Sir Titus Salt, 1st Baronet, was a manufacturer, politician and philanthropist in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, who is best known for having built Salt's Mill, a large textile mill, together with the attached village of Saltaire, West Yorkshire.
17 Facts About Titus Salt
2.
Titus Salt was born in 1803 to Daniel Salt, a drysalter and then a sheep farmer, and Grace Smithies, daughter of Isaac Smithies, of The Manor House, Morley.
3.
Between 1813 and 1819 the Salt family lived at The Manor House in Morley, before moving to Crofton, near Wakefield.
4.
Titus Salt used Russian Donskoi wool, which was widely used in the woollens trade but not in worsted cloth.
5.
Titus Salt visited the spinners in Bradford trying to interest them in using the wool for worsted manufacture, with no success so he set up as a spinner and manufacturer.
6.
In 1836, Titus Salt came upon some bales of Alpaca wool in a warehouse in Liverpool and, after taking some samples away to experiment, came back and bought the consignment.
7.
Titus Salt was Chief Constable of Bradford before its incorporation as a borough in 1847 and afterwards a senior alderman.
8.
Titus Salt was the second mayor in office from 1848 to 1849 and was later Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding of Yorkshire.
9.
Smoke and pollution emanated from mills and factory chimneys, and Titus Salt tried in 1842 unsuccessfully to clean up the pollution using a device called the Rodda Smoke Burner.
10.
In 1848, by now the senior Alderman of Bradford, Titus Salt became Liberal MP.
11.
Titus Salt opened Saltaire Mills, now known as Salt's Mill with a grand banquet on his 50th birthday, 20 September 1853 and set about building houses, bathhouses, an institute, hospital, almshouses and churches.
12.
In 1857, Titus Salt was President of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce.
13.
Titus Salt forbade 'beershops' in Saltaire, but the common supposition that he was teetotal himself is untrue.
14.
Titus Salt was a county Justice of the peace and a Deputy Lord Lieutenant.
15.
Yet Titus Salt was deeply religious and sincerely believed that, by creating an environment where people could lead healthy, virtuous, godly lives, he was doing God's work.
16.
From 1859 until he retired through ill health on 1 February 1861 Titus Salt served as Liberal Member of Parliament for Bradford.
17.
On 21 August 1830, Titus Salt married Caroline, daughter of George Whitlam, of Great Grimsby and had they had eleven children; six sons and five daughters.