Building Name

Phillips Wood & Lee Cotton Twist Mill, Chapel Street Salford

Date
1799 - 1801
Street
Chapel Street
District/Town
Salford
County/Country
GMCA, England
Work
New Build

The first spinning mill was established in Manchester by Arkwright, Simpson and Whitenburgh in 1780 (1). In 1793 Phillips and George Augustus Lee (2) had a five storey mill powered by steam on a site between Chapel Street and the River Irwell in Salford. The first building appears to have been about 30 feet wide, containing water frames, with an engine at the river end. The engine may have pumped up water from the river to power an overshot wheel although by this time a connecting rod, crank and flywheel had been added to the Newcomen engine give rotary motion. Crompton's mules, introduced about 1795, produced finer yarn at less cost than the water frame twist but required more space. Thus, about 1795, a five storey extension, 45 feet wide, was built towards the river and equipped with mules. Finally in 1798 the partners decided to add a large new seven storey mill of fireproof construction extending towards Chapel Street (3). Designed by George Lee, this was to be one of the first mills in England where cast iron beams were used (4).

The mill buildings are now demolished and details survive only in the form of letters, sketches and four drawings held in the Boulton and Watt Collection at Birmingham Central Library. The drawings comprise a plan, cross section, longitudinal section and column detail. Woodcuts taken from these drawings were used by William Fairbairn to illustrate his writings on the earliest uses of structural cast iron in which he attributes the structural design of the building to Boulton & Watt(5). This attribution was probably made because Fairbairn had access to Boulton & Watt's papers but now appears to be erroneous. The earliest claim for Boulton & Watt being responsible for the design of the structural ironwork appeared in Theoretical and Experimental Researches to Ascertain the Strength and Best Forms of Iron Beams by Eaton Hodgkinson, Manchester Lit & Phil Memoirs 1831. However, not only was Hodgkinson working with Fairbairn in his experiments at the time but was a fellow member of the Cross Street Chapel in Manchester.

As shown on the plans and sections, the Salford mill was of seven storeys, plus an attic, each storey forming a room 207 feet by 42 feet. (Fairbairn stated the length was about 140 feet). Two rows of hollow round cast iron columns 62 inches in diameter on the lower two storeys and 52 inches in diameter above, divided the space into three aisles, each 14 feet in width. The transverse beams 44 feet long, including 12 inches of bearing on to the side walls, were cast as two equal parts and were bolted together through end flanges at the mid-point of the centre aisle, where the passageway above was free of machinery and thus was supporting only a small live load.

The beam section consisted of a web 12 inches by 11 to 132 inches, with a small lower flange 13 inches by 33 inches. The depth of the beam varied from 11 inches at the wall to 13 inches at the centre of the side aisles to 11 inches at a point 4 feet 9 inches from the column to 16 inches at the column to 11 inches at the bolted central connection. The design was conceived as if the member acted as a simple beam over the outside aisles. The central cantilever sections eliminated awkward and weakening joints around the columns. Two holes in the beams just below each column base provided for longitudinal tie rods to resist any displacement arising from the thrust of the floor arches. If these rods had been located just above the lower flange, the design would have been safer (6). In the central aisle, the cantilever ends of the beams had four integrally cast shelves which probably supported the shafting that transmitted power to the machines. Brick segmental vaults spanned the 9 feet wide bays and sprang from the slight projection formed by the beam flange. These vaults were 9 inches thick at the spring, 72 inches for a short distance, reducing to 42 inches at the central section.

As Bannister Turpin noted, none of the drawings in the Watt Collection are working drawings from which the mill could have been constructed. Most seem to refer to the engine which Boulton & Watt supplied in 1801 or the gas plant ordered in 1803. The drawing entitled "Pillar for Salford Twist Company, Phillips Wood & Lee February 1801 and "Two Plummer Block Pillars" shows a column 13 feet 8 inches high which cannot be fitted into the clearly dimensioned sectional drawings. Nor does the diameter of 9 inches correspond with the 62 inch diameter columns again shown on the section. The column shown on the detail provides a shaft bearing or pipe holder and would thus appear to be an engineering detail drawing in connection with the steam engine that Boulton & Watt supplied. The single sheet on which the plan and section occur is titled "Longitudinal Section of Messrs Phillips & Lee Mill" and Plan of new Mill and is dated 14 September 1805. Numerous notes and lines indicate that these drawings were not produced for construction purposes, but were as built drawings made to plan the gas lighting that William Murdock, chief engineer to the young Boulton & Watt after their fathers' retirement in 1800, installed on the third and fourth floors in 1805. The gas lighting was further extended and on 1 January 1806 the mill together with a part of Chapel Street were lit by gas, the first recorded use of gas for street lighting anywhere in the world. Boulton & Watt had earlier been involved in experiments in heating the mill. In 1802 they had supplied heating apparatus which used the hollow pillars to carry steam throughout the mill. This was Boulton & Watt's first such order.

The mill had first been proposed in 1798. Lee wrote "I am planning a Mill with the same power as the present" and elsewhere that his partners had "agreed that I should immediately erect another mill"(7). Foundations were laid and the walls begun in 1799, but progress appears to have been very slow until June 1800. Notes on the cross section indicate than construction up to the level of the first tier of beams was completed by 1799 (8). Then between June and November 1800, the walls were built to their full height and the cast iron columns and beams erected.   Assuming these dates to be accurate, the main structure of the mill was thus complete before the first dated drawing by Boulton & Watt had been was prepared. In July and August 1800, Lee wrote two letters giving the dimensions of the engine house and requesting proposals for a steam engine from Boulton & Watt. Having received their sketch, Lee sent a sketch plan and section of the engine house and boilers in December 1800. Within two weeks, this had been translated into a neat copy by Boulton & Watt's draughtsman, following Lee's instructions in every respect. Lee thus appears to have had overall control of the building operations, acting as the architect and not simply as the client. Lee's obituary indicated that he was the designer of the mill and that he had also been responsible for the erection of other factory buildings in the early 1790s.

The delay of two years significantly affected the final design of the mill. During this time Lee had been thinking of going into the flax spinning business and had been collecting information by various means from Marshall Benyon & Bage. On 8 January 1800 he wrote to Watt jnr saying that Marshall had called upon him and "I placed myself in a situation that he could not decline introducing me into his (mill) ...... I now have the same Claim upon Bage, who paid me a similar visit a few weeks since, which I shall certainly return the first opportunity". It is almost certain that Lee visited Bage at Shrewsbury on two occasions early in 1800. In his letter to Watt jnr on 16th July 1800 he was able to describe the workings of the Shrewsbury mill and remarked that the Salford mill would be bigger. It is probable that Lee only decided to use iron beams in the construction after his meeting with Bage. In May 1800 he showed a preliminary design to Watt and John Southern, one of Watt's engineers. From sketches contained in a letter from Southern to Lee dated 2 June 1800, the shape and design of the iron beams was a refinement of those used by Bage in 1796. Southern and Watt had a number of criticisms. In particular Watt thought that the section of Bage's beam better supported the brick arches of the fireproof floors and that Lee's proposed section should be changed accordingly. Southern sent Lee "a sketch of what Mr Watt .... thinks to be an improvement, in which I coincide with him". Instead of two beams, three are drawn, supported at the pillars .... I am aware of the advantages you expect to derive from making two beams only and screwing them together, but neither Mr W. nor myself think it safe to trust to ... such screws for the purpose"(9). Southern's concerns regarding the central connection were understandable. However, drawings of the completed iron-work prepared after November 1800 still show two projecting beams and suggest that Lee ignored the advice given by Boulton & Watt on this important point.Lee's beams were designed by intuition and the early experiments of Bage and Telford. Mathematical methods awaited the work of Tredgold and Hodgkinson in the 1820s. Fairbain's illustrations of the mill suggested that Lee also modified the section of the beam to an inverted Tee-section, a conclusion which would correspond with the visual evidence in the completed building. However, the brick arches between the beams would have obscured any widening of the web to form the skewback from which the arches sprang. Fairbain's conclusion is critical in the development of iron structures for it implied that a new beam section had been devised by Boulton & Watt. If Lee proceeded with the design as the sketch from Southern in June 1800, this should rather be considered a modified version of Bage's design used at Shrewsbury in 1796. Fairbain's description of the mill also seems inaccurate in several other respects, the illustrations showing three beams spanning between pillars.

By 1840 the mill had apparently been sold to the Manchester Bonding Warehouse Company. It may have been the warehouse that collapsed in 1845. The Builder, quoting from the Manchester Guardian refers to a cotton warehouse... used for many years by Messrs Phillips Lee & Company .... 40 feet by 120 feet ... with cast iron roof on two rows of iron columns ... the building being fireproof. During repairs of the roof, a section fell, dragging with it one row of columns until two thirds of the roof came down. The columns were very slight in weight and the light cast iron principals of the roof rested on iron cups on the columns. "Nearly all the cast iron cups were cracked or torn, apparently for a long time by some severe shock or strain". The report does not mention a multi-storey structure and may refer to another building on the site.

    Ure: Cotton Manufacture, page 251. Another source claims the first mill was built by J & R Simpson in 1782, cited in Earwaker, John Parsons: Local Gleanings related to Lancashire and Cheshire, c1877 Vol 1 Page 80.
This may have been the same building. According to V Tomlinson, Arkwright built the first steam powered mill off Miller Street in 1780 but this did not go into production until 1783 with Arkwright's son and John Simpson as partners. Simpson was the mainstay of various ownerships during the next twenty-five years. The mill had an older Savery & Newcomen engine used to return water from the tail-race to a reservoir which generated power through an overshot waterwheel.  Salford : A city & its Past . Page 27.
2    George Augustus Lee (1761-1826) was the son of John Lee (died 1781), famous actor, theatre manager  and adapter of plays. John Lee is credited with having "tampered with many of Shakespeare's plays and other dramatic masterpieces". Dictionary of National Biography
3    Fire was a serious problem in early cotton mills of timber construction. In 1799 Messrs Robinson's mill in Manchester burnt down, causing an estimated ,12,000 of damage. Axon listed the burning of twenty mills in and around Manchester between 1800 and 1820. In 1805 James Kennedy rebuilt his German Street Mill which had been destroyed by fire two years earlier using incombustible framing (William Axon: The Annals of Manchester. 1866 Page 132). In Salford between 1800 and 1805,  T. Rowley & Co, Oldfield Road, George Olivant, Bury Street and Wareham & Co  also of Bury Street had their factories destroyed by fire.
4    Mills which ante-dated the Salford mill were the flax mills of Benyon Bage & Marshall in Shrewsbury (1796) and at Leeds in (1802),  William Strutt's Calico Mill at Derby (1792-3), and another mill by Strutt at Belper. The designer of the two flax mills at Shrewsbury and Leeds was Charles Bage (1752-1822). Bage had links with Thomas Telford and had been associated with him in carrying out breaking tests on structural beams. According to his obituary, however, "Mr Lee was the first to improve upon the fire-proof mills of his friend Mr Strutt, by the employment of cast iron beams". (Annual Biography and Obituary V 11 Page 245-9 1827). 
5    William Fairbain, On the Application of Cast and Wrought Iron to Building Purposes. London 1854. Figures 1,3 4 and 5.
6     Lee to Lawson 5 March 1798 and Lee to Watt jnr 10 March 1798.
7    Failure to locate tie rods properly contributed to the collapse of Messrs Samuel Radcliffe & Sons cotton mill in Oldham on 31 October 1844. During repairs to a defective arch on the top storey, a beam collapsed. No tie rods had been provided and twenty people were killed in the ruins.
8    Another note on the section reads "Solid stone built after the failure of July 27 1801", which appears to refer to the infilling of a space of 4 feet 6 inches between the bedrock and foundations with stonework.9    Southern to Lee 2 June 1800. Boulton & Watt Foundry Letter Book for 1797-1800

REFERENCES
Turpin, Bannister: The First Iron Framed Buildings    Architectural Review. April 1950. Page 231
The First Iron Frames.:Architectural Review Vol 131 1962. 175-86
A.J. Pacey:  Earliest Cast Iron Beams     Architectural Review. Feb 1969.   Page 141
Gideon, S : Space Time & Architecture
Bergin, T. Ed  Salford: A City & its Past  City of Salford 1974