Sir Titus Salt of Saltaire & Lightcliffe

[KT]

www.saltairevillage.info  See your original post is from 2006 so maybe you have already found this.  Use the search window at TOP RIGHT.  I'm curious about your research as my Evans line connects - Rev. Arthur Fitzgerald Evans who married Constance Salt - she the granddaughter of Sir Titus.
Wonderful people of website have been much helpful to me.  Put me in touch with Sir Patrick Salt, 7th Baronet of Salt.  I live in California, USA, Best regards Katie

[KT]

My condolences, just went back and saw the message Dolly passed away.  Maybe information will be helpful to others, KT

[KathyM]

I wonder if you might be interested in this article I wrote for 'Cameo' our Local family history Society's magazine....

TITUS SALT

Titus Salt, as many will know, was born in Morley at the Old Manor House, which used to stand in Queen Street, or Middlethorpe as it was then.  Perhaps, like me, you knew about his later life and association with Salt’s Mill; and Saltaire – but little about the actual time he spent in Morley.

After a bit of research I came across a book written in 1877, shortly after his death which gives quite a bit of information.  Apparently, tradition has it (although no records were actually cited) that his ancestors originated in Staffordshire,  moving up through Derbyshire, settling eventually in Sheffield.   Morley’s Titus Salt, was named after his Grandfather – Titus Salt, a Whitesmith, who was married, in Sheffield, in 1753 to a widow named Sarah Taylor, who brought with her, a freehold property., which according to a deed, was in Sheffield, close to the ‘new’ church, in a place called Cherry Square.

Two years later, in 1755, another deed records that he bought property at Hunslet Moor, in the Parish of Leeds, from the Rev. Christopher Alderson of Aston.  He must have settled in Leeds, as in 1802, he made a will in which he was described as an Ironfounder of Hunslet Moor.  In this document he leaves his property in Hunslet to his son Titus and Sheffield property to son Daniel.  Titus Senior died in 1804, two years after his wife Sarah, both being buried in the churchyard at Hunslet.

to be cont....

[KathyM]

part 2.....
Daniel Salt succeeded to his father’s Ironfounding business which he carried on for a few years in Hunslet.  In 1802, on the 5th July, he was married to Grace SMITHIES of the Old Manor House, Morley.  Her father had recently died and Daniel moved into the old house and took over his drysalting business.  (There is no explanation as to why his son Robert didn’t take over the business at this time).However, Daniel moved in, and for a while ran both businesses, eventually giving up the Ironfoundry. – becoming Daniel Salt, White Cloth Merchant and Drysalter.   A deed of 1811 lists him as ‘Daniel Salt of Morley, Yeoman’.  Daniel was described by a contemporary, as being ‘a plain, blunt Yorkshireman, both in manner and speech’ and also as being tall and strong, but with a speech impediment.  His wife, Grace, as ‘a woman of delicate constitution’, sweet and gentle in her ways, subject to mental depression at times, but an earnest Christian and staunch Nonconformist.

Their eldest son, ‘our’ Titus, was born at the Old Manor House on the 20th September, 1803, and according to the entry in the Family Bible, at 4 o’clock in the morning.  Morley at that time had  about 2,100 inhabitants, and at that time only four places of worship.  By the time his biography was written in 1877, there were fourteen places of worship, several coal mines and stone quarries (a source of considerable wealth) –  in 1803 there was only one Mill for the manufacture of cloth.  Many of the houses had a manufacture of its own where the sound of the weaver’s shuttle was constantly heard..  The young Titus, it is said, received in Morley the moral and religious impressions which were to stay with him throughout his life.  The people of Morley had much of the old Puritan spirit.  Sabbath was strictly observed and family worship common in many homes.  The Bible and Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ were the books most frequently read.  Good Friday was not celebrated and they didn’t recognise many of the fast days.  There was no established Church until 1830, so non-conformity was in a unique position.  St. Mary’s in the Wood originally belonged to the Roman Catholics and remained so until the reformation in 1534 and following that was in the hands of Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Independants.  The name had changes over the years too – St Mary’s, St. Nicholas and known as the Morley Old Chapel and occupied by Independents until 1873 when it became so unsafe it had to be demolished.

to be cont.....

[KathyM]

part 3.....

The Old Manor House itself was built, according to this book, in the late 1500’s, and built ‘not to sell, but to last’.  The walls, in places, 3ft. thick, with a low roof covered in slabs, not slates.  The front walls soon became ivy covered and behind was an ancient pear tree, still fruit-bearing in 1877.  By that time the house was surrounded by other dwellings and warehouses, but in Daniel & Grace Salt’s time there were two or three fields of pasture attached to the house belonging to the Earl of Dartmouth.  There were many changes made to the house over its years, both inside and out.  Titus Salt returned to visit with his own children and it is said, hardly recognised the place.  Old windows had been filled in and new ones made, the front entrance had been moved to the south end, and the ground floor rooms, which originally had only been 6 ft. high, had been sunk a couple of feet and had a step down into them.  The part of the building where the drysalting stores had been kept had been transformed into a drawing room.  The kitchen had a stone flagged floor, bare wooden beamed ceiling, where oat cakes were suspended to harden and hams to dry, and a wide stone staircase to the floor above remained much the same.  Titus found many changes, but not everything from his boyhood had been erased, one thing he recalled vividly was still there – the pear tree!  He recalled how he had often climbed it to gather fruit.

Titus was the eldest child of seven – three sons and four daughters.  He was baptised twice.  First of all, on the 9th November, 1803, when he was a few weeks old, by Rev. Thomas CLOUGH in the Morley Old New Chapel, and then  on the 27th February 1805, along with his sister Sarah, who had been born the previous December, was baptised at Batley Parish Church by the Rev. J. SEDGWICK.  I had seen these records and wondered about the double baptism, but the author of this book explains that it was often the case with Nonconformist families, that their children were baptised again, merely to ensure an entry in the parish register which was, at that time, the only legal record, and proof of birth, death and marriage.  The Salt family increased in size – adding Hannah and Isaac Smithies, but sadly both died in infancy and were buried in the churchyard at Morley.

still more.....

[KathyM]

part four....

Grace Salt’s delicate health meant that she was unable to nurse her children, and a Mrs ELLIS tended them ‘as if they were her own’.  Fortunately Titus inherited his father’s strong constitution.  As soon as he was big enough to run about he would be out playing with the other village children and was described as a ‘bright boy for his age, full of fun, but shy with strangers’.  His father bought him a wooden horse which was much envied by the village children and on it he would ride up and down the flagstones, taking turns with his friend, Joe ELLIS.  He attended a dame school in Morley with Mrs NICHOLS and was taught to read and write.  It is possible he also attended the Morley Town School, but this is unclear.  He did, however, by the time he was 8 or 9, walk to Batley each day along with a group of other boys who were taught by the Rev. Sedgwick.  They would go along Scotchman Lane, carrying dinner with them (Oatcake and milk fresh from the cow).

The education at Batley was described as classical and commercial.  Titus’ father gave him sound advice.  His mother taught him respect for religion, regard for the Sabbath, reverence on entering the house of God, to pray and to read the Bible morning and evening.  She gave him a pocket Bible which he carried all his life.  In it she wrote :

TO TITUS SALT
May this blessed volume ever be
Close to you heart and near to thy eye
Till life’s last hour thy soul engage
And be thy chosen heritage.


Titus, in later years, gave each of his children a pocket Bible with the same inscription.

The Salt family left Morley in 1813, when Titus was about ten years old.  Daniel rented a farm of 100 acres at Crofton near Wakefield, from Sir Henry W. WILSON.  The reason is unclear.  Perhaps because they felt it would be better for Grace’s health, or perhaps because Robert SMITHIES, Grace’s brother, was now in a position to take over the drysalting business, and the occupation of the Old Manor House.  Perhaps this was a condition of Isaac Smithies will?  Whatever the reason, that is where they went and Titus and Sarah rode to school, at the Salem Chapel, on a donkey.  Grace had more children, but her health did not improve.  In fact, she was unable to attend Church services regularly as a licence was granted to allow for religious services to be held at the Crofton Farm.  A licence had been granted years before for services to be held at the Old Manor House in Morley for the same reason.  It was in Wakefield that Titus began his training in the Mills.  He had thought at one time of becoming a doctor, but fainted at the sight of blood, and sought a career elsewhere.  The family left the farm in 1822, it seems that it wasn’t paying, and although the landlord held Daniel until the end of his lease, he made the decision to move instead to Bradford.  Bradford was on the threshold of becoming a wealthy manufacturing area and Daniel saw an opportunity.  Titus went on to become a great man – his birth celebrated for many years on the 20th September in Saltaire as ‘Founders Day’ – but he never forgot his Morley roots!

- KathyM(Info. From ‘Balgarnie’s SALT’.)

[KT]

Dear Kathy,

Many thanks for the Salt history, hugely interesting even if I wasn't a distant root - Har! Har!  What a job typing in so much.   I've just gotten information of some sby a volunteer at www.raogk.  I'm still trying to find about the daughter of Rev. Arthur Fitzgerald Evans and Constance Salt, Margaret. 

Last month I got the information of their son, John Fitzgerald Evans, who was the head of Summer Fields school at Oxford.  He died unmarried in 1972. 
Their other daughter Constance Dove who married Rev. Gerald Halsey died about 1958.  No mention of any children yet- maybe none.  So unless I can find out about Margaret - then it may be that this branch of the Salt descendants came to an end. 

I'm hoping the wills will have some helpful information when I eventually get them.  I'm still looking for the sisters of Rev. Evans - Constance D. Evans and Elizabeth I. H.  Evans, who were living in his home on the last census. 
Bye for now, from Katie in California