IN my last article I covered the dramatic fire at Lilycroft Mill on February 25, 1871 and the way the millowner, Samuel Cunliffe Lister, used it as an opportunity to achieve even greater fame and fortune than he had enjoyed till then.

Today I cover an equally dramatic disaster 11 years later - the collapse of the massive chimney at Newlands Mill in West Bowling. This too had a major impact on the reputation of the mill-owner, but on this occasion the disaster irretrievably tarnished his legacy.

The day before, the mill’s workforce had returned to work after the Christmas break. On December 28, 1882, the chimney at Newlands Mill collapsed in high winds, killing 54 people, including 32 children and 16 women working at the mill on the first shift. A further 70 people were injured and pulled out of the debris. It took several days to recover all the bodies. It was Bradford’s worst-ever civil disaster until the 1985 Bradford City fire.

The mill owner, Sir Henry Ripley, who died seven weeks before the disaster, had commissioned the chimney in 1862. Ripley (1813-1882) was a prominent Bradford businessman, owner of several mills and Bowling Dyeworks which had a near local monopoly in dyeing. He had inherited the family business from his father Edward and became one of Bradford’s wealthiest men, on a par with Sir Titus Salt, Samuel Cunliffe Lister (later Lord Masham) and Sir Isaac Holden.

Amongst his achievements was to be the chairman of the Exchange Company who invited Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, to lay the foundation stone in 1864 of Bradford Wool Exchange then oversaw its building, important events in the town’s history. He also helped his school friend Edward Akroyd, the prominent Halifax industrialist to found and run the Yorkshire Penny Bank.

Ripley became Liberal MP for Bradford in 1868, but courted controversy in a vigorous contest by what were seen to be sharp practices. A court case ruled the election illegal and three months later it was rerun. He was re-elected in 1874 as an Independent, but was defeated at the 1880 general election when he stood as a Conservative. He was, however, created a baronet.

His biggest achievement was Ripleyville. Like some other industrialists Ripley came to realise that factories would be more profitable if the workforce was housed in more comfortable dwellings than the hovels (usually back-to-back houses) most of them inhabited in Bradford. Perhaps encouraged by Sir Titus Salt’s commitment to the Saltaire model village and by his friend Akroyd who had built Akroydon near Halifax, Ripley issued a prospectus in November 1865 for the construction of 300 working-men’s dwellings on his own land, comprising ‘through’ houses with rear yards, front gardens and internal WC.

This was Ripleyville in the Broomfield area of West Bowling. Unlike Saltaire, inhabitants of the dwellings did not have to be employed by Ripley. By 1871 200 houses had been built,(a few shops, a school and schoolmaster’s house, within a site bounded by three railway lines between East and West Bowling and to the north of Bowling Dyeworks. The next year St Bartholomew’s Church was built on land donated by Ripley. In 1881 ten almshouses were added.

History has not been kind to Ripleyville. Unlike Saltaire, that became in 2001 a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a living testament to its founder, some 30 years before, Ripleyville had been demolished with now barely a trace beyond the almshouses.

Ripley was a powerful man in the city. When he commissioned the chimney at Newlands Mill in 1862, he insisted on it being built his way. He wanted to make it more ornate. Unfortunately, the extra work weakened the chimney and a definite tilt became obvious, with a bulge in the brickwork at one side and a corresponding hollow on the other. Local people had been concerned for years about its safety, even up to days before the tragedy. On the fateful day in 1882, it quickly turned out the disaster may not have been just a case of a bad weather accident. Before the day was out, the Bradford Daily Telegraph was hinting at complications. There was a history of problems.

The inquest started on January 8. Over three weeks it heard that Ripley had acted almost as his own architect. In the end, however, the verdict stated: ‘The owners did all that unpractical men could be expected to do under the circumstances and therefore we do not attach any blame to them or find them guilty of negligence and we give as our verdict accidental death. We are of the opinion that the foundation was good, and the fall of the chimney was partly due to the cutting, aided by the strong wind on the morning of the accident. We regret that the works were not stopped during the repairs.’

The verdict was greeted with much disquiet. The local paper printed adverse comments from several prominent newspapers that had been taking an interest. After listing all the reported defects, the Manchester Evening News considered the verdict ‘an unduly mild expression of opinion’. By current standards the tragedy was a scandal from start to end. Today, the only memorial of Ripley is a memorial stone and plaque to his workers killed by the chimney collapse. Unveiled in 2002, it stands at the corner of St Stephen’s Road and Gaythorne Road in West Bowling, 200 yards from the site of the disaster.

* Martin Greenwood’s book Every Day Bradford is available online and from bookshops.