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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Devon => Topic started by: Geordie daughter on Friday 17 February 17 11:34 GMT (UK)
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A distant relation of my late husband was born and grew up in the area around Leeds but she and her husband pop up in the Paignton area in 1939, where he was apparently employed as Foreman loom tuner in the worsted trade at this time. Can anyone help with information about woollen mills that might have been located in Paignton district as I'd like to find out where he might have worked? (I have done an internet search this morning, but haven't yet been able to turn up anything useful.)
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Quoting from "The History of Devon":
Devon has long been celebrated for its woollen and lace manufactures; one or the other of which was formerly to be found in most parts of the county, but both have greatly declined here during the present century, owing to the amazing extension of machinery and the factory system, in the Midland and Northern Counties, which have nearly annihilated these branches of industry in their primitive seats, where the old domestic system was adhered to. There are still several large woollen mills and several thousand looms in different parts of the county, employed in making serges, blankets, and other coarse woollen cloths.
See: http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DevonHist1850.html
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Thanks for that, KGarrad. As it happens I live in another part of Devon which was very involved in the wool trade and all its processes, but Paignton and surrounds is definitely not somewhere I associate with woollen mills, especially as late as the tail end of the 1930s, which is why I'm curious to find out more. There can't have been that many factories producing woollen goods there just before WWII, surely?
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I reckon the mills (not factories?) would have been further up the rivers?
Chudleigh Mill for example - which had spinning-jenny's.
See: http://www.chudleighhistorygroup.com/parish-mills.html
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Can you be specific about where they pop up in the Paignton area during 1939 ?
I will pop in the library and check out the directories.
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Thank you for your kind offer, Mowsehowse. 95 Barton Avenue, Paignton [Unitary District], is the address I have for them. The husband is John Albert Wright although in the 1939 register his first names have been swapped around to Albert John. I don't know how helpful that will be. Strictly speaking, wherever he was working would probably have been referred to as a textile factory rather than as a mill by that time; perhaps there was a place producing something like blankets or maybe woollen cloth for men's suits or uniforms in the locality?
Frustratingly, the mills I can find reference to in the area are either corn grinding mills or fulling mills which don't actually make cloth as such, only finish it, and most are no longer operating by the 1900s in any case.
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Kev
. . . . . and I can see Chudleigh Mill as I type . . . . .
Ray
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I've found mention of Ashburton Mill (Messrs Berry and Sons) which was still producing serge in 1891-2 at their premises in Ashburton and at Buckfastleigh, but there's no indication whether it was still operating into the 1930s. It's quite a distance from Paignton though.
A transcription of the Torquay Trade Directory for 1911-12, on Genuki, lists "Clothiers (Manufacturing) - Richards and Co., Ltd., 61 Union Street." They're separate from the listings for tailors and dressmakers so were they producing cloth, rather than making items of clothing? Hopefully, someone with local connections might know.
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I will get a photo of 95 Barton Ave for you next week if you would like?
I have just returned from the library (no problem, I planned to go there this afternoon).
So I had a look at the 1939 Directory. I did not look at residential, having no clues, though I did comb through the trades for Paignton specifically, did not find any mention of a wool mill, and I looked in the trades advertisers at the back but I don't think this gives what you want, though Totnes and Buckfastleigh are fairly close to Paignton.
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I've found mention of Ashburton Mill (Messrs Berry and Sons) which was still producing serge in 1891-2 at their premises in Ashburton and at Buckfastleigh, but there's no indication whether it was still operating into the 1930s. It's quite a distance from Paignton though.
A transcription of the Torquay Trade Directory for 1911-12, on Genuki, lists "Clothiers (Manufacturing) - Richards and Co., Ltd., 61 Union Street." They're separate from the listings for tailors and dressmakers so were they producing cloth, rather than making items of clothing? Hopefully, someone with local connections might know.
I very much doubt there was a mill in Union Street Torquay, and I would expect Clothiers Manufacturing was a place where cloth was cut and sewn into garments.
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Thanks so much for going to all that trouble for me, Mowsehowse. John Churchward and Sons sound like the most likely possibility and Totnes is certainly closer to Paignton than Buckfastleigh is. I'm really not sure why the Wrights would have moved to Paignton for work in the first place, unless it's because John was familiar with the area from when he was based at Plymouth with the Royal Marines c 1918, and was subsequently offered a job locally when he was demobbed in 1922.
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Just in case MowseHouse wants to save the bus fare
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01jii/ (http://www.rootschat.com/links/01jii/)
then "streetview"
then left 5x down the avenue (with 2x cars)
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Just in case MowseHouse wants to save the bus fare
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01jii/ (http://www.rootschat.com/links/01jii/)
then "streetview"
then left 5x down the avenue (with 2x cars)
;D Thanks Ray.
[I shall be up there at least twice next week in daylight.]
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Churchward's definitely appear to be the most likely employers now. I have discovered that their woollen mill at Harbertonford was still operating until as late as 1956, although I haven't yet been able to find out anything about their other premises. Apparently, the company was making blankets and serge to be dyed blue for the Royal Navy which would tie in nicely with my thought that perhaps John's Royal Marine service had something to do with him getting the job. John would have been in his mid-fifties when the Harbertonford mill closed down and I know that he and his wife were back in Leeds by the time of their deaths in the 1970s.
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If you have access to FindMyPast (local library, perhaps?) there are a number of newspaper entries for John Churchward & Sons?
I did a google search using "John Churchward & Sons" Devon (remember to include the quotation marks).
But you may need a sub to see the pages?
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Just to say, I have checked out the Kelly's for 1935 & 1939, but John Wright does not appear in the residential (nor commercial).
I did find a Blanket Manufacturer "John BERRY & Sons Ltd. Ashburton, Newton Abbot & Buckfast Mills, Buckfastleigh." So that is also an option, but Totnes would be the closest proximity to Paignton, so I probably still favour Curchwards until offered somewhere even closer.
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KGarrad:
I got completely sidetracked onto another of my husband's lines this afternoon because of a comment on another thread of mine elsewhere on the forum, and didn't even think to go look through the newspapers via FindMyPast, so thank you for mentioning it! I do have a sub with them, fortunately, so that's not a problem.
Mowsehowse:
Thank you so much for checking those directories for me - John Wright being listed in them was a long shot anyway, but at least you've been able to confirm that John Berry and Sons were also still operating in that time frame. I'll do searches for both firms in the newspapers and see what comes up.
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Just in case MowseHouse wants to save the bus fare:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01jii/ (http://www.rootschat.com/links/01jii/)
then "streetview"
then left 5x down the avenue (with 2x cars)
;D Thanks Ray. [I shall be up there at least twice next week in daylight.]
Well I was in Barton Avenue earlier today so I decided to seek out number 95, which looks like a fairly standard bungalow, but what "streetview" doesn't show is the fact of glorious sea views over Torbay from the back gardens on that side of the road. :)
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Thanks for the pic, Mowsehowse! Did you get curious looks when you were taking the photo?
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Thanks for the pic, Mowsehowse! Did you get curious looks when you were taking the photo?
I am not sure if there was anyone home at 95, but an elderly lady at 91 was eager to know what was going on, and very pleased to tell me about the wonderful sea views from her garden. :D
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I should imagine you made her day, having someone to talk to! Years ago, when we were in Lancashire, there was a power cut in our row of terraced houses one evening, so we went to check on the neighbour next door as we'd been told she was elderly and not able to get about very well. It turned out she was in her nineties and had worked in one of the local cotton mills in the 1920s or 30s. She invited me in for a cuppa and a chat the next day and had some fascinating stories about the area to tell me. I only wish we'd met her sooner, as we moved away not long afterwards.
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Seems a shame you moved away quite soon, but at least she did have your company for a while. :-\
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Hi 'Geordie Daughter'. I worked for the Weights and Measures Department (later renamed Trading Standards) in the late sixties and covered the South Devon area roughly west of the Teign. This work involved visiting most trade premises on a regular basis. My only visits to any textile mills were at Buckfast and Buckfastleigh. The premises at Buckfast were adjacent to the Abbey and were quite large. There were many looms running in the sixties and the noise level inside was horrendous. The other premises were, as far as I can remember, were just of the main street in Buckfastleigh, but I have no memory as to what they were producing. One of the locations was certainly involved in fellmongering, that is the cleaning of the wool and the production of lanolin as a by-product.
There was an old mill like building at Harbertonford which at that time was the premises of an agricultural merchant. My thoughts were that it was an old grain mill, but I could have been wrong.
I worked the Paignton area in the early seventies and certainly never came across anything that looked like it might have once been textile mill. I would be very surprised to learn of there ever having been any textile mills in Paignton. I'm no expert, but they generally grew up adjacent to rivers as the trade uses a lot of water. Paignton is noticeably short of a suitable river.
I think the most likely option is that your loom tuner worked at Buckfast. OK, it's twelve miles from Paignton, but I don't think this would be too difficult a daily journey, even in 1939.
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QUOTE "I would be very surprised to learn of there ever having been any textile mills in Paignton. I'm no expert, but they generally grew up adjacent to rivers as the trade uses a lot of water. Paignton is noticeably short of a suitable river."
Thank you for that Bolttail, that was my feeling, (due to lack of river,) but I am not native to this area, and didn't want to stick my neck out. I have read a lot about the local history, and apparently the main work in Paignton was growing cabbages and making baskets from the rushes growing in the marsh land. I don't recall any mention of water mills actually in Paignton, though there are remains of windmills.
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I'm waiting for a flurry of replies from folks whose great grandparents worked sixteen hours a day in the Paignton Wool Mill for 4 pence a week and a dry crust of bread every other Christmas.
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I'm waiting for a flurry of replies from folks whose great grandparents worked sixteen hours a day in the Paignton Wool Mill for 4 pence a week and a dry crust of bread every other Christmas.
:D To be fair, I think they would probably have been given a feast at Christmas, just starved the other 364 days!!
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Thanks Bolttail. That's what puzzled me when I started this thread, as Paignton itself had never been associated with woollen mills, to my knowledge at any rate. I've since discovered that the Harbertonford mill which you mentioned in your first post was actually operating as a textile mill making blankets and serge for the Royal Navy up until the late 1950s, when the machinery had become too outdated for the mill to be competitive. It was owned by the Churchward family and one of the sons was an agricultural merchant on the side, so perhaps he took over the premises there afterwards and it's his business you remember. (If I remember my notes correctly, I think there was also an agricultural tool maker elsewhere in the village.) In any case, you've pretty much confirmed that John Wright would have had to travel some distance to his place of work, whether it was Buckfast or Harbertonford.