Littleborough from Cleggswood Hill
This and linked pages provide information of people who lived in or worked in Littlebrough or promoted or represented the town in any way. The selection is mine but happy to include suggestions for new entries.
This page includes 2 local MPs, each of whom had businesses in Littleborough and were also local politicians
Also, and importantly, it includes two women who really ought to be better known
PEOPLE
Linked Pages
A friend of others in Littleborough besides myself, Richard S Greenwood was a frequent visitor to the town for railway photography and Butterflies. Sadly missed, please see this small Memorial to him and his pictures.
Forest Lodge lies in ruins on the Moors above Higher Calderbrook. The last family there were the Law's, Here is their story
Gordon Harvey
Alexander Gordon Cummins Harvey was bon New Years Eve 1858. the eldest of 4 children who all worked in the family business, Fothergill and Harvey. Gordon had three brothers and one sister. Their father was a rich man with Gordon having private tutors surrounded by books, encouraging reading to become a lifetimes pleasure. At 15 years of age, Gordon wrote his first essay on his favourite subject; Land Reform, an unfulfilled passion that remained with him for life. He continued his education at Owens College, (later to become Manchester University), where he studied mathematics and dreamed of becoming a politician, via a career in journalism but this was not to be as he was taken out of college and given a year’s training in mill management before taking over the day to day running of Fothergill and Harvey’s Sladen Wood Mill in Summit. The mill was still relatively small, produced poor quality cloth with the workforce faced enduring the usual poor working conditions and the uncertainty of variable working hours and poor quality machinery/ the working conditions were anathema to Gordon. Sladen Wood Mill became the centre of Gordon’s life which began each morning 6.00 am. He spent many years improving both the quality of the products and working conditions for his employees. Brought in new and better looms and expanded the mill He did spend time on the floor of the Cotton Exchange in Manchester and soon developed a formidable talent for forecasting price moves in textiles, and a similar expertise in the costing of contracts. Gordon lived in Littleborough. latterly living in an enlarge Town House which became two houses link by a single door. His brother Ernst lived next door. For more information on Fothergill and Harvey see here
Gordon was always the politician becoming a member of the Littleborough Local Board, later Lancashire County Council and of course an Member of Parliament 1906. He fought for secular education and was behind the building of the last Board school, Central School in Littleborough. In many ways, his greatest triumph was the development of Khaki Cloth. Deeply saddened by the loss of life suffered by British Soldiers during the First Boar War, in conjunction with Gale and Grove Dyeworks he mastered the production of Khaki Cloth before the Second Boar War. Khaki Drill cloth became a major part of Fothergill and Harvey’s production both for home and export markets producing huge profits for the Company. Gordon, gave his share away to good causes.
Gordon remained a bachelor throughout his life devoting his time to the family’s business and his politics and his other activities. However, his health was ruined by the long hours he had put in on a daily basis and he died in his beloved Lake District in 1922
Alfred Law
Alfred Joseph Law, was born on 31st May 1860, and during 1871 and 1881 he lived in Bent House his with his grandmother Susan. After she died in in 1887 he continued living at Bent House in 1881 until 1913. When old enough he too joined the family firm of A & W Law. Alfred J remained a bachelor and when the last of his uncles died, he inherited the family firm, a large amount of money and Honresfeld. Alfred J was now extremely wealthy and as a philanthropist endowed St James Church, Calderbrook, gave an endowment of £1,000 to Rochdale Infirmary in memory of his uncle Alfred. He was also generous to Holy Trinity and other churches. He was often engaged in church bazaars etc and used the grounds at Honresfeld for regular events and garden parties. Alfred J was keen on music and an accomplished pianist but he had many other local interests including Littleborough Cricket Club, the YMCA, Freemasonry and from 1907 a JP.
Alfred J served on the Littleborough Local Board (LLB) in 1890, being elected chairman in 1892. When the Littleborough Urban
District Council was created to replace the LLB in 1894, Alfred J was elected its first Chairman. He served the UDC for many years albeit not continuously. He also served on the Littleborough School Board (which had Gordon Harvey as its Chairman). In 1936 Alfred presented a gold Chain of Office to be used by the Chairman of the UDC. Through his involvement with the Conservative Association in Middleton, Alfed Joseph Law fought and won the Rochdale Constituency in 1918 but lost it in 1922. In 1929 he became MP for the High Peak Constituency being knighted in. 1929. Alfred J (pictured) was also involved in other businesses with directorships at the Littleborough Gas Co and the Rochdale Canal Co, in each case taking over as a director on the death of his uncle, He was its chairman for a short time. He was also a director of the London and Lancashire Insurance Co and chairman of 2 other companies.
Ill health affected Sir Alfred in the early 1930s and in early 1935 he announced that he would not stand for re-election at the close of the current Parliament. He was 75 years old but following representations he reconsidered his decision. Sir Alfred died on 19th July 1939 at his Honresfeld home.
Private Nora Caveney - first ATS Casualty in WW2
Although Nora was not from Littleborough she worked at Breda Visada Rayon (for temporary brief details see here)
Nora was born in Todmorden on 10th May 1923 to parents John and Hannah Caveney and in 1939 she lived in Todmorden at 4 Cooperative Street, Walsden. Nora was a Cotton Bobbin Winder who later worked in the reeling room at Breda Visada’s Python Mill in Littleborough. Although she only worked there for a short time, she had many friends in the Littleborough District.
Nora who was a tall and dark haired girl, volunteered for AA duties in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Royal Artillery and was posted to one of the first mixed (sex) batteries on the south coast at 2 Battery, 5th AA Division, 33 AA Brigade, Westwood. There she operated specialist Predictor computers monitoring enemy planes approaching Britain so as to alert gunners stationed across the UK.
On the 17th April 1942, on possibly her first engagement with the enemy, she was operating a range-finder on an anti-aircraft battery site when she was fatally struck by a bomb splinter. Another AA girl took Nora’s place and the guns were able to continue firing without a moments delay. Her commanding officer commented “The guns were still firing as the stretcher party took her back to camp”. ”The girls’ discipline under fire was praiseworthy” said the second in command
Nora was the first ATS girl to be killed during the war and the second employee of Breda Visada to be killed. Her name is remembered on the Breda Visada War Memorial now in Littleborough Library. Nora was buried with full military honours at Netley Military Cemetery, grave No 2210. Unfortunately, her parents were on holiday in Blackpool when they received a telegram saying that Nora had been killed. Fortunately, they were able to attend their daughter’s funeral where members of her own battery formed a guard of honour. Her headstone is pictured right. Following her death a recreational hut on the gun site where she died was erected in memory of Private Nora Caveney and a photograph in uniform was hung on a wall draped in the Union Jack.
On Wednesday
12th October 2016, an information
board (pictured) was unveiled to
remember Nora, the people and
the buildings that made up the
Westwood Royal Artillery Camp
in Westwood.
Enid Stacy
Much edited from a paper by Ray Street in 2020
Enid has been forgotten even though she played a large role in women's suffrage century. Born in in Weston super Mare on 1868, shied died 35 years later in 1903. Enid won a place at Redland High School, (a private girls’ school in Bristol) To fund her higher education. She worked as a student teacher. She won a scholarship to the University College of Cardiff, gaining her London degree in 1890. Although she only had a very had a short life she saw so clearly the importance of social justice, especially the poverty and hard lives working class women were leading at the time Encouragingly, she went out to do something about it.
Enid loved William Morris’s work but especially his ‘News from Nowhere’ about a future socialist society. Enid, with all the family’s socialist connections, was drawn into the trade union movement becoming a member of the Gas Workers’ Union. She also joined the 'Association of Trade Unionism Amongst Women' in Bristol later becoming it's Secretary. She was invited to be the secretary of the Strike Committee for the women workers at Sanders Confectionery factory, a turning point in her political career. To summarise, it was an strike about unfair conditions being worsened and 'troublesome' experienced workers being sacked. She wrote to the papers and went out to gain public support. Besides raising money for the strikers, one non-violent action was forming a group to parade to church with banners and placards and this was the church where the employers worshipped… the women all wore similar dress. The minister went in the pulpit to defend the employer! Sanders, but later admitted that the girls’ wages were very low. Later the women were barred from coming into church! Just before Christmas a huge rally was held wherein the strikers announced a Lantern Parade with a placard. The Chief Constable was worried and the magistrates sent for the troops, 200 Hussars. Shades of Peterloo. The Sweet Girls worried about the possible violence decided not to join, but nonetheless 25000 people turned up. Such was the power of the employers though that by August the strikers were defeated. But here is what Enid said :- 'After fighting for six months we aroused public sympathy to such an extent that we actually paid the girls when on strike more than they received when working for Sanders; and although we did not win the fight for the right of combination (that is joining a union) yet not one of the girls went back and we succeeded in getting every one of them better situations elsewhere’.
Alas, at the end of the 19th century it was not acceptable for a young woman to be speaking in public nor supporting poorly paid workers. Enid lost all her paid opportunities and encouraged she joined the Starnthwaite home colony, near Kendal in Cumbria. On he way north she attended the Bradford Conference for the founding of the Independent Labour Party in 1893 where she met Keir Hardie. The so called 'Colony' was not what she thought it was and left (or rather locked out). After this Enid continued her public speaking tours. One of which was in Rochdale where she gave her last speech at the end of her life. Blue plaque outside St James church in Calderbrook where her grave is.
1894 was her first full year as a lecturer. She spoke at 325 meetings in that year. Enid cared passionately about women’s causes and at the next annual conference of the Independent Labour Party moved a resolution for the creation of women’s associations in all branches and reminded her audience that they must work for full adult suffrage. Enid that year was also invited to speak by Emmeline Pankhurst at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on women’s franchise. As people became aware of her talents as a platform speaker she was invited to help with electioneering for the Independent Labour Party in Attercliffe in Sheffield She spoke at meeting after meeting at the factory gates and in halls in the evening. She was involved in tussles as she left on the train, but was undeterred. When a young man from the Liberals said that the Independent Labour Party, was ‘young men in a hurry’, Enid replied, ‘More than that, in its ranks are some young (and middle aged and old) women in a hurry too’.
Enid lived her short life at the end of the nineteenth century being active in socialist movements and political parties. She opposed war, in particular the Boer War. In this respect she was attuned to the views of Gordon Harvey. Speaking out against the Boer War she and her two friends were pelted with rubbish and called names by the hostile crowd. Enid managed not only to speak, be listened to and finally to see the crowd turning in her favour. She had a well spring of courage. When, in Liverpool, she was attacked by the constabulary and asked to move on, whereupon she delivered her speech from the top deck of a tram.
Enid fell in love with a young trainee vicar, Percy Widdrington, a passionate Christian Socialist not necessarily in tune with conservative members of the Church of England. When Percy finally joined a parish in Newcastle, the couple married at in All Saints in Bristol. Following he marriage she again speaking engagements in the USA. Percy also moved becoming the curate at St James in Calderbrook, Littleborough. In spring 1901, Enid had her much longed for baby, a son, Gerald. She managed with help to carry on her work and in the autumn of 1902 undertook another speaking tour in America. In 1903 she travelled to Buffalo where most of her meetings focused on women getting the vote. She returned to England in February 1903 and very shortly was pregnant again. She continued with her speaking engagements and appeared to be very well. In August, she went to Rochdale and spoke on the ‘Social Teaching of the Lord’s Prayer’, reported in the Rochdale Times on 5th August.
Unfortunately, the results of a knee injury led to an embolism which she didn't survive. She was just thirty five years old.
