Person Page - 153

     Benjamin Chew married Martha Dixon on 26 December 1814 at St Peter's, Leeds.

     Louisa Wilson was born on 10 January 1824. She was the daughter of Daniel Wilson and Letitia Fox. Louisa Wilson was baptized on 7 March 1824 at Methodist New Connexion, Dewsbury.¹
She married Thomas Hirst Balmforth in 1843.²

     Thomas Hirst Balmforth was born circa 1823 at Birstall.¹ He married Louisa Wilson, daughter of Daniel Wilson and Letitia Fox, in 1843.¹

     Letitia Balmforth was born circa 1845 at Batley.¹ She was the daughter of Thomas Hirst Balmforth and Louisa Wilson. In the census of 7 April 1861 she was listed as a house servant the niece of Mary Sheard.² Letitia Balmforth married Michael Sheard Fox, son of David Fox and Margaret Sheard, in 1869.
In the census of 2 April 1871 Letitia Fox was listed at Bradford Road, Batley, as wife of Michael Sheard Fox.³
Letitia Fox married John Thomas Hepworth in 1876.⁴
In the census of 3 April 1881 Letitia Hepworth was listed at Field Hill, Batley, as wife of John Thomas Hepworth.⁵
She was listed in the census of 12 June 1900 at Tewksbury Town, Middlesex, Massachusetts, living with her son George; as a designer, woollen mill.⁶

     George Sheard Wilson was born in 1837 at Batley. He was the son of John Wilson and Martha Sheard. George Sheard Wilson was baptized on 12 January 1838 at Batley.¹
In the census of 7 April 1861 he was listed as a woollen spinner the nephew of Mary Sheard.²

     Charles James Fox Wilson was born in 1831 at Batley. He was the son of John Wilson and Martha Sheard. Charles James Fox Wilson was baptized on 27 November 1831 at Batley.¹

     Ann Wilson was born in 1829 at Batley. She was the daughter of John Wilson and Martha Sheard. Ann Wilson was baptized on 8 March 1829 at Batley.¹

     Greenwood Wilson was born in 1833 at Batley. He was the son of John Wilson and Martha Sheard. Greenwood Wilson was baptized on 10 November 1833 at Batley.¹

     Isaac Wilson was born in 1840 at Batley. He was the son of John Wilson and Martha Sheard. Isaac Wilson was baptized on 1 June 1840 at Batley.¹

     Dan Wilson was born on 4 September 1842 at Batley. He was the son of John Wilson and Martha Sheard. Dan Wilson was baptized on 4 December 1842 at Batley.¹

     James John Sheard Wilson was born in 1847 at Batley. He was the son of John Wilson and Martha Sheard. James John Sheard Wilson was baptized on 13 July 1847 at Batley.¹

     Walter White was born in 1811. He wrote "A Month in Yorkshire" in 1858 and included in his Yorkshire travels was Batley. I think he gives so good an account of Shoddy production at the time that I reproduce it here:-.¹


"The object of my visit to Batley was to see the making of shoddy. To leave Yorkshire ignorant of one of our latest national institutions would be a reproach. We live in an age of shoddy, in more senses than one. You may begin with the hovel, and trace shoddy all through society, even up to the House of Peers. I had not long to wait: ther was a bird's eye view of Dewsbury in passing, and a few minutes brought me to Batley, the head-quarters of shoddy. On alighting at the station, the sight of great pockets or bales piled up in stacks or laden on trucks, every bale branded Anvers, and caasks of oil from Sevila, gave me at once a proof that I had come to the right place; for here were rags shipped at Antwep from all parts of Northern Europe. Think of that. Hither were brought tatters from pediculous Poland, from the gipsies of Hungary, from the beggars and scarecrows of Germany, from the frowsy peasants of Muscovy; to say nothing of snips and shreds from monks'gowns and lawyers' robes, from postilions' jackets and soldiers uniforms, from maidens' bodices and noblemans' cloaks. A vast medley, truly! and all to be manufactured into broadcloth in Yorkshire. No wonder that the Univers declares England is to perish by her commerce.
The walk to the town gives you such a view as can only be seen in a manufacturing district: hills, fields, meadows, and rough slopes, all bestrewn with cottages, factories and warehouses, sheds, clouded here and there by smoke; roads and paths wandering apparently anywhere; here and there a quarry, and piles of squared stone; heaps of refuse; wheat fields among the houses; potato plots in little levels, and everything giving you the impression of waiting to be finished. Add to all this, troops of men and women, boys and girls - the girls with a kerchief pinned over the head, the corner hanging behind - going home to dinner, and a mighty noise of clogs, and trucks laden with rags and barrels of oil, and you will have an idea of Batley, as I saw it on my arrival.
Having found the factory of which I was in search, i had to wait a few minutes for the appearance of the principal. A boy, who was amusing himself in the office, remarke, when he heard that I had never yet seen shoddy made: "Well, it'll cap ye when ye get among the machinery; that's all!" He himself had been capt once in his life: it was in the previous summer, when his uncle took him to Blackpool, and he first beheld the sea. "That capt me, that did," he said, with the gravity of a philosopher.
Seeing that the principal hesitated, even after he had read my letter, I began to imagine that shoddy-making involved important secrets. "Come to see what you can pick up, eh?" he said. However, when he heard that I was in no way connected with manufactures, and had come, not as a spy, but simply out of honest curiousity, to see how old rags were ground into new cloth, he smiled, and led me forthwith into the devil's den.There I saw a cylinder revolving with a velocity too rapid for the eye to follow, whizzing and roaring, as if in agony, and throwing off a cloud of light woolly fibres, that floated in the air, and a stream of flocks that fell in a heap at the end of the room. It took three minutes to stop the monster; and when the motion ceased, I saw the cylinder was full of blunt stel teeth, which, seizing whatever was presented to them in the shape of rags, tore it thoroughly to pieces; in fact ground it up into flocks of short, frizzly-looking fibre, resembling negro-hair, yet soft and free from knots. The cylinder is fed by a travelling web, which brings a layer of rags continually up to the teeth. On this occasion, the quality of the grist, as one might call it, was respectable - nothing but fathoms of list which had never been defiled. So rapidly did the greedy devil devour it, that the two attendant imps were kept fully employed in the feeding; and fast as the pack of rags diminished, the heap of flocks increased. And so, amid noise and dust, the work goes on day after day; and the man who superintends, aided by his two boys, earns four pounds a week, grinding the rags as they come, for thirty shillings a pack.
The flocks are carried away to the mixing-house. As we turned aside, the devil began to whirl once more; and before we had entered the other door, I heard the ferocious howl in full vigour. the road between the buildings was encumbered withh oil-casks, pieces of cloth, l;ying in the dust, as if of no value, and packs of rags. "It will all come right by-and-by," said the chief, as I pointed to the littery heaps; and, pausing by one of the packs which contained what he called 'mungo,' that is shreds of such cloth as clergymans' coatw are made of, he made me aware that there is shoddy and shoddy. that which makes the longest fibre is, of cours, the best; and some of the choice sorts are worked up into marketable cloth, without a fresh dyeing.
Great masses of the flocks, with passage ways between, lay heaped on the stone floor of the mixing house. Here, according to the quality required, the long fibre is mixed in certain quantities with the short; and to facilitate the subsequent operations, the several heaps are lightly sprinkled with oil. A dingy brown or black was the prevalent colour; but some of the heaps were gray, and would be converted into undyed cloth of the same colour. It seemed to me that the principal ingredient therein was old worsted stocings; and yet before many days, these heaps would become gray cloth fit for the jackets and mantles of winsome maidens.
I asked my conductor if it were true, as I had heard, that shoddy-makers purchased the waste, begrimed cotton wads with which stokers and 'engine-tenters' wipe the machinery, or the dirty refuse of wool-sorters, or every kind of ragged rubbish. He did not think such things were done in Batley; for his part, he used none but the best rags, and could keep two factories always going. He had heard of the man who spread greasy cotton-waste over his field, and who, when the land had absorbed all the grease, gathered up the cotton, and sold it to the shoddy-makers; but he doubted the truth of the story. True or not, it implies great toleration among a certain class of manufacturers. Rags, not good enough for shoddy, are used as manure for the hops in Kent; so we get shoddy in our beer as well as in our broadcloth.
In the next process, theflocks are intimately mixed by passing over and under a series of rollers, and come forth from the last looking something like wool. Then the wool, as we may now call it, goes to the 'scribbling machine,' which, after torturing it among a dozen rollers of various dimensions, delivers it yard by yard in the form of a loose thick cable, with a run of the fibres in one direction. thecarding-machine takes the cable lengths, subjectsa them to another course of torture, confirms the direction of the fibres, and reduces the cable intoa chenille of about the thickness of a lady's finger. This chenille is produced in lengths of about five feet, across the machine, parallel with the rollers, and is immediately transferred to the piecing machine, by a highly ingenious proces. Each length, as it is finished, drops into a long, narrow, tin tray; the tray moves forward; the next behind it receives a chenille; then the third; then the fourth, and so on, up to ten. By this time, they have advance over a table on which lies what may be described as a wooden gridiron; ther is a momentary pause, and then the trays, turning all at once upside down, drop the chenilles severally between the bars of the gridiron. At one side of the table is a row of large spindles, or rollers, on which the chenilles - cardings is the factory word - are wound, and the dropping is so contrived that the ends of those which fall overlap the ends of the lengths on the spindles by about an inch. Now the gridiron begins to vibrate, and by its movement beats the ends together; joins each chenille, in fact, to the one before it; then the spindles whirl, and draw in the lengths, leaving only enough for the overla; and no sooner is this accomplished than the ten trays drop another supply, which is treated in the same expeditious manner, until the spindles are filled. No time is lost, for the full ones are immediately replaced by empty ones.
Now comes the spinners' turn. they take these full spindles, submit them to the action of their machinery by dozens at a time, and spin the large, loose chenilles into yarns of different degrees of strength and fineness, or, perhaps one should say, coarseness, ready for the weavers. And in this way these heaps of short, uncompliant negro-hair, in which you could hardly find a fibre three inches long, are transformed into long, continuous threads, able to bear the rapid jerks of the loom. I could not sufficiently admire its ingenuity. Who would have imagined that among the appliances of shoddy! Moreover, wages are good at Batley, and the spinners can earn from forty to forty-five shillings a week. the women who attend the looms earn nine or eighteen shillings awekk, according as they weave one or two pieces.
Next comes the fulling process; the pieces are damped, and thumped for a whole day by a dozen ponderous mallets;then the raising of the pile on one or both sides of the cloth, either by rollers or by hand. In the latter case, two men stretch a piece as high as they can reach on a vertical frame, and scratch the surface downwards with small hand-cards, the teeth of which are fine steel wire. Genuine broadcloth can only be dressed by a teazel of nature's own growing; but shoddy, far less delicate, submits to the metal. so the men keep on, length after length, till the piece is finished. Then the dyers have their turn, and if you venture to walk through their sloppy, steamy department, you will see men stirring the pieces about in vats, and some pieces hanging to rollers which keep them for a while running through the liquor. From the dye-house the pieces are carried to the tenter-ground and stretched in one length on vertical posts; and affter a sufficient course of sun and air, they undergo the finishing process - clipping the surface and hot-pressing.
From what I saw in the tenter-ground, I discovered that pilot cloth is shoddy; that glossy beavers and silky-looking mohairs are shoddy; that the 'fabric' of Talmans, Raglans, and paletots, and of other garments in which fine gentlemen go to the Derby, or to the Royal Academy Exhibition, or to the evening services in Westminster Abbey, are shoddy. And if Germany sends us abundance of rags, we send to Germany enormous quantities of shoddy in return. the best quality manufactured at Batley is worth ten shillings a yard; the commonest not more than one shilling.
Broadcloth at a shilling a yard almost staggers credibility. After that we may truly say that shoddy is a great leveller".



He died in 1893.

     John Bagshaw was born circa 1828 at Bradford. He married Ann Horsfield in 1848.
John Bagshaw founded the firm of John Bagshaw and sons, Victoria Foundry. In the census of 7 April 1861 he was listed as the head of household at Albert Terrace, Batley, as an ironfounder, master employing 26 men and 10 boys.¹

     Emma Willans Ward was born on 18 April 1863. She was the daughter of John Ward and Emma Willans. Emma Willans Ward was baptized on 26 December 1863 at Batley.¹
In the census of 2 April 1871 she was listed as a scholar the daughter of John Ward at Commercial Street, Batley.²

     William King Willans was born in 1808. He was the son of John Willans and Mary King. William King Willans married Elizabeth Smith on 10 December 1828 at Batley by licence.¹
In the census of 30 March 1851 he was listed as the head of household at Carlinghow, Batley, as a stone mason employing 2 men and shopkeeper.²

     Elizabeth Smith was born circa 1809 at Halifax. She married William King Willans, son of John Willans and Mary King, on 10 December 1828 at Batley by licence.¹
In the census of 30 March 1851 Elizabeth Willans was listed at Carlinghow, Batley, as wife of William King Willans.²

     Emma Willans was born in 1831. She was the daughter of William King Willans and Elizabeth Smith. Emma Willans was baptized on 10 April 1831 at Batley.¹
She married John Ward, son of Charles Ward and Ann Birkby, on 10 October 1849 at Batley.^2,3
Emma Ward was listed on the census of 30 March 1851 at Carlinghow, Batley, as wife of John Ward aged 20.⁴
In the census of 7 April 1861 Emma Ward was listed at Carlinghow, Batley, as wife of John Ward.⁵
In the census of 2 April 1871 Emma Ward was listed at Commercial Street, Batley, as wife of John Ward.⁶
In the census of 3 April 1881 Emma Ward was listed at Blakeridge Lane, Batley, as wife of John Ward.

     Barnabas Ineson was born on 24 March 1766. He was the son of Benjamin Ineson and Mary Eastwood. Barnabas Ineson was baptized on 31 March 1766 at Batley.^1,2
He married Tabitha Gleadhill on 18 September 1787 at Batley.¹
Barnabas Ineson died on 13 June 1811 at age 45.

     Tabitha Gleadhill was born circa 1762. She married Barnabas Ineson, son of Benjamin Ineson and Mary Eastwood, on 18 September 1787 at Batley.¹
In the census of 6 June 1841 she was listed as the head of household at Clerk Green, Batley, as aged 75.²
Tabitha Gleadhill was buried on 3 March 1845 at Batley ; aged 83.¹

     Barnabas Ineson was born on 12 November 1795. He was the son of Barnabas Ineson and Tabitha Gleadhill. Barnabas Ineson was baptized on 20 December 1795 at Batley.^1,2
He married Hannah Fisher Hemingway on 22 February 1819 at Batley.^1,2
Barnabas Ineson appeared with other Batley men on the census of 6 June 1841 as a prisoner in York Castle, then serving as a debtors gaol; a prisoner for debt, along with others I believe to be from Batley.³ He died on 26 July 1871 at Healey Lane, Clerk Green, Batley, at age 75.⁴

     Hannah Fisher Hemingway married Barnabas Ineson, son of Barnabas Ineson and Tabitha Gleadhill, on 22 February 1819 at Batley.^1,2
In the census of 6 June 1841 she was listed as aged 40 in the household of Tabitha Gleadhill at Clerk Green, Batley.³

     Barnabas Ineson was born in 1820. He was the son of Barnabas Ineson and Hannah Fisher Hemingway. Barnabas Ineson was baptized on 22 May 1820 at Batley.^1,2

     Isaac Ineson was baptized on 23 June 1822 at Batley.^1,2
He was the son of Barnabas Ineson and Hannah Fisher Hemingway. Isaac Ineson died in 1838. He was buried on 20 December 1838 at Batley ; aged 16. Parents have another son Isaac baptised in 1840.²

     Mary Ineson was baptized on 17 September 1824 at Batley.^1,2
She was the daughter of Barnabas Ineson and Hannah Fisher Hemingway.

     Ann Ineson was baptized on 16 April 1827 at Batley.^1,2
She was the daughter of Barnabas Ineson and Hannah Fisher Hemingway.