Spen Valley Magazine Spen Valley Magazine (draft) | Page 5

ENGINEERING
in the Spen Valley
The legendary prosperity of the Spen Valley was dependent upon the diversity of the trades
attracted to the area in the wake of the industrial-revolution. From the mid-1700s our Valley
was host to many card, chemical, leather and wire makers but it wasn’t until the 1790’s that
foundries and machine-makers appeared on the scene.
Who were and what remains of some of those early engineers?
George Crossley Ltd Ernest expanded the company’s product another moved away and the youngest,
Arguably, the first local millwright range by making cable-drums. Joshua Thornton was not prepared
was Joseph Crossley who in 1795 was
designing, making and installing the
labyrinths of shafts and pulleys required
to transmit water-or steam-generated
In the 1920s Leonard Heaton acquired
the long established Heckmondwike
doffing-plate maker, George Smith.
power from source to individual In 1989 Hearl Heaton & Sons Ltd. was
machines. The 1841 census records acquired by the Pentre Group which
that Joseph Crossley lived on Albion quickly vacated the Millbridge premises
Street, Cleckheaton, hence, no doubt, and moved to Frost Hill in Heckmondwike:
the name “Albion Works” adopted by within a few years the assets of both
Joseph’s grandson, George Crossley, Hearl Heaton & Sons and Arthur Heaton
to name the large brick mill he built Ltd. were bought by the Dewsbury-based
on Serpentine Road in the 1860s to Textronix company.
house his expanding enterprise. The foundations of the Crown Steel
George Crossley was the first to make
a wrought-iron pulley on a cast-iron
boss and the company diversified into
making machinery for the wire trade.
Albion Works was subsequently home
to Vaughan Crossley, Wean Vaughan
Works now lie buried beneath Adrenaline
International’s trampoline park in
Millbridge but the steam engine installed
at Crown Steel Works in 1906 can still be
seen at the Bradford Industrial Museum.
by Tesco in February 2014.
death at Duxbury Hall in 1892 his sons
the pair traded as Thornton Brothers
which by 1893 had become one of the
three largest makers of spinning and
weaving machinery in Europe employing
300 men.
In 1890 the business passed to Joshua’s
sons, Rawden and Randell who, like
their uncles, were involved in incessant
feuding: a message-boy was hired to
relay communications between the
brothers’ adjacent offices at Marsh
Foundry! Thornton Brothers was placed
bid saw the company renamed as the
Chadwick Machine Co. Ltd.
(long serrated combs for removing
Works in Millbridge. On Hearl Heaton’s
John, into partnership with Joshua:
for the Thornton assets. A successful
specialised in making “Doffing Plates”
had the business to the Crown Steel
Judith eventually coaxed her eldest son
foreseen by a local businessman who
millwright in Littletown and by 1822 had
son-in-law, Hearl Heaton, who by 1866
successful years.
had prepared a shell company to bid
In 1809 Samuel Standring started as a
passed to his innovative, 24-year-old
lead the business for fifteen very
The company’s collapse had been
Hearl Heaton & Sons
On Samuel’s death in 1858 the business
sexagenarian widow, Judith, dutifully
in liquidation in December 1899.
and Crawfords before being demolished
fibre from a carding machine).
to manage the company. Isaac’s
For most of WW2 Marsh Mills was
Thornton Brothers
In 1809 John Thornton purchased land
for a mill at “The Bottom Little Marsh”
in Cleckheaton to start a woollen
machinery business which passed to
his son, Isaac in 1815. 
Herbert and Arthur inherited the Isaac died in 1844 leaving five of his
business. Arthur’s involvement was seven sons in the business. The brothers
short lived but Herbert Heaton, his started to squabble: the three eldest set-
mother Rhoda, and sons Leonard and up a competing business in Cleckheaton,
requisitioned for General Motors whose
Southampton factory had been bombed.
When trading as William Tateham
(Cleckheaton) Ltd., the business closed
in 1998.