Greetings to all the readers. My name is Dennis Bourne and I am a second year history student at the Manchester Metropolitan University. I have had the pleasure of working with the staff at Bury archive for the past 3 to 4 months; and have been blessed with the opportunity to do some research work on the Bealey archives. Myself and my research partner Ashley Parkes ( whose blog you may have already read) have been tasked with finding out as much as we can about the Bealey bleach works and the trade marks they used.

One of the colourful images which were stuck onto wrapped bolts of cloth for export.

This has been a blessing as we have had the chance to gain access to a wealth of original documents, which you just don’t get to access at university, unless they are online. Trust me, there is something about the smell and feel of a one hundred and twenty year old piece of paper which a computer screen will never replace. One of things I found most interesting were the large leather bound catalogue books of what we believe to be Trade Marks, Combination Marks and Bolt labels. Here is a sample of some of the designs contained in one of the catalogues.

I won’t ramble, but I would like to thank Joanne, Gill, Karen, Kirsty and Donna at Bury for making us feel at home, and hopefully (or maybe not) you will hear from me again soon. Goodbye readers.

Dennis

There can be thousands of documents in a collection which need to be arranged and catalogued so that researchers can find the information that they need.

  The papers are stored in boxes on shelves in what is called a “rolling stack” and without a good cataloguing system, all the boxes look the same and nobody would be able to find anything!

The boxes are stored on shelves which can be moved backwards and forwards by turning the handles at the end of the row.

Another, really important consideration is that I have to try and keep the papers, or records as they are called in archive terms, in the original order that they were produced by whoever created them. If I don’t, some of the information about their background, meaning or the context in which they were created may be lost and I could mislead researchers by putting them together in an order which could give them a different meaning. Hmm, tricky stuff!

Many items can be stored in a box, some are from completely different collections.

As the papers seem to have been reorganised a few times in the past, the original order is sometimes not very clear and a little detective work was needed to match up the handwriting, dates, bleaching process or the subject concerned.  Occasionally, it took a while to sort out material which wasn’t part of the collection at all.

The picture on the right shows a plan of cemetery plots bought by new owners and arraged alphabetically. It is stored in box 1588 with some Bealey plans and drawings. As it is not catalogued in another collection yet, after some deep thought and head scratching, I finally concluded that the Bealey’s were not involved in this particular venture.

After that, it was time to start entering information about the papers onto the archive management software system called Calm. Unlike the entries in a library catalogue, each individual item in an archive collection is unique and has a relationship to other items in the collection (remember, the original order should be kept) and so when it is catalogued, to show this relationship, a heirarchical structure is produced which looks a bit like a tree.

This is a diagram of the heirarchical cataloguing structure which was passed on to me by my colleague Anna Watson, who recently received an MBE, at the County Record Office in Preston when I was a student and volunteer archive assistant. It helps to explain what goes where on the tree.

And below, this is what it looks like for me as I catalogued on the Calm screen – the tree is on the left.

The tree looks complicated but it shows how all of the records relate to each other. Each little box with a + will open another level down in the heirarchy. The documents we are using as an example are for the Creams paper factory which can be found in box 1447. Click on the image to enlarge.

And this is what it looks like on the online catalogue which is available at http://archives.bury.gov.uk/

This is the online version of the same catalogue entry for the Creams paper factory which is the view that researchers see. It shows the heirarchy of the "tree" and the relationship between this item and all of the others in the collection. Click on the image to enlarge.

This is the reverse of a Sun Fire Insurance policy sent to Mary Bealey in September 1844. Note the penny red stamp, the red wax seal and the catalogue reference number in the bottom right.

The heirarchy of the tree also creates the reference number, BBY/1/1/3/1/1/9 which in this case is quite long. The BBY bit refers to the collection, Richard Bealey & Co., and then the number after each slash indicates the next level down until the item number is reached at the end, which for this record is number 9. If you look closely at the entry, you will be able to see that this is 1 bundle of 18 closely related documents. It is still called “an item” though!

The cataloguing of the Bealey collection is now almost complete and I have catalogued 6168 items! Whew, that’s an awful lot of reference numbers…and this is not a very big collection!

Among the Bealey papers I found a mysterious brown paper packet tied up with string.

The brown paper packet containing the cheque stubs and cheques of Mary Bealey.

Inside were some early bank cheque stubs or counterfoils, which were drawn on Mary Bealey’s private account and are interesting because they are accompanied by the corresponding cheques.

Mary Bealey wrote these cheques between January 1856 and April 1857 and they can tell us a little about what was happening in her daily life at that time.

She withdrew £20.00 per week for herself and in March 1856 she spent £5.00 on insurance. In early April she spent £6.00 on coals, bought some furniture for £25.00 and spent £105 6/- on carriage for goods and furniture.

A cheque written in February 1856 drawn upon Mary Bealey's personal account at the bank of Messrs. Smith, Payne & Smiths of 1 Lombard Street, London.

Then, in April she wrote a cheque to R.J. Harrison Esq. for £500, which is a very large sum of money. Is this related to 1841-1847 note, and its subsequent renewal, for £1000 as security to Dixons & Wandell jointly from Mary Bealey & Matthew Harrison?  The Bealey papers also holds a letter from Mr Harrison expressing his gratitude to Mrs Bealey for the help of her security (presumably the note) as a loan which he is now able to pay off. Was Mary Bealey still helping out the Harrison family in some way ten years later?

During the summer of 1856, Mary seems to devote her time to decorating (spending about £200), buying furniture (spending about £250), glass for the house, plants, fences, stone and a gardener (spending about £150). She also pays her parochial rates and a half year’s rent.

This cheque was written in February 1856. The cheque has been returned to Mary Bealey after the bank has processed it (note the heavy ink marks over her signature to show that it had been processed by the bank) and we can see that it is authentic because the cut marks match up with the counterfoil. Perforated cheques had not been introduced to cheque books or stamps in 1856 and so they had to be individually cut by hand. Each cheque was cut differently which also acted as a primitive security system, if the cut on the cheque doesn't match the stub, it must be fake!

From this evidence, it seems that she has either moved house or is having what we would call today a “make-over”. The amount of money which she spends shows that her income was stable and substantial – she even increases her weekly personal drawings to £50 and writes a cheque for £52.16.6 “for Adam” who may be her son Dr Adam Bealey aged about 44.

The cheque had its origins in the ancient banking system, in which bankers would issue orders at the request of their customers, to pay money to identified payees. Such an order was referred to as a bill of exchange. The use of bills of exchange facilitated trade by eliminating the need for merchants to carry large quantities of currency (e.g. gold) to purchase goods and services.

“Cheque” is the original spelling but it was also spelled ‘check’, ‘checque’ and ‘cheque’ which also referred to the counterfoil or stub used to check against forgery and alterations.

J. W. Gilbart in 1828 (A practical treatise on banking, 2nd ed, 1828, Effingham Wilson, London) explains in a footnote “Most writers spell it check. I have adopted the above form because it is free from ambiguity and is analogous to the ex-chequer, the royal treasury. It is also used by the Bank of England “Cheque Office.”‘ According to Holden, the spelling ‘check’ survived in some English text-books into the 1920s and is the spelling still used in the US.

In 1839, Mary Bealey saw the completion of the Close Methodist Chapel, a project which was accomplished entirely at her behest.

If you have any photographs or memories of the original Close Methodist Chapel, please contact  Gilly Paxton the Bealey Project Archivist.

Adam Bealey, Mary’s late husband, had introduced Methodism into the Radcliffe Hall area in 1800 when he started to hold religious services and a Sunday school in a large room in the Bealey’s works.  These services were well attended with preachers such as Sammy Hick and Billy Dawson drawing in the crowds. This continued for the next 39 years until the Close Methodist Chapel was completed.

For many years, Mary Bealey’s efforts to purchase land to build a chapel had been thwarted by the landowner, the Earl of Wilton and the Rector. However, not to be beaten, she bought a  beer house on Church Green near to the Parish church gate at auction and threatened to demolish it and build her new chapel on the site. It seems that alternative land was quickly offered on the site where the new church, built when the original one was demolished in 1973, now stands.

Close Wesleyan Chapel not long after it opened in 1839.

As you can see from the pictures, the chapel was not a small building and as a writer said in 1844, it was “a very handsome modern edifice, appropriated to the purpose of the Wesleyan Methodists, the elegance of which is more noticeable from being in the midst of buildings of an ordinary, not to say mean, appearance.”

The crenelated stone columns which stand between the railings are the only part of this impressive building which survive and are still imposing in their size and quality to the passer-by today.

The Bealey Papers contain some of the very first documents relating to the building of the chapel [These can be found at reference BBY/2/2]. This agreement engages Thomas Hall to clear the ground for the building of the chapel which had to be finished and ready for the foundation ceremony on Saturday 28 April 1838.  For this, he was to be paid £5 10/-

Agreement between Mary Bealey and Thomas Hall dated 10th April 1838. Click on the image to enlarge.

Mary Bealey's request for permission to erect a chapel at Radcliffe Close which was submitted to the Chapel Building Committee. Click on the image to enlarge.

Tenders from tradesmen and bills for the work carried out for the building of the chapel. Click on the image to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the accounts for the building work have also survived, including bills for extra work which brought the overall cost of the chapel to over £5,000, a huge sum in 1839.

 

 

On Sunday 22nd September 1839, the opening services were heard with some of the most popular and well-known preachers of the day conducting the morning, afternoon and evening services. These included the Rev’s. Thomas Jackson, George Morley, William M. Bunting, Daniel Walton, Robert Newton and Dr. Fletcher.

 

 

The original Sunday school which was held in the Bealey’s works was very popular with scholars coming from as far afield as Cockey Moor and Unsworth. When the new chapel was built, it appears to have had a school room built underneath which held classes for 600 children. By the turn of the century, there were 450 Sunday school pupils, the number having dropped due to the establishment of several other schools which were more convenient for the children to attend.

 

The teachers of Close Day School who tought the different classes to the children of the Bealey's works.

 Later, an infant school was built and about 35 years after that, a large school-room was erected at a cost of £1600. In 1898, the number of scholars in the day school had reached 639 with an average attendance of 281.

 

By the turn of the century, there were 450 Sunday school pupils, the number having dropped due to the establishment of several other schools which were more convenient for the children to attend.

Gradually, other activities were included for the children of the chapel and school. These are the Close Wesleyan Harrier Team in 1902.

As with all of the images on this blog, click on the picture to enlarge and then click on the enlarged image to zoom in even more.

Can anyone help us identify several machinery and building plans or drawings which we have in the Bealey collection but so far have been unable to identify.

Does anyone know what this is or what it was used for?

Some seem to be sketches, while others are obviously detailed drawings but they have no title and give no clue as to what they are about!

This blueprint tells us that these were purifiers, but we don't know what they were for or how they fitted into the overall manufacturing or bleaching processes of the factory.

We urgently need some technical advice to identify these drawings and plans. Can you tell us the processes involved in bleaching or manufacturing alkali?

If you think you can help, or know of anyone with a knowledge of the bleaching industry or who may have worked for Bealey’s, please contact Gilly Paxton, The Bealey Archivist at Bury archives on 0161 253 6782 or email archives@bury.gov.uk.

A 1914 recruitment poster depicting Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener above the words "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU" was one of the most famous images used in the British Army recruitment campaign of WWI.

At the outbreak of the war in 1914, Prime Minister Asquith appointed Kitchener as Secretary for War. He was the first member of the military to hold the post and was given the task of recruiting a large army to fight Germany.

Another of the Kitchener recruiting posters from WWI.

With the help of the war poster that featured his mustachioed face, pointing finger, and the words: ‘Join Your Country’s Army’, over 2,000,000 men volunteered in the first two years of the war.

A WWI infantry unit marching off to fight abroad.

We know how many men from the bleachworks responded to this call to arms from four battered black books which have survived and are among the Bealey Papers collection [reference number BBY/1/1/4/9].

The four WWI wages allowance books in the Bealey Papers collection which give the details of the soldiers who left Bealey's to fight.

These books start on 21 August 1914 and finish with the last entry of 14 November 1919 and are entitled ”War allowance paid in respect of …” with the name of the employee at the top and a list of dates and signatures for payment from their next of kin or dependant. I’m not sure whether this was an official type of payment which all businesses paid or whether it was something which the Bealey’s did for the families of the men they employed.

A page from the payment book. Most pages are entitled "Wages allowance" but this one is labelled "War allowance"

From these books, it seems that there were initially 54 men who joined up in 1914-1915. Some of them did not stay in the army for very long. Robert Anderton who joined on 11 September 1914 was discharged on 16 October and resumed work on 13 November of the same year.

Robert Anderton seems to have been lucky to have served and come back home so soon, although we don't know whether his injuries had long-term effects.

Sadly, the first casualty from the Bealey’s works seems to be of Fred Hough who was killed in the Dardanelles on 5 Jun 1915.

The entry for Fred Hough with the information about his death.

A photograph of Fred Hough in his military uniform.

We have been able to find out more about Fred from the Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Memorial Book for August 1914 to December 1915. This and the one for 1916 are available in the main library at Bury [reference A 67.8 (P) SAI which are shelved in the basement].

The entry for Fred in the Sailors' & Soldiers' Memorial Book.

On the 7 August 1915, Robert Lomas went missing in action, and William H. Holland was killed in the Dardanelles on the same day. Thomas Hayes was also killed in the Dardanelles on 12 November 1915.

Robert Lomas' entry in the Bealey war allowance book.

Robert Lomas in his uniform

William Henry Holland in his uniform

Thomas Hayes in his uniform

Thomas Hayes' entry in the Bealey's wages allowance book.

Details from a war memorial plaque which was erected at the bleachworks in Dummers Lane show that there were 160 men from Bealey’s who served in the Great War. 133 of them returned home but sadly 27 men, including Fred, Robert, William and Thomas, lost their lives in “the war to end all wars”.

We found this information about the plaque on the United Kingdom National Inventory of War Memorials website which can be found at http://www.ukniwm.org.uk/

Men working at Bealey’s were exempt from being called-up as this document from the Bleachers’ Association collection which is at Quarry Bank Mill shows.

A letter from the Director of National Service, dated 14 August 1918, confirming that the call-up of men from the bleachers, dyers & finishers was to be suspended until 9 September 1918.

As the letter also explains, some men on the list of Certified Occupations were erroneously called up for medical examination which seems to have happened at Bealey’s. In these cases, the medical examination was to stand but the men were, in all other respects, to be treated as though they had not been called up for a medical at all.

The following pages are documents from the same  Bleachers’ Association collection, which give the name, year of birth, occupation and medical grading of 80 men working at Bealey’s in 1918.

Finally, for anyone wondering whether one of their relatives from the Radcliffe area died in WWI, they are all listed on the Radcliffe War Memorial and some further information is available on the “Roll of Honour” website at http://sites.google.com/site/unsworthpolewarmemorial/unsworth-war-memorial/Home/radcliffe-war-memorial-lancashire

Radcliffe War Memorial as seen on the "Roll of Honour" site compled by Laura Vizard.

Special thanks need to go to Kirsty Riley who kindly volunteered to photograph the documents for me and to Donna Hardman who found the United Kingdom National Inventory of War Memorials website and the Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Memorial Book. Gilly Paxton, Project Archivist.

Each of the Commonwealth cemeteries has a large Stone of Remembrance and they all carry the same inscription devised by Rudyard Kipling: “Their Name Liveth For Evermore”.

As in the previous blog, this one is about a member of the Bealey family, Adam Crompton Bealey Jr. who was the youngest brother of Herbert Bealey, the last member of the family to be involved in the family business.

Adam Crompton Bealey was born on 24 August 1873 and named after his father, the owner of Bealey’s bleach and chemical works in Radcliffe. He was educated from the age of 14 at the Leys School in Cambridgeshire where it is reported that he was a gifted musician, and then went up to Trinity College, Cambridge.

This is the Boer War Scroll which members of the XXth Lancashire Fusiliers 3rd Voluntary Company, including Adam, received in their return home.

Adam  joined the XXth Lancashire Fusiliers as a Lieutenant 3rd Vol Company 2nd Batallion and fought in the Second Anglo Boer War, 1899-1902. Many of these British soldiers were physically unprepared for the environment and poorly trained for the tactical conditions they faced. As a result, British losses were high due to both disease and combat but Adam survived.

He joined his father and brother Herbert for a brief time in the company bleaching and chemical business at Radcliffe but he doesn’t seem to have stayed there for very long. Evidence which we have in the archive papers in the form of a declaration from Adam Crompton Bealey Junior, says that he ”received from A.C. Bealey and Sons, the sum of £825.16.11 as payment for the discharge of his share of the capital of the firm and interest thereon to 30 September 1906, being the day he retired from the firm.”

Retiring to Somerset, Adam married Jessie Galbrath on 25 September 1907, a few months after his father’s tragic death in April of that year. His daughter Mary was born on 31 July 1908.

Badge of the Somerset Light Infantry 3 & 4 Btn (Prince Albert) 1908/1922

When war broke out in 1914, Adam joined the Somerset Light Infantry 2nd/4th Battalion where he served with distinction in the Middle East, reaching the rank of Staff Captain.

Jerusalem War Cemetery, Israel where Adam Crompton Bealey lies.

On 22 November 1917, at the age of 44, Adam died of wounds he received in action at Kut-el-Enab which is about 5 miles west of Jerusalem. He is buried in the Jerusalem War Cemetery in Israel, grave number P.10. I found a photograph of his grave on an excellent website called The War Graves Photographic Project http://twgpp.org/index.php. There is also a photograph of the grave of Frederick Arthur Harold Bealey, who I blogged about yesterday.

Adam Crompton Bealey's grave in the Jerusalem War Cemetery.

Although the bodies of the fallen were not brought back home, many were commemorated on family graves and an inscription for Adam can be found on the family vault in the Prestwich Parish Church graveyard.

Adam Crompton Bealey Jr. is remembered on the gravestone of his mother Lydia and brother Samuel.

An evocative image of trench warfare in the Great War.

The Bealey family were involved in World War I, or The Great War as it is sometimes known, both as a family and as a business. Over the next few blogs, I will be telling their stories.

With the help of Philip Mather from the Fusiliers Museum in Bury, I have discovered the story of two members of the Bealey family who died in the conflict and this blog is about the first of these family members.

Major Frederick Arthur Harold Bealey

F.A.H. Bealey had already served for 10 years with the Lancashire fusiliers and had resigned his Commission in 1900. However, when war broke out he rejoined with his old rank of captain and was promoted to Major in May 1915.

He went to France in May 1917 but was wounded in four places and taken prisoner on 21 March 1918 just east of Peronne. Over the next nine months, he was moved between four different prisoner of war camps in Germany, the last one being at Bad Colberg, Saxony.

The armistice was signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918.

The day before peace was signed, Frederick was attacked by influenza and later died from bronchial pneumonia on Sunday, 17 November at the age of 38.

Niederzwehren Cemetery, Frederick's last resting place a long way from his home in Bury, Lancashire.

He is buried in the Niederzwehren Cemetery, Kassel, Hessen in Germany along with 1795 other World War I servicemen who are buried or commemorated in the Commonwealth plot there.

“His cheerfulness in misfortune and the patient fortitude with which he bore the long-lasting trouble of his wounds earned for him the admiration of us all”. Brig.-General Dawson, D.S.O., head officer in the Bad Colberg camp.

Quarry Bank Mill

Having found out so much about the Bealey’s and the Bleachers’ Association, I paid a visit to the Bleachers’ Association Archive held at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-quarrybankmillandstyalestate

Quarry Bank Mill owned by the National Trust, is the home of the Bleachers' Association Archive.

The archive holds documents relating to many of the Bleachers’ Association members and is quite extensive. We found some records which were missing from our Bealey collection and even some relating to the Bealey Convalescent Memorial Hospital which must have become detached from ours when the company was closed by the Association in 1981.

Some of the other records which we found there will feature in our next blog on the WWI soldiers of Bealey’s bleachworks.

If you would like to visit the Bleachers’ Association Archive, please contact Amanda Lunt at the Education Office. When we visited, we were looked after by two very nice lady volunteers who made us feel extremely welcome and went to great lengths to find all of the items we were looking for!

The Bealey's were members of the Bleachers' Association and through their documents we can trace the good and the bad times for the company.

As with many heavy industries in the nineteenth century, the influential and wealthy owners of many large bleaching companies in the North West of England got together and formed an association to protect their interests and profits.

The Bealey collection holds a copy of the Bleachers’ Association minute book for the years 1837-1848. Here we have details of the  day-to-day business matters that they dealt with, resolutions, orders, memorandums and the rules of the association.

It all seems very serious and businesslike but mixed in among the pricing and regulations there are occasional glimpses of a lighter side of the Association.

The lighter side of the Association can be glimpsed from entries in the minute book such as this one for the 3 May 1842 recording Mr Bridson's fine.

 I can’t help but wonder what Mr Bridson had done to be fined two bottles of Champaign. Did he pay up and who got to drink it? We will never know but I suspect that the members’ liked to have fun.

With that amount of alcohol being consumed at the monthly meetings, it looks as though the Association members knew how to enjoy themselves.

My suspicions were confirmed when I found the receipts of the Association’s monthly meetings. Click on the image above to enlarge it and see what they managed to consume, most of it is alcohol!

There was also a more practical side to the Association though. Important business decisions were made at the monthly meetings with members voting on proposals and responding to government legislation.

Important business decisions were made at the Associations' meetings which could affect the profitability and demand of their goods.

The Bealey’s were also members of the Shirting Starchers’ Association who fixed prices for the trade and monitored the progress of their decisions.

At this meeting of the Shirting Starchers’ Association, it was decided to reduce the cost of light shirting and that a meeting should be held every Friday at Glaister’s office to report where the reduction had been made.

Despite the efforts of the Association, there was an increasing threat to business from abroad where investment had resulted in new developments and techniques which had been stunted in the British trade due to internal competition.

In June 1900, the Bleachers’ Association became a business in its own right amalgamating around 60 businesses in bleaching and finishing of cotton goods. Between 1901 and 1910 nine works were purchased and a further 21 works were purchased after World War I.

At some time not long after this, Bealey’s became part of the newly formed Association and the good times that they had enjoyed came to an end.

The company was no longer a family business with Herbert Bealey as the Works Manager rather than the owner. The business became a “branch” of the association and was run by Managing Directors who were focussed on group profit rather than the individual companies that they amalgamated.

The Managing Directors are concerned about the costs of Bealey's "branch" of the Association.

 By the 1930′s the company was accountable to the Association and had to produce an annual report on the state of the business.

However the success of the Bleacher’s Association, in maintaining high profits on a declining volume of trade, could not last. Prices were reduced in 1928 and from then on trade was severely restricted by the long-term decline in export of British textiles.

Bealey's costs seem to be higher than other branches in the Association who were mercerising with an old-fashioned technique and so Mr Thwaites is asked to explain why. It later transpires that many of the branches using this technique were later closed by the Association.

Rising costs of production and the threat from cheaper imported goods (see the blog about International Trade) also took their toll on Bealey’s bleachworks and the profit per ton of cloth bleached started to fall.

The falling profits of Bealey's led to a loss per ton of cloth bleached in 1934 and 1935.

The lavish Association dinners and Champaign enjoyed by Adam Crompton Bealey were a far cry from the hard treatment his son Herbert had to endure as a branch manager of the association – the good times were well and truly gone!