A LEEDS STEAM CONTRACTOR REMEMBERS PART 1

Bill Woodhead’s father, Fred, was a general engineer and millwright in the late 1870s and he established his business on Silver Royd Hill in the suburb of Wortley, Leeds. There, he built up a sizeable workshop and was able to provide not only materials and goods but also machine them, fabricate items and had labour available to fit them if required.

The author was shown the account books kept at the time and they made fascinating reading; reflecting to a certain extent on the education and standards of living of the period. At the Royd Mill Paper Co, for example, some ⊠in ‘exegon’ nuts were fitted to studs and a joint made to hold a ‘scillinder lid’ [sic] down on their steam engine. Even in that era, double time was charged on Christmas Day - at 1/-(5p) per hour. Sharpening a cold chisel cost ½p and a ¾in wheel valve was charged at 3/6d (17½p).

During the 1880s, Fred, trading as W Woodhead, developed an interest in brick making plant as well as general engineering and so it was that he expanded in that direction and in 1895 he was running the Skipton Brick & Tile Company’s works in the Craven District of Yorkshire. This continued until 1908 but, in the meantime, he also financed other businesses and hired out machinery and