Part 7

Dyeing is carried on in Lancashire quite as extensively as bleaching. Here, again, the exactest chemical knowledge is wanted. The managers are usually men well versed in science. A visit to an important dye-works always awakens the liveliest sentiments of admiration, and were it not for the relentless fouling of the streams which receive the refuse, few scenes of industry would live longer in pleasant memory. For although dye-works exist in towns and their suburbs, they are more frequently established out in the country, where there are babbling brooks and "shallow falls," with a view to obtaining a plentiful and steady supply of clean water. Factories also are sometimes found amid the fields, occupying quite isolated positions, the object being similar--the command of some definite local advantage. When at the foot of a hill it is interesting to observe that the chimney is placed half-way up the slope, a preliminary underground passage inducing a more powerful draught.

It is in the neighbourhood of these rural establishments that the hurt done by manufacturing to the pristine beauty of the country becomes conspicuous. Near the towns the results are simply dirt, withered hedges, and a general withdrawal of meadow adornment. In the country we perceive how the picturesque becomes affected. Railways are not more cruel. Cotton, with all its kindliness, reverses the celestial process which makes the wilderness blossom as the rose. There are differences in degree--the upper portion of the Irwell valley, near Summerseat, is in a measure exceptional; but we must never expect to find a spot wholly devoid of illustrations of blight and mischief. Against the destruction of natural beauty, when works and factories assume the sway, of course must be set not only the employment of the industrious, but the enormous rise in the value of the land; since rise of such character is a sign of advancing civilisation, which in due time will more than compensate the damage. In the manufacturing parts of Lancashire land available for farming purposes commands ten times the rental of a century ago. Mr. Henry Ashworth's paper on the increase in the value of Lancashire property, published in 1841, showed that since 1692 the rise in Bolton had been six hundredfold.

The highest place in the trio of beautiful arts now before us is held undeniably by calico-printing, since it not only "paints" the woven fabric "with delight," but in its power to multiply and vary the cheerful pictures is practically inexhaustible; thus representing, and in the most charming manner, the outcome of the sweet facility of the seasons. Next to the diversities of living flowers assuredly come the devices of the pattern-designer who discreetly goes to nature for his inspiration. Much of his work must of necessity be conventionalised, and some of it cannot be other than arbitrary and artificial; but there is no reason why, in its steadiest practice, strictly natural forms and colours should not always be regarded as truest and best. The tendency is daily more and more in this direction, so that calico-printing may justly anticipate a future even more distinguished than its present and its past. The "past," if we press for the birthday, is an ancient one indeed. Not to mention the chintzes of India, in the days of Calidasa, Pliny shows us very plainly that printing by means of mordants was practised in Egypt in the first century of the Christian era. When introduced into Western Europe is not known; for our present sketch it is enough that in England it began about A.D. 1700, coming, like many other excellent things, of the short-sighted efforts of selfishness, which, fortunately for mankind, always invites the retaliations of generosity. In the year mentioned, 1700, with a view to favouring the manufacturers of woollen and silk, the importation of prints from India was forbidden. Experiments were at once made with a view to production of similar work at home. This was soon discovered to be practicable, and preparations were made for printing upon a large scale, and at a moderate cost, when a new hindrance arose--say rather that the old malignant one, jealous opposition, reappeared. For a time this was successful, but at last the privilege to print in England was conceded, burdened, however, with the condition that the metropolis and the immediate vicinity should alone possess the right--a circumstance which recalls to mind the original law as to joint-stock banks. The monopoly wrought its own destruction, for there was one county at least, a despised but courageous one in the north, which was not likely to remain a passive spectator. Contemporaneously with the new bleaching process above described, contemporaneously also with the employment of the new cotton machinery, calico-printing obtained the provincial footing which from that time forwards has never ceased to strengthen, and which now renders Lancashire the most important district in the world in regard alike to the immensity of production and the inexpressible beauty of the workmanship. It is not too much to say, with an eminent author, that the calico-printing works of Lancashire are entitled to count with the most distinguished English seats of useful science, and the most interesting scenes of the exercise of tasteful invention. The earliest enterprise was in Manchester itself, in 1745, the year of the visit of Prince Charles and his army, the original Lancashire efforts having been made, so history says, by the grandfather of the late distinguished surgeon, Mr. Joseph Jordan. The "works" were situated on the banks of the Irwell, close to St. Mary's Church. Blackburn soon followed, and under the influence of the supreme abilities of the Peels, remained for many years the uncontested centre. Print-works are now met with in every little recess where there is supply of water, doubtless the first thing looked for when they were founded. The natural current sufficed at first; but it soon became customary to construct home or private reservoirs, and upon these the dependence is now essentially placed. No county in England needs so much water as Lancashire, and certainly there is not one that presents so many little bits of water-surface artificially prepared. It is pleasant to observe that the reservoirs belonging to "works," when belonging to a man of taste, have often been rendered extremely pretty by the introduction of water-lilies: flowers not only of unrivalled queenliness among aquatics, but distinguished among our native vegetation by the pensive languor always associated with the idea of the Oriental--the water-lilies' birthright--for, as a race, they are much more Asiatic than European, and by happy coincidence the most appropriate that could be placed there, the water-lily being the emblem not more of the Nile than of the Ganges.

The multiplicity of the printing processes, and their complexity, call for many distinct buildings. Hence, when large, and isolated away in the country, as very generally happens, a print-works has quite the look of a rising village. There is a laboratory, with library, for the managing chemist, a suite of apartments for the designers, and a house and fruitful garden for the resident partner, with, in addition, not uncommonly, a schoolroom for the children. When the designers have completed their sketches, the engraver's work begins--a business in itself, and carried on almost exclusively in town, and especially in Manchester. Originally the pattern was cut upon a block of wood, usually sycamore, the success of the transfer to the cloth depending chiefly upon the dexterity of the workman. In 1785 this very primitive mode was superseded by "cylinder-printing," the pattern being engraved upon copper rollers, as many as there are colours; and though "block-printing" shares the unquenchable vitality of hand-loom weaving, the roller may now be considered universal. The employment of copper supplies another very interesting illustration of the resort made to this metal in almost every kind of high decorative art, and prepares us to understand the fitness of the ancient mythological use, and why associated with the goddess of love and beauty.

These great undertakings--the bleaching, the dyeing, and the printing of the calico--demand steady supplies of the chemicals and other agents by means of which the various objects are attained. Hence in Lancashire the unrivalled number and extent of the manufacturing chemical works; and, especially in Manchester, the business,--never heard of in many English counties, here locally distinguished as the "drysalter's." The drysalter sees to the importation from foreign countries of the indigo, the madder, and other dye-stuffs in daily request; he deals also in the manifold kinds of gum constantly asked for, supplying himself partly from abroad, _viâ_ Liverpool, partly from works close by which prepare it artificially. A well-known sight in Manchester is that of a cartload of logs of some curious tropical dyewood, rudely hewn by the axe, and still retaining in the cavities of the bark little relics of the mosses and lichens of their native forest.

The chemical works are located principally in the extreme south-west, especially near Widnes, a place which at once betrays itself to the passing traveller in the almost suffocating atmosphere, and the total extinction of the beauty of trees and hedges, spectres and gaunt skeletons alone remaining where once was verdure. Here we find in its utmost vigour the manufacture of "soda-ash" (an impure carbonate), and of chloride of lime, both for the use of bleachers; also, prepared from the first-named, "caustic soda," for the soap-boilers of Liverpool and Warrington; and chlorate of potash, peculiarly for the dyers. Nitric acid also is made in immense quantity, the basis being Chilian saltpetre, though for their materials for the soda-products the manufacturers have no need to go further than Cheshire, the supply of salt being drawn entirely from the Northwich mines. The discharge of stifling vapours was much worse before the passing of the Alkali Act than at present; and, curiously enough, though by no means without a parallel, involved positive loss to the manufacturer, who now manages to detain a considerable amount of good residuum previously wasted. The Act permits a limited quantity of noxious matter to go up the chimney; the stream is tested every day to see that the right is not abused: how terrible is the action even of that little the surrounding fields are themselves not slow to testify; everything, even in summer, looks dirty, lean, and dejected. Sulphuric acid is likewise manufactured on a great scale, especially at Newton-le-Willows, the basis (except when required to be very pure, when sulphur is employed) being iron pyrites imported from Spain. Hundreds of thousands of tons are prepared every year. There is probably not a single manufacturing process carried on in England in which chemical agency is involved which does not call for it. Hence, in the consumption of sulphuric acid, we have always a capital index to the state of trade, so far as regards appeal to the activity of the producing classes.

In the extent of its manufacture of all the substances above mentioned, Lancashire is far ahead of every competitor in the world; Germany comes next, and then probably France.

Carbolic acid is of peculiarly Lancashire origin, having been originally introduced commercially by the late Dr. Crace Calvert. Supplies are in daily request for the production of colour: the employment for antiseptic purposes is larger yet; the export is also very considerable. Other immensely important chemicals prepared in South Lancashire, and on a scale almost incredible,--Manchester helping the Widnes corner,--are sulphate of soda and sulphate of copper, the last-named being now in unlimited demand, not only by the dyers and calico-printers, but for the batteries used in electric telegraphy. In the presence of all this marvellous work, how quaintly reads the history of the Lancashire chemistry of 500 years ago. It had then not emerged from alchemy, which, after being forbidden by Henry IV., and again legalised by Henry VI., was warmly encouraged by the credulous Edward III., and had no devouter adherents than the Asshetons and the Traffords, who in their loyalty undertook to supply the king with silver and gold to the extent of his needs--so soon as the "philosopher's stone" should be discovered! Before we laugh at their misdirected zeal, it may be well to inquire whether the world has suffered more from scornful and premature rejection, or from honest and simple enthusiasm, such as in playing with alchemy brought to life the germs of the profoundest and most variously useful of the sciences.

Though Lancashire tries no longer to transmute the baser metals into the precious ones by means of alchemy, it succeeds by the honester and less circuitous route of industry. Lead is obtained, though not in large quantity, at Anglezark, near Rivington Pike; and iron, in the excellent form of hæmatite, plentifully in the Ulverston and Furness district. The smelting is carried on chiefly at Barrow, where the business will no doubt continue to prosper, though hæmatite of late years has somewhat lost its ancient supremacy, methods having been discovered by which ores hitherto deemed inferior are practically changed to good and useful ones.

In any case the triumphs of Lancashire will continue to be shown, as heretofore, in her foundries and engine-works, the latter innumerable. Whitworth, Fairbairn, Nasmyth, are names too well known to need more than citation. Nasmyth's steam-hammer in itself is unique. Irresistible when it smites with a will, a giant in power and emphasis, it can assume, when it pleases, the lightsome manners of a butterfly. Let a lady place her hand upon the anvil, the mighty creature just gives it a kiss, gently, courteously, and retires. It is rather a misfortune for the stupendous products of the foundry and engine-works that, except in the case of the locomotive, as soon as completed they are hidden away for evermore, embedded where completely lost to view, and thought of as little as the human heart. Happily in the streets of Manchester there is frequent reminder, in the shape of some leviathan drawn slowly by a team of eight, ten, twelve, or even fourteen superb horses. Bradford, one of the suburbs of Manchester, supplies the world with the visible factor of its nervous system--those mysterious-looking threads which now everywhere show against the sky, and literally allow of intercourse between "Indus and the Pole." In addition to their manufacture of telegraph-wire, the Messrs. Johnson prepare the whole of what is wanted for the wire-rope bridges now common in America. Large quantities of wire are produced also at Warrington; here, however, of kinds adapted more particularly for domestic use. In connection with metal it is worthy also of note that Lancashire is the principal seat of the manufacture of the impregnable safes which, laughing at thieves and fire, challenge even the earthquake. They are made in Liverpool by Milner and Company, and near Bolton by the Chatwoods.

Lancashire was long distinguished for its manufacture of silk, though it never acquired the importance held by Macclesfield. In Europe this beautiful art came to the front as one of the results of the later Crusades--enterprises which, though productive of untold suffering, awoke the mind of all the civilised parts of the Continent from its slumber of ages, enlarging the sphere of popular thought, reviving the taste for elegant practices forgotten since the fall of the Western Empire, and extending commerce and knowledge in general. To Lancashire men the history is thus one of special interest. Italy led the way in the manufacture; Spain and France soon followed, the latter acquiring distinction, and at the close of the sixteenth century the English Channel was crossed. Tyranny, as in the case of calico-printing, was the prime cause, the original Spitalfields weavers having been part of the crowd of Protestants who at that period were constrained, like the unhappy and forlorn in more modern times, to seek the refuge always afforded in our sea-girt isle.[24] James I. was so strongly impressed with the importance of the manufacture that, hoping to promote it at home, he procured many thousands of young mulberry-trees, some of which, or their immediate descendants, are still to be found, venerable but not exhausted, in the grounds and gardens of old country houses. The Civil Wars gave a heavy check to further progress. Little more was done till 1718, when a silk-mill, worked by a water-wheel, was built at Derby. This in time had to close its doors awhile, through the refusal of the King of Sardinia to permit the exportation of the raw material, always so difficult to procure in quantity. At last there was recovery; the manufacture crept into Cheshire, and at the commencement of the present century into Lancashire, taking root especially in the ancient villages of Middleton and Eccles, and gradually spreading to the adjacent hamlets.

[24] The late greatly respected Mr. E. R. Le Mare, who came to Manchester in 1829, and was long distinguished among the local silk-merchants, belonged by descent to one of these identical old Huguenot families. Died at Clevedon, 4th February 1881, aged eighty-four.

The arrival was opportune, and helped to break the fall of the hand-loom cotton weavers, many of whom could not endure the loss of freedom imposed by the rules of the factory, and whose latent love of beauty, as disclosed in their taste for floriculture, was called forth in a new and agreeable manner. Silk-weaving was further congenial to these men in being more cleanly and less laborious than the former work, requiring more care and vigilance, and rather more skill, thus exactly suiting a race of worshippers of the auricula, the polyanthus, and the carnation. The auricula, locally called the "basier," a corruption of "bear's ear," is the subject of a charming little poem by one of the old Swinton weavers, preserved intact, reprinted in Wilkinson's _Lancashire Ballads_, and peculiarly valuable in respect of the light it throws upon the temperament of a simple and worthy race, now almost extinct. We may be allowed to quote two of the verses:

Come and listen awhile unto what we shall say Concerning the season, the month we call May; For the flowers they are springing, the birds they do sing, And the basiers are sweet in the morning of May.

When the trees are in bloom, and the meadows are green, The sweet-smelling cowslips are plain to be seen; The sweet ties of nature we plainly do say, For the basiers are sweet in the morning of May!

The silk-weavers about Middleton were renowned also for their zest in entomology, and truly wonderful were their cabinets of Lepidoptera. Unfortunately, when all was prosperous, there came a change. Ever since 1860, the year of the new, and still current, silk-treaties with France, whereby its original command of the trade was restored, the manufacture of silk in Lancashire, and everywhere else in England, has been steadily and hopelessly declining; and at the present day, compared with half a century ago, the production is less than a tenth of what it was. Power-looms naturally have the preference with employers, since they represent invested capital; whereas the hand-loom weaver, if there is no work for him, has merely to be told so. The latter, as a consequence, is now seldom met with. The trade, such as remains, gathers chiefly about Leigh. Middleton, once so famous for its "broad silks,"--those adapted for ladies' dresses,--now spends its time chiefly in the preparation of "trimmings"; and wherever carried on the manufacture is almost wholly of the kind called "mixed," or cotton and silk combined, this being more in demand, because lower in price, though not wearing so well.

From silk that befits empresses to hemp, the material of sackcloth, the way is long. But it must not be overlooked, in regard to the textile manufactures of Lancashire, that each extreme is familiar. Warrington, in the bygones, prepared more than half the entire quantity of sailcloth required for the navy. It was a ship laden with hemp from the Baltic for use in Lancashire which, touching at the Isle of Skye, brought the first news of Prince Charles Edward's landing there.

Lancashire produces one-sixth of all the paper made in England. In other words, there are in this county about fifty of the nearly 300 English paper-mills, including the very largest of them--Messrs. Wrigley and Sons', near Bury. The first to be established was Crompton's, at Farnworth, near Bolton, which dates from 1676, or exactly eighty-eight years after the building of the famous Kentish one referred to by Shakspere,[25] which itself followed, by just a century, the primeval one at Stevenage. Every description of paper, except that required for bank-notes, is made in Lancashire. The mills themselves, like the dyeworks, haunt the river-sides, though they no longer draw their supplies of water from the stream. Paper-works cannot possibly prosper if there be iron in the water they use, or decomposed vegetable matter. Hence in Lancashire it is now customary to sink wells of considerable depth, and in any case to provide for elaborate filtration. No spectacle in its way is more wonderful than that of a paper-machine at work. There is no limit to the length of the piece it is able to produce continuously, save that which is imposed by its own restricted dimensions. A roll could be made--as it is--of three or four miles in length, the cylinder gradually gathering up the pulp till it can hold no more. Very interesting also is it to observe the variety of material now employed. Esparto, or "Spanish grass," is brought to Liverpool (as to Cardiff and Newcastle) in exchange for coal, and wood-pulp from Norway and Sweden _viâ_ Hull.

[25] Sir John Spielman's, at Dartford.--_Vide_ 2nd Henry VI., Act iv. Scene 7.

At Darwen we find the largest and most important production in England of the ornamental wall-papers which now take the place of the distemper painting of ancient Egypt, Herculaneum, and Pompeii. The manufacture was originally very similar to block calico-printing. In or about 1839 Messrs. C. & J. G. Potter introduced "rollers," with the additional novelty of the pattern being cut in relief; and this is now almost universal, the Messrs. Potter having progeny, as it were, all over the country, though they themselves still produce quite one-half of the quantity consumed. They have customers in every part of the civilised world, and adapt their work to the diverse and often fantastic tastes of all in turn, directed not uncommonly, as in the case of the Hindoos and the Japanese, by native designs, which they are required to follow implicitly.