Bagley & Wright

Benjamin Wright and Ralph Bagley were born in 1837 and 1839 respectively. Wright was born into poverty The three oldest children were working as cotton piecers, the middle three were at school and Benjamin and William junior were of pre-school age. Father William was an operative cotton spinner but Mary was not employed. Despite three of the children being employed, the family was poor. Benjamin started work at the age of seven 1845. It is not known how Benjamin Wright and his future business partner Ralph Bagley first met. However, it is known that they both worked at Dan Coll's. Ralph was 12 years old and he and his younger sister Ann were at school. That Ralph was not in full-time employment at age twelve is unusual for working families of the time and reflects the fact that the family was small and the children were at an age where both parents were able to work. It is possible that the family had a loom in their home for Hannah to work on and this could have been an important factor. It is known that Ralph also had an older sister called Sarah who would have been 17 years old in 1851. However, Sarah does not appear in the 1851 census as resident at Cow Hill and she may have been living somewhere else as a 'live-in' housemaid. By 1861, she had returned to the family home (defined as 59 Cow Hill) to live with Thomas (65-years), Ralph (21-years) and Ann (19-years). By 1861, there is no record of Ralph's mother Hannah who would have been 62 years old. At this time, the average age at death for working-class women was 53 and for men 47, so it is possible that Hannah had died between 1851 and 1861. The 1861 census shows that Ralph was employed as an iron turner, working in a factory and using a lathe to turn iron produced in the foundry into bars. Ann had found employment as a power loom weaver. This followed her mother's occupation but, at the same time, reflected the inexorable move towards automation. Although Ralph Bagley was an iron turner in 1861 we do not know where he was working. The largest employers of iron turners in the area were the large textile machinery manufacturing companies. It seems possible that he might have changed his job to work in Dan Coll's factory. It is unlikely that, at the age of 22, he would have been able to retrain as a spinner, but he may have found employment in the workshop at Moorhey Mills where repairs to the mill machinery would have been undertaken. Whatever the nature of Ralph's job at Moorhey, it was likely to be here that he met Benjamin and formed the partnership that flourished over the next 40 years. The presence of cotton spinning, coal mining, and iron founding can be seen in the jobs that the Wright and Bagley families were involved with in 1861. In addition to Bagley's job as an iron turner and Wright's cotton spinning, Wright's daughter Hannah (Benjamin's sister) had married Jacob Marland from Ashton whose family was related to the Marland family that owned Bower colliery. Jacob ran a small operation that employed five miners in Ashton, with two of his employees living as lodgers in his house. == The beginning of partnership – 1860 to 1870 ==

The partnership between Benjamin Wright and Ralph Bagley was based on friendship as well as business acumen. In the mid-1860s, the textile industry in Lancashire was undergoing one of its periods of rapid growth. Wright's younger brother Joseph also joined this enterprise. Joseph Wright had started work in 1850 when he was 9-years old. His first employment was in the jenny gate but he graduated to minder and overlooker before taking a management role in the Bagley & Wright concern. Most of the Roscoe Street shed was taken up with looms but there was some spinning capacity on mules available for renting. Also around this time, Bagley and Benjamin Wright went into partnership with a spinner called John Marsden; the business being called John Marsden and Company based at Crabtree Mill. All of the partners of these concerns were followers of Wesleyan Methodism in Glodwick which was going through a period of rapid growth both in terms of numbers of followers and confidence. In the second half of the 19th century, Wesleyanism in particular and Methodism in general, were seen as the religion of choice for the upwardly mobile middle classes because of the encouragement that it gave its adherents to better themselves through work and enterprise. The religion of Wright's parents is unknown, but in 1866 Benjamin and Joseph Wright had joined Glodwick Trinity Wesleyan Church which was then held in 'The Old Garret' in Well Fold, Oldham. == Business growth – 1870 to 1880 ==

While the Wright brothers were dividing their time between business and church, their business associates were giving time to other aspects of public work. The Chadderton Board of Health had been formed (rather belatedly) in 1872 following government legislation. One of the first Board members was Joseph Wright's future business partner, Jakeh Travis, who was elected to it for the 1873/4 session. Also elected in that year was John Marland a colliery proprietor. John was the brother of Hannah Wright's husband Jacob Marland. Ten years later, Ralph Bagley would be elected as Chairman of the Committee. In November 1875, Bagley and Benjemin Wright withdrew from John Marsden and Company to enable them to concentrate on their partnership with Samuel Milne. However, by 1877, the partnership with Samuel Milne had come to an end, and Bagley and Wright were trading under the name 'Bagley & Wright' from the Wellington and Lees mills with Joseph Wright mill manager at the Wellington. From these mills they manufactured crochet, embroidery, tatting and bonnet cotton as well as sewing thread; the latter being a relatively new introduction to their line. They were also producing fishing-net twine something that they became known and respected over many years. The growth of the company had, up to 1877, been rapid and they now saw a commercial imperative to appear daily (not necessarily personally) at the Manchester Royal Cotton Exchange where the cotton market for Lancashire was based. Here spinners tried to get the best deals for raw cotton from the importers of American cotton while simultaneously getting the highest available price for their yarn from weaving businesses. Having two or more domestic servants was the norm for cotton masters in Oldham at that time. == Consolidation – 1880 to 1890 ==

Over the period during which Bagley & Wright and Travis & Wright were consolidating the business, house construction struggled to keep abreast of the growth in worker numbers in Oldham. Most houses were in terraces aimed to provide workers with good sanitation and water supply. Although trams served many parts of the town, transport was still essentially by horse and carriage. For this reason, workers’ houses had to be near to the place of work. Both Benjamin and Joseph lived in terraced housing until around 1875; and by 1881, he and his wife Betsy had four children; Travis (9-years), Annie (8-years) Clara (3-years) and Elizabeth (3-months). The Company responded to these market pressures by consolidating both the supply and demand side of the operation. to secure their supply of bobbins, and a 'spooling mill' in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to prepare their sewing threads exported for the North American market and thereby avoid large import taxes introduced by the Canadian Government. In the latter half of the 19th century, profit margins in the spinning industry came under increasing pressure. In addition to the growing strength of workers groups like the Operative Cotton Spinners Association, competition from abroad was increasing due to the export of automated textile machinery; something that had been unlawful until 1843. The growth in overseas yarn production also caused shortages in the supply of raw cotton and this raised raw cotton prices, putting further pressure on margins. The Lancashire cotton trade suffered a series of depressions during which the relationship between workers and mill owners became strained. Workers were asked by the Master Cotton Spinners Associations to accept cuts in wages and when these requests were met with militant action by the operative associations the Masters introduced 'lock-outs' that were intended to put financial pressure on the operatives. == Division and conglomeration - 1890 to 1900 ==

By the late 19th century, the company had established a large warehouse and office block on Cannon Street in central Manchester and a second warehouse at the junction of Union Street and Priory Street in Oldham. was written by Ralph Bagley to 'J. Feilding Esq.' Secretary of the Operative Cotton Spinners Association (the spinners’ trade union) informing him that a forthcoming meeting had been cancelled. The heading of the memorandum lists the company's mills as: Wellington, Industry, and Belgrave in Oldham and Wood Top Shed in Burnley. In the archives of Burnley library is a reference written on Bagley & Wright notepaper in 1895 for a Mr. John Watson who “has been in our company for over five years as an overlooker & have always been found him a steady hand & competent workman”. The reference is signed by R. Sagar for Bagley & Wright. In 1895, the company's sewing cotton business was still expanding and a considerable investment was made in the extension of the Belgrave Mill to provide greater manufacturing capacity. that passed closely by on an embankment. The tramway was originally built to serve a large gunpowder factory at nearby Gatebeck. The factory was owned by Wakefield and Co., one of the largest manufacturers of gunpowder in Great Britain in the 19th century. The tramway had horses pulling wagons of gunpowder from the factory to a wharf on the Lancaster Canal where it was dispatched to mines or to the military. The horses were shod in copper shoes so that sparks would not ignite the gunpowder. Before 1900, the tramway had been extended from the canal wharf to Milnthorpe where there was, by then, a railway station. At this stage, the Mill consisted of about 3 buildings and bobbins must have been transported to the canal by horse and cart. By 1900, a spur line has been built from the tramway, across the Peasey Beck and into an open shed in the Mill grounds. There is evidence that the Mill stabled horses to be used in pulling wagons of bobbins onto the main tramway line and down to the canal or onwards to the station at Milnthorpe. The Belgrave #1 Mill was completely turned over to the manufacture of sewing cotton and was the Bagley & Wright 'contribution' to the ESCC. In 1898, the ESCC made a decision to enter the American market by purchasing a number of New England mills in the USA. These acquisitions, including the Willimantic Linen Company were consolidated into the American Thread Company . This purchase and consolidation was to have serious consequences for ESCC by 1902. Other than for the observation that Benjamin's sons had stayed at school longer than was the norm for less affluent families, the jobs that they took up after leaving school were relatively menial. In 1881, at the age of 18, his son Herbert had been a clerk within the Bagley & Wright business. Perhaps the greatest deviation from the 'work from the bottom' idea was that the sons did not have to experience the manual jobs of piecing and spinning. Clearly, the aim was to provide the sons with experience of various positions within the business to prepare them for future ownership. Because the business was so extensive, other family members could also be brought in and groomed for future management. Thus, Henry, the eldest son of Benjamin's brother Joseph, was a clerk at Wellington mill in 1891 while his father was the proprietor of Travis & Wright at the same mill. == Division – 1900 to 1910 ==

The ESCC operation hit stormy waters early in the 20th century. The investment that the company had to commit in forming the American Thread Company (ATCO) was much larger than originally estimated and returns were slow in materialising. The value of shares in the ESCC dropped sharply. An article in The Guardian newspaper in April 1902 noted that an extraordinary general meeting of the ESCC directors and shareholders was to take place on 23 April. The purposes of the meeting were to (1) discuss the company's position in regard to its management and finances, (2) to enquire into the reasons for the loss of share value and (3) take steps to reorganise the Company Board to protect the company from issues arising from its holding in the American Thread Company. The shareholders were concerned that a large amount of ESCC money had been placed in a reserve fund for the purpose of paying a dividend to shareholders. The problem, from the point of view of most shareholders was that the directors of the mills in the USA that had been bought out to form the ATCO had all been issued with large numbers of ATCO and ESCC shares as part of the consolidation. The effect was that share value had been diluted. Solicitors and accountants working on behalf of the shareholders stated that the use of a reserve fund for the payment of a dividend could be illegal under English law. In 1905, the year of Benjamin's death, Ralph Bagley was 66 years old. The English Sewing Cotton Company's Report of 25 July 1907 listed that the following results of 'concentration' were that (1) A linen thread mill was sold to round off the trust's sphere of business, (2) The production of the Egerton Mill was transferred, the report explaining that the trust 'had sufficient reserve productive capacity at other mills to enable them to deal with the trade conducted at that branch' and (3) The plant of the Belgrave Mill at Oldham was removed, and the site and buildings sold. Finally, 'a further concentration took place by the transfer of the business of R. F. & J. Alexander & Co., carried on at Duke Street, Glasgow, to one of the other branches of that company'. Being defined as a 'Special Juror' depended entirely on the amount that had been assessed for Poor Rate and this, in turn, depended on the wealth of the individual measured by the value of the property that they inhabited. In 19th century England and for several decades after the end of Victoria's reign, an Englishman of wealth and standing could, if required to defend him/her-self in a court of law, request that the jury was constituted from peers on the grounds that they would not be adversely prejudiced. Special Jurors were those who might be called upon to stand as jurors at such a trial. It was not until 1949 that this privilege of the wealthy and landed gentry was repealed. Benjamin Wright died on 5 May 1905 at home on Queen's Street, Oldham. As befitting his status within the town, his funeral was in the finest Victorian tradition. A description of the cortege in the Oldham Chronicle on 9 May described the scene. After noting that the interment was at Green Acres cemetery in Oldham, the article lists the occupants of the nine carriages each 'drawn by two bay horses'. In addition to his widow and seventeen members of his close family, the cortege included Ralph Bagley and his wife, representatives of Trinity Wesleyan Church and major cotton industrialists from the town. In his will, Benjamin left a net estate of £33,557 (over £13.28 m as a 2006 value using the average earnings indicator as the comparator. [http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/) His will detailed his wishes that his private and business assets be formed into a trust for the benefit of his children and grand children. His widow and eldest son Herbert were trustees and Herbert was to take over the running of the Bagley & Wright Manufacturing partnership in place of his father. Jakeh Travis died in 1907 and the Travis & Wright business was formally dissolved in January 1908. Two years later, after the death of his wife, Joseph Wright retired. He was to live another 20 years. == Closure - 1910 onwards ==

After the sale of Belgrave Number 1 Mill by ESCC, the new owners built three new mills on the site. These were erected in 1907, 1910, and 1914 respectively. Number 3 Mill was the first in Oldham to be powered entirely by electricity. Herbert died on 10 October 1934 leaving net personal assets of ££27,509). In 1927, Bagley & Wright Limited (the ESCC business) was still being quoted on the Oldham Stock Exchange. At this time, the business had 200,000 £1 shares that were valued at 14 shillings and 9 pence. Its capital value was £151,753 and 'loan owner' claims stood at £123,568. Liabilities were £56,918 and the profit and loss account showed a deficit of £86,512. == See also ==