Titus Salt, the owner of a woolstapling business that was the largest employer in Bradford, turned 50 in 1853. To mark his birthday he opened Salts Mill, a textile mill and the largest industrial building in the world, in Shipley. The factory workers would live in Saltaire, a model village of his own design. He wanted to give them a higher quality of life, away from the air and water pollution of Bradford.
Within 20 years, Saltaire had grown to include more than 800 houses, shops, a school, a church, a large cultural indoor centre, alms-houses, a hospital, bathhouses and wash houses, not to mention a large park.
Salt, who became a baronet in 1869, died in 1876. In 1892 the firm of Sir Titus Salt, Bart, Sons & Co…
