Luddite memorial
To mark the bi-centenary of the Luddite risings in the area, Spen Valley Civic Society have created a small commemorative park at he corner of Knowler Hill and Halifax Road, with information plaques about both the Luddites and about Liversedge's history, and a striking statue of a cloth shearer and child. The park was opened on the 14th April 2012. See photo carousel
The Shears Inn (*At Risk) See photo carousel
A planning application has been made to demolish this historic public house where Luddites met in an upstairs room to discuss plans before the attack on nearby Rawcliffe Mill in April 1812. Business has been poor in recent years and the idea is to replace the pub with new housing. The pub bears a plaque detailing its history, including its former ownership by the Jackson family who also owned a shearing shop on the same Wakefield to Halifax turnpike. It became an alehouse in 1803 and was a popular meeting place for the shearers whose livelihood was threatened by mechanisation.
National School
A church school for poor children built around 1818 with money raised by the Rev. Hammond Roberson, vicar of Christ Church, Liversedge which church he had funded from his own purse. Ironically, Roberson was a deadly enemy to the Luddites and saw to it that they were persecuted and punished, himself interrogating the two Luddites injured at the attack on Rawfolds Mill, who were rumoured to have been tortured and subsequently died. Before the school was opened the only opportunity for local children to garner a little education would have been at Sunday School.
Revd. Hammond Roberson
Known principally for his ruthless persecution of the Luddites, he was born at Cawston, Norfolk in 1757. His parents were Mary and Henry Roberson and Henry is described as a yeoman. He was educated initially by a local vicar and later sponsored by a wealthy businessman to attend Magdalene College, Cambridge where he achieved an M.A. and became a Fellow of the College. After his ordination into the Church of England in 1779 he was recommended to the vicar of Dewsbury, the Rev. Matthew Powley, by the influential Henry Venn, vicar of Huddersfield since 1759. Hammond took up post as curate at Dewsbury with enthusiasm and seems to have done a thoroughly good job. He actively pursued many good causes and set up, as far as is known, the first Sunday School in the north of England at Dewsbury. He also set up the Squirrel Hall boys' school at his home in Staincliffe, resigning his curacy after 9 years to concentrate on running the school, which in 1795 he moved to his new residence, Heald's Hall at Liversedge. It was a boarding school and must have required much supervision. He did, however, take up post at Hartshead church but in January 1810 tragedy struck when his wife, Phoebe nee Ashworth, whom he had married in December 1787 at Batley, died. He determined to build a church in her memory and to serve the local population and to this end bought some land and secured the necessary Act of Parliament enabling construction of the church at Liversedge between 1812 and 1816. He paid for this himself at a cost of £7,474, presumably the profit he had made from running the school, as initially he had no fortune. It almost bankrupted him, but he did not seem to mind so long as he was serving God and the people as he saw it. He became the first vicar of Liversedge Christ Church. Then, after Parliament had set aside moneys for building new C. of E. churches in thanksgiving for having come through the Napoleonic Wars, Mr Roberson secured enough of it to build churches at Heckmondwike, Cleckheaton and Birkenshaw. He also was the prime mover in the erection of churches at Dewsbury Moor, Earlsheaton and Hanging Heaton. However, this was at a time when many people were turning away from the Church of England towards non-conformity.
Although he did achieve much, he was hugely unpopular with local working people and the lasting impression of him has been as a merciless, unfeeling man without an ounce of human sympathy. This reputation was gained because of his behaviour during the Luddite riots but was born of his belief that the status quo regarding state, church and the social order should be preserved at all costs and was ordained by God. He was quite rigid in his views on this. So, when Luddites John Booth and Samuel Hartley were taken, badly injured, to the Star Inn, Roberttown, after their attack on Rawfold's Mill on 11th April 1812, he was instrumental in severely questioning them and may have been involved in, or at least turned a blind eye to their torture. Both died as a result. In contrast to this he apparently defended James Starkey, a man accused of having Luddite sympathies and facing execution, securing his release. This may indicate a man interested in justice, and indeed Roberson is described by some contemporaries as a principled man, honourable and sincere. He was portrayed as the Rev. Helstone in Charlotte Bronte's novel "Shirley" and was a friend and colleague of her father, Patrick Bronte.
He was appointed a Canon of York in 1830. He died on 9th August 1841. A memorial window was installed in Liversedge church in his honour and his simple grave lies in a corner of the churchyard there.
J. W. and F. N. Priestley
John William and Frederick Nicolaides were brothers who manufactured woollens from their factories in Liversedge, Littletown and Birstall. The brothers were born in Birstall to William and Ann Priestley, John William, the elder, in 1846 and Frederick Nicolaides in 1859. Their father, William was himself the owner of a scribbling mill employing 75 men and women in 1851 although this had declined to 18 hands ten years later. This was possibly Victoria Mills on Knowler Hill, Liversedge. The brothers grew up at Town Street, Birstall and later Post Causeway, Gomersal and must have been well educated. In 1871, 12 year old Frederick was living in Huddersfield, the pupil of Samuel Sharpe who was running a college there for boys aged 10 to 18, whilst his brother was still living at home with their parents and was being described as a manufacturer himself.
At the time of the 1881 Census, Frederick was visiting his older brother who had by then married and set up home in Fieldhead Lane, Gomersal with two young children of his own, and now described as a woollen manufacturer, as was Frederick, so they must already have been in business by this time. Indeed in May 1869 a Mr Priestley who was Chairman of Birstall Board of Health as well as owning mills at Liversedge, Littletown and Birstall, pleaded at a meeting with Bradford Corporation for them to improve the water supply to his and other mills, saying some could only operate on 2 days a week, and he himself had to use his gig to transport cans of water between his home and his factory in Birstall. In March 1879 there was a fire at The Victoria Mill, Littletown, the one pictured here, belonging at that time to John William, causing about £500 worth of damage, but this followed a more serious fire the previous November which had caused several thousand pounds worth of damage. Parts of the factory were being re-built as a result.
The younger brother, Frederick was evidently brought into the business as he became old enough to participate. In March 1892, however, the company was facing insolvency problems, which the owners blamed on the expense of changing from cotton warped to woollen goods and on foreign tariffs. Somehow the company survived, however, with the brothers at the helm. Frederick had married Sarah Ellen Fox at Staincliffe church in June 1888 to great celebration at the Liversedge mill. The parish church bells rang out merrily from early morning on the wedding day and streamers were stretched across the road opposite the mill. Whilst the bride and groom left for a honeymoon on the Continent after the ceremony, the factory hands were entertained to afternoon tea by their employers amidst enthusiastic rejoicings.
In 1900 the brothers were fine £5 plus costs for not whitewashing their Liversedge factory. Then in May 1914 an interesting incident occurred. Leo Priestley, son of Frederick, was walking to work along a public pathway between Little Gomersal and Liversedge when he discovered a 2 week old baby girl abandoned in the grass verge. Pinned to the baby was a note from the distressed mother saying that the baby should be taken to a certain man in Gomersal and that she intended to drown herself in the canal at Brighouse. The police found the man, who denied all knowledge, and by the following day they had not heard any reports of a suicide. The poor baby was taken to the infirmary at Dewsbury workhouse. If this was Frederick's son, Leonard, he would have been about 17 or 18 at the time.
John William continued to live with his wife Annie and their children at Fieldhead Lane, Gomersal, but Frederick, who had lived at Knowler Hill in 1891 and 1901, had moved to Leeds by 1911, continuing as managing director of the firm. He died at Woodsley Terrace, Leeds, leaving over £18,000 in his Will which was published in 1919. The companies continued but the death is reported in April 1936 of Mr Joseph Armitage who was then the chairman of directors of the Priestley company, working his way up to that position after joining the company as a boy of 16. On 1st June 1951 the Yorkshire Post reported the death at work of a company employee, Percy Walshaw Wilson, aged 58. He had been erecting a fence in a field near the Liversedge mill when the mallet he was using broke and hit him on the head causing fatal injuries. The Littletown factory pictured appears to be closed now and the company name on its chimney is sadly fading fast.