Robin Longbottom on how a Keighley firm, one of the largest timber merchants in the north, survived a disastrous fire

ON the evening of Saturday, November 22, 1913, a disastrous fire broke out at the Alexandra Dock in Grimsby.

It raged throughout the night along a frontage of some 100 yards and consumed timber drying sheds, a sawmill and a timber moulding mill belonging to Joseph Green (Timber Importers) Ltd of Keighley.

The total cost of the damage was estimated at a colossal £70,000, equivalent to over £7 million today.

The company was one of the largest timber merchants in the north of England and had sawmills in Keighley, Halifax, Bradford and Rotherham, and a chair factory in Keighley.

Soft wood, such as Norway spruce and Scots pine, and hard woods such as beech, birch and oak were imported direct to their wharves in Grimsby from Scandinavia and the Baltic. And more exotic woods, such as mahogany, came from the Caribbean and British Honduras (now Belize), through agents in Liverpool.

The founder of the company, Joseph Green, was born at Hill Top in Oakworth in 1852.

His father was a joiner and Joseph had followed him into the trade.

In 1873 he married Elizabeth, the daughter of George Sunderland, who kept the Shoulder of Mutton Inn at Oxenhope.

Shortly after the marriage the couple moved to Keighley and Joseph began to trade in foreign timber. He was an astute businessman and soon after the move acquired a plot of land in Lawkholme Lane which adjoined the railway line from Keighley to Skipton. It was a smart move, and once he had established his business, he negotiated a short siding from the railway directly into the yard. A travelling crane ran alongside the siding to lift the timber off the wagons and take it into the sawmill. With the connection to the rail network, business boomed, and Joseph opened two more sawmills, one in Coronation Way, Halifax, and another in Masbrough Road, Rotherham.

In 1893 he bought the Honduras Chair Works on Hanover Street in Keighley after the owner, Samuel Thompson, had gone bankrupt. The business continued to trade under the already established name of S Thompson & Company and made high-quality chairs, such as dining and occasional chairs, from mahogany imported mainly from British Honduras and cheaper chairs out of beech and ash.

When Joseph died in 1905 his two sons, Wignall and Harry Green, took control of the business. They opened another sawmill in Wakefield Road, Bradford, and a yard in Forge Lane Rotherham, adjoining the River Don Navigation that connected through to Sheffield.

All local deliveries were made by horse-drawn wagons and the yards had their own stables. By the outbreak of the Great War, motor lorries had become available, but the company continued to use horse-drawn waggons. Not all horses proved to be suitable for the work. William Binns of Haworth, a carter, took Greens to court in November 1915 to recover £76, which he had paid for a horse that he alleged had turned out to be ‘a jibber’ – a naturally stubborn horse that was unsuitable as a work animal. Unable to determine the case, the court agreed that a third party should try it for a fortnight in full working gear before the matter went any further. Presumably that settled it as nothing further is reported. After the end of the war the draught horses were sold and replaced by surplus army lorries.

Harry Green left the business in the early 1930s and when Wignall died suddenly in 1935, the firm was taken over by his son Joseph Green. Joseph remained chairman and managing director until his death in 1968.

The former timber yard in Lawkholme Lane is now occupied by industrial units and the site of Honduras Chair Works by a retail furniture shop.