EAST Morton is a small village in the Aire Valley between Keighley and Bingley.
Today it is a dormitory village, however, during the 19th century it was a hive of industry and had one of the highest concentrations of mills along any beck in the Aire Valley.
Whilst most mills in the district were devoted to the manufacture of textiles, East Morton had three that were dedicated to making paper. Between them they produced a huge variety including tissue, fine art paper, writing paper, card and paper for banknotes.
The earliest recorded paper mill in the village appears in an advertisement of 1812. This mill is said to have been established in 1803 and was conveniently situated near Otley Road and within half a mile of the canal.
It was probably built by William Emmett a papermaker of Ingrow, Keighley and a Miss Bottomley a papermaker of Cragg Mill at Windhill, Shipley.
They put the mill up for sale in 1812 when it was described it as a “two vat paper mill on a powerful and never failing stream”.
The mill, Freedom Mill, was bought by Holmes Clapham, a wealthy Keighley woolstapler and was managed by his younger brother, Henry.
Freedom Paper Mill in East Morton and its once famous leaning chimney
When Holmes Clapham died in 1837, he left the mill to his sons, Thomas and William, and when they died childless it passed to their nephews Holmes and John William Wright of Lower Laithe, Oakworth.
A year after Freedom Mill was advertised for sale an indenture of 1813 records that John Hagar and Thomas Hodgson converted Morton Mill on Otley Road to make paper.
It was leased from Martha Broadley, whose father had built it in 1791 to spin cotton.
One of their employees, a Scot called John Smith, married into the Town family of Keighley in 1819. After the marriage he left Morton and set up a paper mill at Goose Eye with his brother-in-law, Joseph Town. However, he left the partnership in 1824 to branch out on his own.
Having returned to East Morton Smith leased land near the headwaters of Morton Beck from William Busfield Ferrand of St Ives, Bingley.
Here he began building Sunnydale Paper Mill. It was to become a most spectacular water powered mill, with two huge waterwheels, one 44 feet in diameter and the other 50 feet in diameter and said to be the biggest in England.
Sunnydale sketch
The great wheel stood proud of the roof line of the mill and was powered from a water tank supported above it on metal legs.
The spent water from it was used to drive the second wheel, located at a lower level. However, eventually water power had to be backed up by two steam engines.
When John Hagar went bankrupt in 1831 Morton Mill came up for sale and John Smith bought it.
He used it to finish the paper made at Sunnydale. During the finishing process the paper was dressed with size to stop it acting like blotting paper and coated with a clear liquid to give either a gloss or matte surface.
However, the distance of almost a mile between the two mills proved to be a huge disadvantage. Transport between them was inconvenient and expensive and when there was a run on the banks in the mid 1850s John Smith found himself in financial trouble and went bankrupt in 1858.
Sunnydale Mill was subsequently sold to the Wrights who continued to make paper there until 1878 when it closed permanently.
It was eventually bought by Bradford Corporation and demolished in the 1930s.
Morton Mill was last occupied by Edward Hastings who made brown wrapping paper.
It was demolished about 1914. The last surviving mill, Freedom, was sold to Whiteley’s, paper manufacturers of Poole in Wharfedale, and closed about 1970.