It is now several years since I did my detailed research on the history of
Wortley. My object was to draw attention to the importance of the site,
but nevertheless point out that certain of the published views on the site
are not necessarily quite correct.
There a number of minor points on which I must take issue with you. For
example 1695 is the last time Upper Bank Furnace was used, not the date it
was built. Cotton, Spencer and others on the one hand and Hayford, Fell and
others entered into a joint arrangement concerning all the Yorkshire
furnaces. They did not acquire any other interest in the Duke of Norfolk's
Works at Sheffield until William Spencer was admitted to that partnership in
1727.
These are relatively complicated issues that I would prefer to deal with
off-list at this stage.
Peter King,
49, Stourbridge Road,
Hagley,
Stourbridge
West Midlands
DY9 0QS
telephone 01562-720368
----- Original Message -----
From: Dr. Chris Morley <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 15 July 2002 15:32
Subject: Wortley Top Forge
Dear Peter,
Perhaps I did not make myself clear in my e-mail to the List.
The site upon which the Wortley Tin Mill was built, in 1743 by John
Cockshutt
I, was originally a bloomery furnace of which we have a lease dated 1621
that
relet the premises and site to a partnership. This partnership had taken
over
the Bloomsmithy from others who had an existing twenty-one year lease which
takes us back to 1600.
The Old Wire Mill was established in 1624 in a fulling mill that had
replaced
a short lived bloomery mentioned in 1567 on the river Don NEAR to
Thurgoland,
actually in the Ecclesiastical parish of Silkstone and being just over the
border of the ecclesiastical parsh of Tankersley in the chapelry of Wortley.
The Corn Mills at Wortley were nearer to Wortley than the Old Wire Mill,
there were two, although they did not exist at the same time. Corn Mill No.
1
became the Low Forge, and Corn Mill No. 2 was built upon a site between the
Low Forge and the Tin Mill Bloomery site.
James Cockshutt put in the first puddling furnace and rolled iron rod in a
rod mill suitable for wire drawing at the Wortley Tilt Mill. Other puddling
furaces were put in at the Top Forge and Low Forge. At the Tin Mill site
only
reverboratory reheating furnaces were in use to reheat blooms for plate and
sheet rolling, a practise that was carried on there until the Tin Mill site
was closed and dismantled (blown up) in the late 1880s.
The dates that my recent research for an updated version of the History of
the Wortley Iron Works are as follows:
SOUTH YORKSHIRE AND RELATED IRON WORKS.
PARTNERSHIPS AND OPERATORS.
1567 Margaret Corbett (nee Wortley).
Thurgoland Furnace (Bloomsmithy). Almost certainly this was
converted
into a Fulling Mill, and then into the Old Wire Mill in 1624?
1600 Mathew Stafford, Ambrose Wood, John Turneley
Wortley Bloomery on later Tin Mill site
1606 Robert Swyfte, Robert Greaves
Silkstone Smithies near the village of Silkstone
1612 - 1614 Barnby family of Cawthorne
Built Colnbridge Forge
1618 Sir Francis Fane, Sir Edward Barrett, Robert Leigh, George
Hemsworth,
John Spencer I
Kirkstall Forge Bloomery
1621 Sir Francis Fane, Sir Richard Beaumont, Francis Burdett, Edmund
Cundy
Wortley Bloomery on Tin Mill site
1624 Ambrose Wood II
Old Wire Mill (ex. Fulling Mill)
1624 - 1658 Tilt Mill erected 1/2 mile upstream of Top Forge site
1637 Sir Francis Wortley II
Bloomery at Top Forge established
1638 - 1643 All Wortley family property handed over to Trustees for Dowager
Countess of Devonshire - mother of Sir Francis Wortley II (he was in
financial trouble).
1638 William Smyth
Finery Forge at Low Forge site
1638 William Fownes I
Wortley Top Forge Bloomery
1638
Midgley Bank Blast Furnace (Nether) built.
1638 William Cotton II
Came from Cheshire to manage Wortley Top and Low Forges
Converted Bloomery at Top Forge to a Finery
1642 Robert Woolorth, George Dancy, Henry Haughton
Wortley Bloomery on Tin Mill site
1643 Cannon Shot forged at the Low Forge site finery?
1651 John Spencer I, Gilbert Fownes
Midgley Bank Nether Blast Furnace, Barnby Blast Furnace
1657 William Cotton II mentioned as being of Wortley Forge
1658 William Fownes II, John SpencerI, John Banckes, Russell Allsop
Kirkstall Forge (By now a Finery Forge using Barnby Furnace pig
iron)
1658 William Cotton II
Clerk at Kirkstall Forge as well as Wortley Forges (Top & Low)
1658 John Spencer I
Wortley Top and Low Forges
1658 Edward Spencer, Russell Allsop (in trust for John Spencer III)
Wortley Top and Low Forges
1660 William Cotton II inherited the property of Elizabeth Fownes (nee
Spencer)
1665 Thomas Dickin
Colnbridge Forge
1667 William Cotton II retired
1675 Banckes, Allsop, and Fownes, released Kirkstall Forge & Barnby
Furnace to Dickin I and Cotton III
1675 Death of Lionel Copley of the Duke of Norfolk's Ironworks.
1675 William Simpson, Francis Barlow, Dennis Heyford, and (later?) John
Simpson -
Chappel Furnace, Attercliffe Forge, Wadsley Forge (were D o N
Ironworks).
1676 Thomas Dickin I, William Cotton III, John Spencer II
Kirkstall Forge
1679 John Spencer III joined Dickin I and Cotton III
Kirkstall Finery Furnace and Barnby Blast Furnace
1679 William Simpson
Wortley Top and Low Forges, and the Midgley Bank Nether Blast
Furnace
1679 Dennis Heyford
Became possessed of the Rockley Blast Furnace, etc.
1683 William Simpson
Wortley Top & Low Forges and Nether Bank Furnace - extended lease to
1690
1684 William Wood
Wortley Bloomery on Tin Mill site
1685 Thomas Dickin II , William Cotton III
Colnebridge Forge
1686 Thomas Dickin I, William Cotton III, John Spencer III
Rebuilt Barnby Blast Furnace
1688}
1689} Two leases to John Eyre
Wortley Top & Low Forges and Bank Blast Furnace
1690 William Fell I, William Simpson, Dennis Heyford, Francis Barlow,
John
Simpson
Chappel Furnace, Wadsley & Attercliffe Forges, etc. - called the
Duke
of Norfolk’s Iron Works.
1690 Eleanor Cotton (nee Fownes), William Cotton II, Thomas Dickin II
Colnbridge Forge
1695
Midgley Bank Upper Blast Furnace built
1695 Thomas Dickin II,
Wortley Top & Low Forges and Nether Bank Furnace 71/2 years lease
extended up to 1706 in partnership with John Spencer III
1696 Cotton, Dickin, Spencer acquired an interest in Duke of Norfolk’s
Iron Works, etc.
1702 John Spencer III, Nicholas Burley, Mathew Woodhead
Wortley Forges, Kirkstall Forge, Colnesbridge Forge, Bank and Barnby
Blast Furnaces, - and shares in the Duke of Norfolk’s Iron Works
1706 John Spencer III
Wortley Forges, Bank Blast Furnaces
Brought Mathew Wilson into partnership & resident manager at
Wortley
1716 John Spencer III brouht in to help his father II to manage affairs
1712}
1720} John Spencer III sole signature on Wortley leases
1722}
1722 Jonathan Swinden leased to Mathew Wilson (of Wortley Forge)
The Old Wire Mill and a Slitting Mill (the Tilt Mill?)
1722 Mathew Wilson, James Oates, Mr Burley
Kirkstall and Colnbridge Forges
1723 Mathew Wilson, James Oates, William Murgatroyd, with William and
Edward Spencer
Old Wire Mill and Tilt
1727-28 Matthew Wilson
New Wire Mill built
1729 James Munds
The Old Wire Mill and Slitting Mill
1730 The Old Wire Mill and the Tilt ceased operating
1738 William Spencer sole signature on lease although in partnership with
Mathew Wilson
Wortley Forges
1739 Mathew Wilson died leaving everything to John Cockshutt I
1739 John Cockshutt I re-opens Old Wire Mill and Tilt
1743 John Cockshutt I,
Obtains control over Wortley Forges, Bank Furnace, Old Wire Mill,
Tilt
1743 John Cockshutt I
Built Tin Mill and sheet rolling mill on old Tin Mill Bloomery site
1750 John Cockshutt I, Joseph Broadbent in equal partnership.
Wortley Forges, Bank Furnace, Old Wire Mill, Tilt, and several
foundries
that belonged to Broadbent.
1762 Joseph Broadbent died and Thomas Broadbent (his son) became a
partner
1774 John Cockshutt I died nd John Cockshutt II became partner
1782 Thomas Broadben bankrupt John Cockshutt II sole owner with mortgages
1798 John Cockshutt II died James Cockshutt took over
the Old Wire Mill, the New Wire Mill, the Tilt Mill, the Top Forge,
the Low Forge, the Tin Mill
1810 Bank and Bretton Blast Furnaces closed down.
1814 James Cockshutt closed down the Tin plating plant converted it to
plate & sheet rolling
1819 James Cockshutt died
Wortley Iron & Wire Works sold
1824 Wire works sold off
Iron Works kept as a whole by Earl of Wharncliffe
1824 Vincent Corbett
Iron Works - Top and Low Forge, Tin Mill
1824 Joseph Sanderson
Old Wire Works
1824 Joseph Dyson, Mr Poyton
The Tilt
1824 Joseph Sanderson
The New Wire Mil
1825 Vincent Corbett
Low Forge converted to a powerful sheet rolling mill
1847 Attempts to sell off the Iron Works
1852 Andrews, Burrows & Co.
Top and Low Forges, Tin Mill
1871 Thomas Andrews & Co.
Top and Low Forges
1887 Tin Mill plant ‘blown up’ and the buildings demolished
1907 Thomas Andrews
Wortley Iron & Steel Works & Co. at Top and Low Forges
1908 Thomas Andrews & Co.
Pulled out from Wortley to The Royds Works, Sheffield.
1908 John and Benjamin Birdsell
Wortley Iron Company at Low Forge site - Top Forge disused
1929 Wortley Iron Company bankrupt
All work ceased at Top and Low Forges.
Wortley Investments Ltd. attempt to convert Top and Low Forges to a
'Pleasure Garden'.
1939? Ministry of Works declare Top Forge an 'Ancient Monument'.
1953 Society for the Preservation of Old Sheffield Tools - later the
Sheffield Trades Historical Society - later still the South Yorkshire
Industrial History Society - acquire Top Forge and commence renovations
and preservation work.
|