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title: 2024.10: Sir James Roberts leaves Saltaire (The land disposals of Sir James Roberts)
created: 2024-03-28T17:09:48+00:00
modified: 2026-05-13T17:23:34+00:00
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identifier: 2024.10
title: Sir James Roberts leaves Saltaire (The land disposals of Sir James Roberts)
type: research document
format: typewritten
created: 2023
creator: Watson, Ian
description: Document describing the land holdings of Sir James Roberts in Saltaire and nearby Milner Field following his sale of the Salts textile business in 1918. The research is based mainly on letters exchanged between Sir James Roberts and his representative in Saltaire, John Baker.
subject: Real Estate
references: https://explore.saltairecollection.org/api/items/6648
relation: https://explore.saltairecollection.org/api/items/6567
source: Gift: Watson, Ian
rights: Content available under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licence
rights holder: Copyright Ian Watson
has format: text
extracted text: THE LAND DISPOSALS OF SIR JAMES ROBERTS IN SALTAIRE AND MILNER FIELD 1918-1923 THE EARLY RETIREMENT YEARS OF SIR JAMES ROBERTS By Ian Watson-2023 Several years ago, I wrote a small booklet, and gave a talk on the subject of: ‘The Land Acquisitions of Sir Titus Salt’. In which I looked at the Salt land purchases in Shipley and Baildon from 1850 through to 1874. So, I suppose that this paper could be seen as a way of rounding off this subject. In that, I am going to show how Sir James Roberts, reluctantly, came into possession of and disposed of the surviving undeveloped land, from Sir Titus’ original purchases. Most of the information in this paper comes from a collection of letters, held by the Saltaire Collection, which is managed by the Saltaire World Heritage and Education Association (SWHEA), and held in ‘Shipley College’, Shipley. The letters are part of the ‘Roberts Family Collection’, and form part of a significant loan to the Collection by the Roberts family of Strathallan Castle, Perthshire, Scotland. The purpose of this loan was to enable the volunteers at the Collection to make fair copies of the documents and photographs. The object being to allow students of Saltaire history to gain additional insights into the various aspects of Sir James Roberts’ life and his connections with Saltaire. The particular letters that I have used for this talk were written between 1918 and 1922. The letters consist of communications between Sir James Roberts and his Saltaire representative, John Baker, who was clerk of works at the Saltaire Mills during Sir James’ time there. John Baker was born in Goatland, in the North Riding in c.1852. In 1911 he was living at 5 Albert Road, Saltaire, with his wife and two sons, and is shown in the census as ‘Clerk of Works’. He retired to Morecambe in May 1919 and commuted to Saltaire on a weekly basis, in order to take care of Sir James’ interests in Shipley, Baildon and Bingley. He died in February 1934. He is buried with his wife an…
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https://explore.saltairecollection.org/api/resources/13415
title: Sir James Roberts leaves Saltaire (The land disposals of Sir James Roberts)
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