Titus Salt

Vocation

English manufacturer, politician and philanthropist in Bradford, West Yorkshire. In 1833, he took over his father's business and within twenty years had expanded it to be the largest employer in Bradford. In 1836, he created the lustrous and subsequently fashionable cloth called 'alpaca' manufatured from alpaca wool. In 1848, Salt became mayor of Bradford. Around 1850, he decided to build a mill large enough to consolidate his textile manufacture in one place, and bought land three miles from the town in Shipley next to the River Aire, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the Midland Railway and began building in 1851. He opened it with a grand banquet on his 50th birthday, 20 September 1853, and set about building houses, bathhouses, an institute, hospital, almshouses and churches, that make up the model village of Saltaire. Salt was Chief Constable of Bradford before its incorporation as a borough in 1847, and afterwards a senior alderman. He was the second mayor, in office from 1848–49, and was later Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1869 he was created a Baronet, of Saltaire in the County of York. He died at Crow Nest, Lightcliffe, near Halifax, West Yorkshire on 29 December 1876. Link to Wikipedia biography