Items donated by Sir Titus Salt's great grandson
The Denys Salt Collection contains a wide range of items intimately related to the Salt family.
We have some of Sir Titus Salt's meticulous school artwork and photographs, wills and other documents of the Salt family, including the 'day book' that Catherine Salt used to help her run a large, wealthy Victorian household.
We have memorabilia of visits from two of Queen Victoria's children, including some of the crockery they ate from and a photograph of the Prince of Wales smoking as he watched his wife plant a commemorative tree!
Denys Salt
Denys Salt was the great-grandson of Sir Titus Salt and grandson of Titus Salt Junior. You can read a brief biography of Denys on our website.
For more than 50 years Denys was the member of the Salt family most recently involved with Saltaire, encouraging local historians, contributing to archives, libraries and museums, and supporting activities in the village.
Sadly, Denys died in 2014 but he donated an invaluable collection of Salt Family documents, photographs and objects to the Saltaire Collection.
Salt family history
The largest part of the Denys Salt Collection consists of documents, objects and photographs of members of the Salt family.
There are several birth, marriage and death-related documents, including the wills of Sir Titus Salt, his father Daniel, his son Titus Junior and his own wife Catherine and their son Lawrence.
The Collection includes portrait images of several members of the Salt family. There are large oil paintings of Daniel and Grace Salt, the parents of Sir Titus. Sir Titus himself is shown in a studio portrait photograph, and there are others of Caroline, Titus Junior and Catherine.
There are some more intriguing items. There are some well-executed youthful drawings produced by Sir Titus when at school. Sir Titus's subscription for seats in the newly-opened Royal Albert Hall seems to have been motivated by business and philanthropy. There is a sealing die and brass plate for stamping Sir Titus's coat of arms. And Catherine's 'day book' is an insight into the running of a privileged Victorian household.
Business documents
There are only a small number of business-related documents in the Denys Salt Collection but they are highly significant as they deal with a major event in the Salts' history: the collapse of the family business and its sale during 1892 and 1893.
Costly investments in Dayton in the United States of America, the untimely death of Titus Salt Junior in 1887 and international trading difficulties caused the company of Sir Titus Salt, Bart., and Sons Company Limited to go into voluntary administration in 1892. The company was bought by a consortium of four Bradford businessmen: Isaac Smith, John Rhodes, John Maddocks and the future sole-owner James Roberts.
The documents in the Collection deal with the legal winding up of the Salt-owned business and the terms for the purchase by the consortium of businessmen.
Royal visits
Saltaire had two prominent visits from royalty during the 1880s. In 1882 the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) and Princess Alexandra visited Bradford to preside at the opening of the new Technical College. In 1887, Queen Victoria's youngest child Princess Beatrice and her husband Henry of Battenburg presided at the opening of the Royal Yorkshire Jubilee Exhibition in Saltaire, and officially opened the new School of Art and Science founded by Titus Salt Junior.
On both occasions the visitors stayed at Milner Field, the home of Titus Salt Junior and his wife Catherine. The Denys Salt Collection has a range of items from these visits. There is a poem celebrating the Prince of Wales opening of the Technical School, and photographs including the Princess of Wales planting a tree in Saltaire Park as her husband watches on while smoking a cigarette. There are other photographs of the Royal Yorkshire Jubilee Exhibition including one of Princess Beatrice arriving in style. There is also part of a dining set of Davenport crockery - bearing the Salt Family alpaca logo - used to serve the royals.
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