The following short chronology gives a few basic facts about who owned or managed Salts Mill at specific points in its history of manufacturing textiles.
Please also see our Salts Mill Timelines which provide more detail of the context of each time span.
Titus Salt, Sons and Co. own and manage Salts Mill, the grand new mill that was designed to be capable of carrying out all the processes to turn raw wool and similar raw materials into worsted cloth.
Titus Salt is awarded a baronetcy in 1869 and the company becomes Sir Titus Salt (Bart) Sons and Company. Sir Titus Salt is chairman of the company until his death in December 1876.
The company continues with Titus Salt Junior and his brothers George and Edward in partnerhsip with Charles and William Stead.
Investments in the United States of America, the untimely death of Titus Salt Junior in 1887 and international trading difficulties cause the company to go into voluntary administration. By 1892 Salts Mill and the estate of Saltaire are ‘lost’ to the Salt Family just 16 years after Sir Titus Salt’s death.
A consortium of four Bradford businessmen – Isaac Smith, John Rhodes, John Maddocks and James Roberts purchase the mill and the estate.
Smith and Maddocks sell their shareholdings to Roberts and Rhodes in 1898 and Rhodes resigns as a director in 1902.
James Roberts is sole owner of Salts Mill and the estate of Saltaire. He suffers several personal tragedies in the untimely deaths of three of his four sons. His last remaining son is seriously injured in the First World War.
Despite these tragedies and trading difficulties during the war, Sir James significantly extends Salts Mill, returns the business to profitability. Over 4,000 workers are employed.
In 1918, with no sons to succeed him, Roberts decides to sell the mill and the estate.
A syndicate of Bradford ‘wool men’ purchase the mill and the estate. They are Sir James Hill, his sons Arthur and Albert; Sir Henry Whitehead and Ernest H Gates. Arthur Hill is the only member of the Hill family to take up a directorship.
In difficult economic times, the directors decide to become a public company in 1923. The new company is incorporated as Salts (Saltaire) Ltd.
A further decision to reduce costs of maintenance is made in 1933 when almost all the Saltaire houses and shops are sold to the Bradford Property Trust.
After the resignation and then death of Sir Henry Whitehead and the untimely deaths of Arthur Hill and Ernest H Gates, Salts (Saltaire) Ltd. acquires several other textile companies and gradually becomes very profitable under the management of Robert Whyte Guild and Sir Frank Sanderson.
In 1958, a surprise takeover bid for Salts (Saltaire) Ltd. and its subsidiary companies is made by Illingworth, Morris – a textile giant with several textile company holdings.
The majority shareholders for Illingworth, Morris are Isidore and Maurice Ostrer. The brothers die within months of each other in 1975.
The Ostrer brother’s executrix, Pamela Mason, disputes the future of the company with the current directors. She eventually sells the 46% holding she controls to Alan Lewis.
Lewis takes control of Illingworth Morris. He brings the company back into profitability. But that involves reducing the estate, moving all remaining productive processes at Salts Mill to other sites and finally putting the mill up for sale.
Bradford entrepreneur Jonathan Silver sees the potential of the Salts Mill building for retail, gallery, restaurant and other facilities. He purchases Salts Mill from Illingworth, Morris.
After much visionary refurbishment and care it has become a thriving centre for business, recreation and culture in Saltaire.
A more detailed chronology of Salts Mill owners and managers is available in our catalogue.
Our volunteer and trustee Maggie Smith has written a book on this subject with local historian Colin Coates: Salts Mill: The Owners and Managers 1853 to 1986. Amberley Publishing (2016)
Search and browse items in our Collection related to owners and managers of Salts Mill
Discover the history of Salts Mill through snapshots of newspaper articles, census data, family history and other local information.
Read some personal accounts of working in the mill, including that of of one of the last managers, Donald Hanson
Find out how and why Titus Salt built Salts Mill and the surrounding model village of Saltaire