I am not allowing my present opinions to cloud the glass through which I peer at the past.
Perhaps a little. I do know that I certainly believed in Sir Titus’s absolute commitment to the idea, but I also think that even back then, after only thirty years on this earth, I had seen
far too much of human nature to believe in Utopias like Saltaire.
Besides, I had another quality that would not permit me to let things rest: if I were a cat, believe me, I would be dead by now, nine lives notwithstanding.
•
It was another fine morning when I left Benjamin in charge of the ward rounds and stepped out of the hospital on a matter that had been occupying my mind for the past two days.
The almshouses over the road made a pretty sight, set back behind their broad swathe of grass. A few pensioners sat on the benches smoking their pipes under trees bearing pink and white blossoms.
Men of ‘good moral character’, they benefited from Sir Titus’s largesse to the extent of free accommodation and a pension of seven shillings and six pence per week, but only as
long as they continued to show their ‘good moral character’. Charity, after all, is not for everyone, but only for those who merit it.
Lest you think I was a complete cynic at such an early age, I must admit that I found much to admire about Saltaire. Unlike the cramped, airless and filthy back-to-back slums of Bradford, where
I myself had seen ten or more people sharing a dark, dank cellar that flooded every time it rained, Saltaire was designed as an open and airy environment. The streets were all paved and well
drained, avoiding the filthy conditions that breed disease. Each house had its own outdoor lavatory, which was cleared regularly, again averting the possibility of sickness caused by the sharing of
such facilities. Sir Titus also insisted on special measures to reduce the output of smoke from the mill, so that we didn’t live under a pall of suffocating fumes, and our pretty sandstone
houses were not crusted over with a layer of grime. Still, there is a price to pay for everything, and in Saltaire it was the sense of constantly living out another man’s moral vision.
I turned left on Titus Street, passing by the house with the ‘spy’ tower on top. This extra room was almost all windows, like the top of a lighthouse, and I had often spotted a
shadowy figure up there. Rumour has it that Sir Titus employed a man with a telescope to survey the village, to look for signs of trouble and report any infringements to him. I thought I saw
someone up there as I passed, but it could have been a trick of sunlight on the glass.
Several women had hung out their washing to dry across Ada Street, as usual. Though everyone knew that Sir Titus frowned on this practice – indeed, he had generously provided public wash
houses in an attempt to discourage it – this was their little way of asserting their independence, of cocking a snook at authority.
As befitted a wool buyer, Richard Ellerby had lived with his wife and two children in one of the grander houses on Albert Road, facing westwards, away from the mill towards the open country.
According to local practice after bereavement, the upstairs curtains were drawn.
I knocked on the door and waited. Caroline Ellerby opened it herself, wearing her widow’s black, and bade me enter. She was a handsome woman, but today her skin was pale and her eyes
red-rimmed from weeping. When I was seated in her spacious living room, she asked me if I would care for a small sherry. While Sir Titus would allow no public houses in Saltaire, convinced that
they encouraged vice, idleness and profligacy, he held no objection to people serving alcohol in their own homes. Indeed, he was known to keep a well-stocked wine cellar himself. On this occasion I
declined, citing the earliness of the hour and the volume of work awaiting me back at the hospital.
Caroline Ellerby smoothed her voluminous black skirts and sat on the
Perhaps a little. I do know that I certainly believed in Sir Titus’s absolute commitment to the idea, but I also think that even back then, after only thirty years on this earth, I had seen
far too much of human nature to believe in Utopias like Saltaire.
Besides, I had another quality that would not permit me to let things rest: if I were a cat, believe me, I would be dead by now, nine lives notwithstanding.
•
It was another fine morning when I left Benjamin in charge of the ward rounds and stepped out of the hospital on a matter that had been occupying my mind for the past two days.
The almshouses over the road made a pretty sight, set back behind their broad swathe of grass. A few pensioners sat on the benches smoking their pipes under trees bearing pink and white blossoms.
Men of ‘good moral character’, they benefited from Sir Titus’s largesse to the extent of free accommodation and a pension of seven shillings and six pence per week, but only as
long as they continued to show their ‘good moral character’. Charity, after all, is not for everyone, but only for those who merit it.
Lest you think I was a complete cynic at such an early age, I must admit that I found much to admire about Saltaire. Unlike the cramped, airless and filthy back-to-back slums of Bradford, where
I myself had seen ten or more people sharing a dark, dank cellar that flooded every time it rained, Saltaire was designed as an open and airy environment. The streets were all paved and well
drained, avoiding the filthy conditions that breed disease. Each house had its own outdoor lavatory, which was cleared regularly, again averting the possibility of sickness caused by the sharing of
such facilities. Sir Titus also insisted on special measures to reduce the output of smoke from the mill, so that we didn’t live under a pall of suffocating fumes, and our pretty sandstone
houses were not crusted over with a layer of grime. Still, there is a price to pay for everything, and in Saltaire it was the sense of constantly living out another man’s moral vision.
I turned left on Titus Street, passing by the house with the ‘spy’ tower on top. This extra room was almost all windows, like the top of a lighthouse, and I had often spotted a
shadowy figure up there. Rumour has it that Sir Titus employed a man with a telescope to survey the village, to look for signs of trouble and report any infringements to him. I thought I saw
someone up there as I passed, but it could have been a trick of sunlight on the glass.
Several women had hung out their washing to dry across Ada Street, as usual. Though everyone knew that Sir Titus frowned on this practice – indeed, he had generously provided public wash
houses in an attempt to discourage it – this was their little way of asserting their independence, of cocking a snook at authority.
As befitted a wool buyer, Richard Ellerby had lived with his wife and two children in one of the grander houses on Albert Road, facing westwards, away from the mill towards the open country.
According to local practice after bereavement, the upstairs curtains were drawn.
I knocked on the door and waited. Caroline Ellerby opened it herself, wearing her widow’s black, and bade me enter. She was a handsome woman, but today her skin was pale and her eyes
red-rimmed from weeping. When I was seated in her spacious living room, she asked me if I would care for a small sherry. While Sir Titus would allow no public houses in Saltaire, convinced that
they encouraged vice, idleness and profligacy, he held no objection to people serving alcohol in their own homes. Indeed, he was known to keep a well-stocked wine cellar himself. On this occasion I
declined, citing the earliness of the hour and the volume of work awaiting me back at the hospital.
Caroline Ellerby smoothed her voluminous black skirts and sat on the
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