an illustration of the benefit of learning a business well, I will
quote a paragraph from the “busy hives around us.” After describing the
large establishment of Messrs. Kershaw, Leese, and Co., Manchester, the
writer adds—“There is a moral to our sketch. Mr. Kershaw, owner of a
splendid warehouse, two factories, a cotton lord, merchant prince, and
senator of the realm, was once a poor Manchester boy, and is not an old
man now (1878). As he set Manchester an example of good taste and wise
magnificence, so he stands an example to all young men of what untiring
diligence may achieve. He rose in his house of business because he
_learned his business __well_. He waited not upon fortune from without,
but worked out his own future from within. He became one of the many of
the illustrious men whom Lancashire points to as her pride.”
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.