Calderbank Bleachfield

Although it was quite a large mill it has not had the same degree of publicity as the Calderpark or Calderhaugh mills. Perhaps this is because it was tucked away in the Glen. It was owned by the Castle Semple Estate and operated for many years by John Williamson. When it was built is uncertain. I’ve also been unable as yet to establish if Robert Williamson of the Calder Glen laundry and John Williamson of Calderbank bleachfield were related.

The 1808 map on the left by Richardson shows the area of Loups. Points 1 to 4 are replicated on the 1856 map on the right. Point 4 in the 1808 map shows some isolated buildings where Calderbank bleachfield mill will be constructed. Calderbank bleachfield is shown in the 1856 map on the right also at point 4. Crawford and Semples History of Renfrewshire states that William Brodie who owned Loups in 1772 had a Flax mill on Calder water. In an undated letter outlining water rights on the Calder reference is made to the Charters of the Loups mill prior to Mr Adams purchase of the Calder Glen mill. As James Adam acquired the Calder Glen mill in 1813 this is further proof that a mill was on the Loups site prior to 1813. The 1808 map indicates no road extends to these two buildings. This suggests these flax mills are quite small affairs only requiring a path or small track for servicing. By 1856 a much bigger mill has been constructed requiring the more substantial road marked as 5 on the 1856 map. The Calderbank mill is shown below.

Unfortunately none of this identifies exactly when the larger Calderbank mill was built. Later we find that the leasor of the mill is James Octavius Lee Harvey.  The Harveys acquired Castle Semple in 1813. They would have wanted to make their mark on their new possession and a new mill would certainly make a statement. I don't think it was a Harvey who bought Loups and the associated small lint mill from William Brodie, I think it was William McDowall sometime around or before 1788. In the Copartnery agreement of 1788 for the Calderpark mill McDowall contributed the following assets he acquired to ensure the cotton mill had full control over all the water :-

"All and whole the lint and corn mills of Calder and Caldermill upon the Calder and Cloakburn with the whole Aquaducts and privileges and pertinents belonging thereto and the full and complete right to and use and privilege of the water……"

This reads to me as lint mill of Calder on the Calder and corn mill called Caldermill on Cloakburn. Given the significant downturn in the textile industry due to the Napoleonic war (which only ended in 1813) and the fact it took till the late 1820's for trade to recover it is likely the Calderbank mill was not built till the 1830's under the auspices of James Octavius Lee Harvey. That being the case John Williamson was the first leasee.

John Williamson died on 23rd April 1879 aged 79. He had 7 sons and 2 daughters, both girls and one son died before their 1st birthday. Three of his sons dedicated their lives to missionary work, one of them, Dr Alexander Williamson of China wrote several books. John Williamsons will of 1864 indicates he entered into a Tack (basically a lease) with James Octavius Lee Harvey in 1861 for “All and whole the bleachfield and lands of Calderbank formerly called Loups with the whole Houses, buildings, offices, works and work houses, machinery, utensils, ponds and lades…”. His sons John and Archibald worked with him as bleachers. He was declared bankrupt in 1870 and during these proceedings stated that he had started in business some 26 years earlier in 1834. At the time he had no capital. From 1842 he had built up a debt of £674 with his brother in law which with interest had reached £1595. In total he had liabilities of £4197 and only £277 to offset against them. It is not clear how this was resolved.

John Williamson’s will made various provisions, one was to leave to his son John the Calderbank Mill. The valuation roll shows that it remained in the possession of a John Williamson (the son) till 1905. In a valedictory article on 15th February 1905 in the Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette a glowing tribute was paid to John Williamson who had taken over the business from his father but on the expiry of his current lease had decided to retire to Greenock with his wife Mary Millar. He was 72 and died in 1916 aged 83.

The mill closed in 1905 and the machinery was removed. The bleaching business was probably becoming less commercially viable given the developments in the industry introduced by Charles Tennant which will be outlined shortly. Struthers rented some of the buildings from this time to make lemonade.

The mill was powered by the Calder via a lade from the Wooden Dam Breast (shown below) located a short distance upstream from the mill.

In 1905 there was a partial failure of the Calder Dam where 10-15 yards of the embankment on the line of the river failed. The dam emptied and the ground was eroded down to the bedrock. The wooden dam breast was swept away. Depending on when the mill was actually built the wooden dam might have been swept away twice, the first time being on 4th December 1831 when the first failure of the Calder Dam occurred. John Williamson's retirement may have come about for multiple reasons, his age, the lease coming to an end and a component critical to the operation of the mill being destroyed. The mill wheel was removed sometime around 1933. And so the long slow deterioration of the building began to its current perilous state.

It would appear to have been quite an unsafe place to work given the propensity of horrific accidents reported in the press, some of which are copied below.

Bleachfields have been mentioned a few times in the context of the textile mills in and around Lochwinnoch. The following is a brief explanation of their purpose and the process involved and its development over time.

The objective of bleaching is to remove the natural colour for the following steps such as dyeing or printing or to achieve full white. All raw textile materials, when they are in natural form, are known as 'greige' material. They have their natural colour, odour and impurities that are not suited to clothing materials. Not only the natural impurities will remain in the greige material, but also the add-ons that were made during its cultivation, growth and manufacture in the form of pesticides, fungicides, worm killers, sizes, lubricants, etc. The removal of these natural colourings and add-ons is called scouring and bleaching.

The process consisted of eight quite distinct operations: (i) first, the different fabrics coming out from the loom and manufactured from cotton, hemp, and linen fibres, had a grey colour and had to be washed and cleaned. The weaver protected the warp against the abrasive action of weaving by sizing the yarn with a protective coating, which the bleacher had to remove by washing before proceeding further; (ii) bowking (or bucking), that is, boiling in a potash solution to remove fats, oils, and waxes; (iii) washing with soap; (iv) souring with an acid material such as buttermilk, to neutralize the alkali and to eliminate mineral salts; (v) rinsing in water; (vi) partially drying; (vii) laying in the sun (grassing) for three to six months to remove colour but also kept moist during daytime and last (viii) stretching back the bleached fabric into its proper shape, followed by pressing, starching, blueing, or whatever else a particular trade quality required. Depending on the technical expertise and practical experience of the master bleacher, these operations were combined in all sorts of sequences and repeated any number of times to obtain an acceptable white. Linen, which is greenish grey in its natural state, required a lot of bleaching, while cotton required much less because of its natural near white colouration.

The chemicals used in bleaching evolved over time, initially stale urine was used then sourmilk and eventually sulphuric acid (vitriol). Chlorine was discovered in the late 18th century and it was found chemical bleaching using chlorine could significantly reduce the time taken to bleach. It avoided the need to “grass” and could be carried out entirely indoors. Chlorine is a gas at room temperature and the French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet developed liquid bleaches around 1789. James Watt is credited with bringing the technology to the UK. In 1799 a fellow Scot Charles Tennant (in partnership with Charles Macintosh best known for waterproofing clothing) patented a new method to create a dry bleaching powder that could be used indoors. This made chlorine based bleaching a commercial success. He built a factory at St Rollox in Glasgow and demand for his bleaching powder soared. By the 1830s and 1840s it was the largest chemical plant in the world, with over 1,000 workers. The chemical business founded by Tennant eventually merged with others in 1926 to form the chemical giant Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI).