Extract from an article in the “London Society” November 1883 (author unknown).
The article was made available by John Fielden of Hambleton, UK. The article was scanned and images added by John Fielden of Arizona, USA.
All the Fieldens trace an unbroken descent from a Fielden who lived in the time of James I., one Nicholas Fielden who held a farm at Inchfield in Walsden, under a deed dated 1612. Nicholas was described as a yeoman, and yeomen the Fieldens continued to be from that period down to the concluding years of the 18th century, employing themselves in the farming of land and the manufacturing of woollen cloth.
Joshua Fielden, the founder of the family fortunes lived in his farmhouse situated on the heights above Todmorden known as Edge End. Joshua married Jenny Greenwood of Rodwell End in Stansfield and had five sons and four daughters.
In 1782 Joshua resolved to take up cotton spinning and in order to do so moved to Lane Side in the Vale of Todmorden. At Lane Side they entered into occupation of three two-storied cottages with little gardens in front. They lived in one whilst the other two were made into working places. Those three cottages (with additional storey) still remain to mark the starting point of the great industrial career which followed. The sons Samuel, Joshua, John, James, and Thomas showed wonderful unanimity of purpose and after a few more years when they erected a stone mill of five stories, adjoining the cottages, Joshua (the son) was appointed mechanic, James had the direction of the spinning and weaving, Thomas went to take charge of a warehouse in Manchester, and John saw to the buying and selling. When John was nineteen years old he walked with his father to Manchester market, every Tuesday, forty miles there and back. John has left it on record that, from the age of ten or a little more, he had been actively employed in the work of his father's mill.
In 1811, Joshua Fielden died; a few years after his death the name of the firm was changed from that of "Joshua Fielden and Sons" to "Fielden Bros". Samuel Fielden died in 1822 leaving the concern in the hands of his brothers Joshua, John, James, and Thomas, who took their place among the cotton lords of the North. Year by year they widened their sphere until Waterside grew to its present magnitude. In 1829 the firm erected a large weaving shed which covered an acre of ground and held over one hundred looms. At the time of its erection this was the largest shed in the world and attracted much attention.
More spinning wheels continued to be built and Todmorden was growing as a large population found its way to the place as operatives for Fielden Bros. In 1830 Messrs. Fielden erected gas works to light their works at Waterside and gas mains soon extended through the village of Todmorden. In 1844 the buildings were extended and warehouses built alongside the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
The Fieldens have carried out their undertaking in a sterling way and at the same time benefited the community whose interests are inseperable from there own. Whatever the cost, everything with which they have had to do has had to be of the best.
During the American Civil War the works were closed for nine months but they did not leave their operatives (2000 by this time) to shift for themselves. They were put on half pay and large numbers of men set to work reclaiming waste land to occupy their otherwise idle hours. Sewing schools were established for the women and one way and another the Fieldens contrived to tide their industrial colony over this time without allowing them to be any particular drain on charitable funds.
The four brothers carried on an unbroken partnership until 1847 in which year Joshua died. John died in 1849 and James in 1852. Thomas Fielden and three sons of John formed the firm from 1852 to 1869 in which year Thomas died, leaving Samuel, John, and Joshua (John's three sons) to carry on. They continued until 1879 when Joshua retired.
The Fieldens were indeed keen politicians. The founder, old Joshua, was a Quaker and a Tory. His sons were Radicals and followers of William Cobbett. The father used to say that his five sons were “as arrant Jacobins as any in the Kingdom". John, the third son, took an active interest in all local affairs and became a Unitarian. In 1824 he, with his co-religionists erected a Unitarian chapel in Todmorden. The Fieldens supported the reform bill of 1832 and John Fielden was returned as the colleague of Mr. Cobbett to represent the newly enfranchised borough of Oldham in the House of Commons. A man of large heart and broad sympathies his exertion on behalf of the poor and oppressed gained him a name foremost among philanthropists of his time. He opposed with all his energy the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 for he knew how hard it would press upon the unfortunate deserving poor.
The labours of John Fielden on behalf of factory workers will always be held in grateful rememberance. In 1816 he had begun to take an active part in promoting the agitation which afterwards ripened into a general crusade against the oppression to which women and children were subjected in the factories of the North. When Richard Gastler, the Factory King, and Nathaniel Gould threw themselves heart and soul into this cause they found nowhere a firmer adherent or a more powerful advocate than John Fielden. Richard's letter to the Leeds Mercury dated September 29th 1830 went through the length and breadth of the land like a mighty cry of anguish. "Let truth speak out. Thousands of your fellow creatures are at this moment existing in a state of slavery more horrid than are the victims of the hellish system, colonial slavery".....…etc. By speech and by writing, by unremitting advocacy in the House of Commons he championed the cause of overworked operatives. Through the press and his work, entitled, "The Curse of the Factory System" he urged his views with telling power. For the earnestness of the advocate he added the calmness and lucidity of a mind that favoured more than all, strict justice and impartiality. "Honest John Fielden the Radical Member for Oldham." He took charge of the Ten Hours Bill himself and persistently brought it forward until on the 17th of March 1847 it passed its third reading in the House by a large majority. He did not long survive the final success of his grat Parliamentary achievement, but died in 1849 universally regretted.
His three sons Samuel, John, and Joshua have been equal to the positions to which they succeeded. John junior built at his own expense, a coffee tavern and club room on a large scale for the use of the people of Todmorden. His residence was Dobroyd Castle close to Edge End; he also owned Grimstone Park.
In 1868 Joshua Fielden was asked by the Conservative Party to contest the Eastern Division of the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was returned, and continued to sit until 1880. He was never a Conservative tool, but having the true Fielden capacity and will to do and think for himself was not always to be relied upon for answering the call of the party whips. He was a Fellow of the Geographical Society and of the Society of Antiquaries. Until he entered Parliament Joshua Fielden resided at Stanfield Hall, Todmorden; but in 1870 he bought an estate called Nutfield Priory in the county of Surrey. In 1851 he married Ellen Brockhurst and his eldest son married in 1878 the daughter of Mr. Thomas Knowles and resides at Stockheld Park.
In 1869 the finest Unitarian church in the Kingdom was erected by the three Fieldens for £3600 and as a memorial to their father and uncles at a cost of £5400 Todmorden town hall was built. To coincide with the opening of the town hall a fine bronze statue of John Fielden was unveiled in Centre Vale Park the cost having been raised by subscriptions from the factory workers of England, Ireland and Scotland.
The firm that has built up so large and important a concern as that at Waterside and done so much to benefit the large community will not fail to be remembered as among the worthiest examples of industrial energy and success that the nineteenth century has witnessed.