Samuel Hill was born in Somercotes in 1859. His father William (1832-1903) was a colliery agent, and his mother Eliza was from Shardlow. By 1871 the family had moved to Station Street, Long Eaton and were living with William’s father, a coal merchant.
Samuel was in the lace trade, which was booming at the time, as labour in Long Eaton was cheaper than Nottingham and the canal and railway were conveniently placed for the delivery of coal to run the steam-powered factories. Samuel had started to raise money for his own factory whilst still in his teens, but he fell out with his creditors, and it took him 3 years to pay them off. In 1879 he started a partnership with his father. The same year Samuel married Mary Jane Draper in Radford and moved to Regent Street in Long Eaton.
In 1882 Samuel and his father had a factory built on Princess Street, near Lime Grove (where the parking for West Park is now), at a cost of £4,000-£5,000. It was a 3-storey building, about 12 windows wide. It was steam powered and had a large chimney.
The Hill family had most of the top floor, with half a dozen lace machines and a warping machine. The other floors were let out to other lacemakers. A villa and 6 workers’ houses were also built on Princess Street.
The factory opened in May 1883. In August that year a fire broke out on the top floor, but was discovered before it could take hold. In February 1884 another fire broke out the top floor. Samuel’s sister, who was in the lace mending room, thought she could smell smoke on a Friday evening just before the factory was locked up. But nothing was seen until later when flames were seen. When the alarm was raised, men rushed in and started up a steam-powered water pump which had only been installed 2 days before. Damage to some machinery, patterns and stock was covered by insurance.
The next year Samuel was selling land for building on Bonsall Street (perhaps his grandfather’s coal yard). In 1886 the partnership with father was dissolved. In February 1888 Samuel was declared bankrupt, owing his creditors £1,379. He had few assets left as his father owned the factory, his wife owned the furniture in their rented house, and he’d recently sold off all the equipment to his father and a friend, who sold it on to relatives. A year later he applied to be discharged from bankruptcy, but this was refused because of the suspicious way that all the assets had been spread around his family.
In April 1890 more land was sold in Bonsall Street and Princess Street and the factory was in Eliza Hill’s name (Samuel’s mother). By now several companies operated in the building (Woodland Mill) including the friend who’d bought some equipment, and around 100 people were employed there.
In June 1890, following a downturn in the lace industry, there was another fire at the factory. The steam engine survived but everything else was destroyed, causing about £10,000 damage.
It was rebuilt by F. Perks and Son by mid-1891 but wasn’t occupied again until March 1894. It became a ramie and cotton spinning plant.
Around 1900 they opened a lace factory (Hill’s Factory) opposite what became St Mary’s Church on Wilsthorpe Road. It was the first such factory in New Sawley and, as with most of the new lace factories being built at the time, it was a single storey building.
In 1901 the family were living in Curzon Street whilst a villa was built for them next to the factory. The villa, ‘The Limes’, was separated from the factory by greenhouses and accessed by a drive off Wilsthorpe Road.
Late one night in December 1905 a fire broke out in the attic of the factory. A witness woke up the family at The Limes and a telephone call was made from Sawley Junction railway station to Long Eaton station, from where a policeman alerted the Long Eaton fire brigade using an alarm bell on Main Street. The firemen were summoned, and the horses were harnessed to the fire engine. By now the fire was visible from the fire station but, following a recent incident, the district council had ordered the brigade not to go beyond the Long Eaton boundary until assured the service would be paid for. This was first fire since that order.
Meanwhile a ball was in progress in Long Eaton. When news of the fire spread many of the of dancers made their way to Sawley in hansom cabs and other vehicles and, despite being in their dress suits, tried to put out the fire. One of the first to arrive was G. Smith who, with George Hill (Samuel’s eldest son) tried to get into the attic with a fire extinguisher. Another man who’d come straight from the ball was the builder J. W. Perks. A police inspector and constable were also involved.
Two of the Hill sons set off – one on a cycle, the other with a pony and trap – to find out why the fire brigade hadn’t responded. After a 20 minutes delay, the brigade received sufficient guarantee of payment, and/or permission from the council, and set off. But by the time they arrived the roof was collapsing and only the factory office could be saved. All but one of the 16 machines lace was destroyed, and 40 men and women were out of work until the factory could rebuilt (it was fully insured).
In 1909 Samuel, who still seems to have had an interest in the Princess Street factory, was finally discharged from his bankruptcy. Samuel and Janes’ children were:
- George (1881-)
- William Samuel (1883-)
- Florence Annie (1885-)
- Lily Elizabeth (1886 –)
- Sissy May (1888 –1914)
- James Rowland (1890-)
- Frederick Victor (1892-)
- Ernest Albert (1893-)
- Leonard (born 1897-)
- Dorothy Mary (1904-)
- Kathleen Mary (1913-)
George Hill was called up in 1917 and joined the Royal Naval Air Service as a fitter, naming his mother as his next of kin. He was transferred to the RAF when it was formed in 1918.
During WW1 the lace industry was already in decline, but the factory remained open. In 1918 the second son – William – was living at The Limes and may have been running the factory, when he died at a nursing home in Nottingham in 1918. He left his estate to his mother.
His younger brother Leonard died in 1919.
George was released from the RAF in 1920 and returned to The Limes and became a farmer, of sorts. Later that year he was fined for driving a car without a licence. He said he only used the car for fetching pigs or calves from the market. At the time of the 1921 census, George was with his mother in Chapel St Leonards, whilst his father Samuel was living with his uncle in ‘Paradise’, Risley and Frederick seems to have been running the business.
Around 1925 Samuel sold the factory to the Concordia wire company and retired. Although, for a while, the family seem to have kept The Limes.
In 1930 George Hill formed The New Sawley Club Limited at The Limes, with the directors being himself and W. Scott of Victoria Road. George Hill died at the Grove Hospital, Shardlow in 1936.
In 1939, Samuel and Mary Ann Hill – were living in Neale St, Long Eaton, where Samuel died the following year.
Frederick had married Winifred Corner in 1923. In1939 they were living with her family on Cranmer Street, and he was working as a lorry driver at Chilwell Depot. When Frederick died in 1944, he and Winifred were living on Trowell Grove. He left nearly £10,000 (equivalent to about £550,000 in 2024 prices) in his will.
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