1.35 TYE 1854 TYE BHM 1971 B28
Oiled paper Scale: 3 chains: 1 inch Size: 63*47cm Condition: Fair
This map is dated but no surveyor’s name is noted. It is entitled: ‘The Tyersal Estate belonging to the Trustees of Mr/Mrs Stables March 1854’. The estate lies north of property belonging to a Miss Walker and is broadly divided, by colour, into occupation by three tenants: Tetley, Hartley and Denison. The Great Northern Railway track is marked on the plan but it is unlikely that the track has actually been constructed by the time the map was surveyed since the word ‘parts required by the railway’ are employed on the rubric. This track is present on the first Ordnance Survey map of the area from 1852. At that time this line went from Laisterdyke Station via Birkenshaw & Tong, to Drighlington and Gildersome Street.
What makes this map of especial interest is a portion of land owned by the Bradford Freehold Land Society, and destined for house-building. Cudworth reports that in 1849 Titus Salt was made the first President of that body. It was one among several local building societies whose intention was to enable men in humble circumstances ‘to acquire a piece of land, paying for it by monthly instalments, with the view to the ultimate erection of a dwelling in which to live’. Several streets of back-to-back housing in Bradford resulted from BFLS activity: Salt Street, Girlington, Northfield Place, Hillside in Barkerend, and this mapped plot in Tyersal. Cudworth says that the Hillside and Tyersal projects were not successful, and in fact the BFLS had to be wound up. The Bradford Observer in 1858 reported that its late Secretary had been appropriating to his own use some £1285 of the Society’s money, and that the Society had naturally lost public confidence. The Secretary in 1855 had been a Mr William German. If I have identified the right man he seemingly lived in Bramley but was a basket maker in Bradford. I am puzzled that there was evidently a link between the BFLS and the local Liberal party. Was the idea that the working men in the BFLS houses would eventually become Liberal voters? Parliamentary electors at that time needed to be men who fulfilled a property qualification. Anyway, whatever its true purpose, the Tyersal plot was being laid out in 1855 but I’m not sure what happened to it after that.
Who were the estates original owners? I initially assumed that Mr & Mrs Stables were themselves dead at this time if their property needed trustees. But remarkably the trustees were still trying to get money out of the GNR in an arbitration case some twenty years later (Bradford Observer 7 March 1874). The report names the ‘late owner’ as Mr Walter William Stables. The only man of this name in the 1851 census was born in Huddersfield in 1819 and was a 32-years old merchant living in Crosland Hall, South Crossland, with his wife Jane. He had married Jane in 1843 and since she came from Calverley that could explain property in Tyersal. But this couple lived on into the 1880s, so why would they need trustees? As far as I can tell from Family History resources the forenames Walter and William were common among this man’s relatives so perhaps I have selected the wrong Walter William Stables. Can anybody help me?
Bradford and District Libraries Map Collections 
Bradford Freehold Land Society must have been founded in the first flush of enthusiasm promoted by James Taylor, who set up the first society in Birmingham in 1848. He toured the country in 1849 giving talks and inspiring most if not all the earliest societies. I’d be surprised if there isn’t a record of him giving a talk in Bradford around the time the Bradford society was founded.
James Taylor’s initiative is generally regarded as the start of the Freehold Land Movement of the mid 19th century, but there were similar organisations set up after the 1832 Reform Act by people like Cobden, with the aim of using the 40 shilling franchise in the county boroughs to create votes for the Anti-Corn Law League and the Liberal party. So yes, the Liberal link is fairly typical, though there is little evidence that it influenced the outcome of many elections.
The association with working men appears increasingly tenuous from my research, as often those setting up the freehold land societies were the wealthier members of the local community – as with Titus Salt. As well as holding key positions, they might also be investors. There was also usually trading of ‘allotments’ or shares, so the original members may not have been the ones who built or lived on the freehold estate. And after the first few years, some societies were run on an entirely commercial basis (whether they admitted it or not).
The area of each allotment should have equated to the value of 40 shillings a year – the size required depended on local valuation so varied from place to place. I’ve come across anything from a tenth of an acre to an acre – though the former is more typical, with some people buying several plots to create a larger area.
Looking at the National Library of Scotland maps, it’s obvious that the estate was established and many plots built on by the time of the map from 1888-1913 (I’m guessing it’s from the earlier period). And from the satellite shot, most if not all of those houses and other buildings have disappeared and a new estate built. It’s interesting, given the Liberal influence, that two of the streets are named for one or other of the Robert Peel politicians and their Tamworth constituency – both perhaps more Conservative than Liberal in their changeable political allegiances.
You can see the Tyersal estate then and now here: https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=17&lat=53.78895&lon=-1.70941&layers=6&right=ESRIWorld
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Walter William Stables was buried at St Peter’s Huddersfield in September 1847, his wife died in 1862 in Shropshire, but is described at probate as “formerly of Crosland Hall near Huddersfield”
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after the death of Walter William Stables in 1847, business passed to his son, who by 1851 was in severe financial difficulties and made over much of the mill to his creditors- presumably these woyuld be “the trustees of the estate”
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