Keighley pub serves as a reminder of once-thriving industry

ON East Parade in Keighley stands a small tavern called the Boltmakers Arms; it is the town's last reminder of an almost forgotten but once important industry.

Wooden bolts had been made since ancient times and were used for clamps and presses, and in watermills and windmills. However, with developments in clock making and gunsmithing (gun locks) during the Tudor period, metal screws became increasingly important to fix parts in place. The head was created first – the end of an iron rod was heated in a forge and then hammered to make it square or round. Taps and dies were then used to cut screw threads by hand. Taps cut the thread into the nut, and dies made the thread on the bolt.

In about 1770 Jesse Ramsden, a London optical instrument maker, successfully developed a screw cutting lathe, speeding up production to meet the demands of industrialisation.

Enterprising men quickly took the opportunity to meet demand. In Keighley two men, James Cawood and Thomas Binns, together with Joseph Wright, took a lease on a speculative mill built at Stubbing House, near the banks of the River Worth, in 1787.

Cawood was a third generation nail maker and Binns belonged to a family of Keighley wool comb makers. Both men were familiar with working metal. The other partner, Joseph Wright, belonged to a yeoman family in Oakworth, they had long been associated with the textile industry (his brother, Henry, was a partner at Mytholmes Mill, Haworth). The partners used the upper floors of the mill for spinning cotton whilst the ground floor was given over to the production of nuts and bolts.

Iron rods and bars were bought from Kirkstall Forge and a whitesmith, Richard Hattersley, who was a specialist skilled in hardening and tempering steel, was enticed to Keighley from Sheffield. He was an expert smith with the skills to make the taps and dies for cutting the threads. When Cawood went bankrupt in 1789 Binns and Wright found new investors, including Samuel Blakey, who owned the mill, and Rowland Watson, both prominent Keighley lawyers. The bolt making business became so successful that the mill was known locally as Screw Mill. In 1793 Hattersley, who had only been an employee, set up in business on his own and eventually moved to North Brook Mill on the North Beck. However, he continued his association with Binns until 1810, when Binns died.

Hattersley was now making rollers, spindles and flyers for spinning frames, but he continued to make nuts and bolts. However, many machine makers and mechanics made their own using tools supplied by him. In the 1840s William Smith, a machine maker, was employing his own specialist bolt makers at his works in Wagon Lane (now Market Street).

However, small workshops also made nuts, bolts and screws. Early ones include that run by Hannah Cawood, who managed her husband's business after his bankruptcy in 1789, and James Cawood's father, Joseph, who also described himself as an ironmonger. Independent workshops continued production until the late 19th century. Two of the last bolt makers in the town were Fenton Heap and Joseph Normington.

Fenton Heap ran his business from the rather grandly named Central Bolt Works in Park Street where he made screws, nuts and bolts and rivets. However, he only employed two men and two boys, whilst Joseph Normington employed four men and two boys at his workshop off South Street.

By the end of the century the small independent bolt makers were out of business. Their 'handmade' nuts and bolts were not interchangeable with those of other manufacturers, all the threads were different. An engineer called Joseph Whitworth had devised a standard screw thread in 1841 and after it was adopted by the Royal Navy, industry gradually followed suit. It became known as the British Standard Whitworth.