As well as being a very successful business man Titus Salt was involved in politics. He supported adult suffrage the right for every adult to vote, no matter what his or her economical status. He wasn’t content with the 1832 Reform act and believed it should go further. He was a founder of the Bradford Reform Association in 1835 and “publicly supported the chartists” However, Titus Salt was a stern critic of the 1834 poor law. Furthermore, he supported the idea to reduce working hours and he was the first employer to introduce the ten-hour working day. However, Titus Salt disagreed with those like Richard Oastler and John Feilden who wanted parliament to pass legislation on child labour. Titus Salt would never accept the 1833 factory Act that stopped children under the age of nine to work in factories seeing as he employed young children in many of his factories himself. He also repudiated permission for his workers to join trade unions. What’s more, in 1859 he became a candidate for the General Election, at the request of the local chamber of commerce. Titus Salt was elected but had to retire after two years due to ill health. This was the end of Titus Salt’s political career.
He was the only employer who showed any apprehension that Bradford had become the most polluted town in England and that there were serious health problems caused by contaminated drinking water. After much experimentation Titus Salt discovered that the “Roda smoke burner” produced very little pollution. In 1842 he arranged for those burners to be used in all his factories to reduce pollution. Titus Salt was also interested in politics, and when he became mayor of Bradford he tried dreadfully hard to persuade the council to pass a by-law that would force all factory owners to inaugurate the new smoke burners. However, the other factory owners opposed the idea and most of them were to ignorant too accept the idea that the smoke produced by their factories was damaging people’s health.
Titus Salt realised the council were unwilling to take action to this serious problem. He decided to move away from Bradford. In 1850 Titus Salt announced his plans to build Saltaire in the Aire Valley on the banks of the River Aire, only a few miles away from Bradford. It took three years fro Salt’s mill to be built and it opened in 1853. It was the most advanced fabric factory in Europe and produced over 18 miles of worsted cloth per day with its 1200 looms, the scale of production revelled at a national level. The mill was opened on Titus Salt’s Birthday. The community of Saltaire started being built in 1854 and after 14 years of construction, its 800+ homes were completed in 1868. None of the houses Titus Salt were back to back, which reduced pollution and disease, Titus salt charged a varied price of 3 shillings per week (approximately 6 pence) for a standard two-bedroom house, to 5 shillings per week (approximately 10 pence) for a larger three- bedroom house with a small garden. He built many extra amenities for his workers he did not have too build, for instance, a hospital, school, institute, washrooms and laundry.
Another reason why he built Saltaire was to keep control over his workers. He built Saltaire a good distance from Bradford so he could segregate his workers from the other men and women In Bradford, so they would not get ideas to join unions and start strikes for higher pay and less working hours, since Titus Salt new that no matter how much his workers kindly, they were still people, and people would never be content with what they have. Titus Salt would not allow groups of his worker’s to come together and wouldn’t allow residents to hang out their washing in plain view: because he liked to keep everything tidy. He also did not allow more than eight people congregate in one house, who ever was caught would be fined and repeat offenders would be expelled from the village. If the occupants damaged anything in the homes then they would lose some of their pay to compensate for the damage. Titus Salt occasionally visited the village to inspect the condition of it and to see if people were upholding his rules. He built larger houses for his mangerers, but built them in the same street as the ordinary worker’s. He did this so he had his own kind of personal C.C.T.V system in the village and so he could keep his workers under his thumb. Whats more, when he built his park there were strict rules too abide by, they were only certain times you could only go into the park, and when you were there were a limited amount of activities you could do. Furthermore, out of all the amenities he had built he did not build a pub. He was a religious man so believed drinking was a sin and a ruined man. This was also a very good for his business since his workers were sober and worked more efficiently. However, he was not completely unreasonable and allowed his workers to bring in alcohol from outside the village as long as they drank it in private. He also built Saltaire to make money. Like all business men he wanted the most efficient way to make profit.
Also there was a lot of good transport already available for Titus Salt to transport his goods. There were decent roads from Saltaire to Bradford, Leeds and Manchester so all the finished articles could be taken too market easily on a horse-by the factory, so it was much easier for Titus Salt to transport hi large loads of goods. He could transport his goods to nearly all the main northern industrial towns in England, which increased all his profits making his industrial empire expand further, and in turn increasing his wealth.
One more reason why Titus built Saltaire was for fame. He had a large ego like many businessmen as successful as him. He named his village after himself and the Aire valley where it was situated “Salt Aire”. He named many of the streets after his family and close relatives and named the park he built after his oldest son Robert Salt. He also had coat of arms displayed all over the village and also made a statue of himself in Roberts Park. He also donated a lot of money to good causes: he gave money to build the B.R.I and peel park, and he loved to boast about his donations to increase his fame. When Titus Salt died on 29th December 1876 his family discovered he had donated over £500,000 to good causes, this was equivalent to £5000,000 today.