Skipton-in-Craven, 1865 to 1914. A study of urban growth in a small textile town.

Abstract

The catalyst for the urban growth of Skipton during the formative period of the modern town between 1865 and 1914 was indigenous investment and organisational change in cotton textiles in the aftermath of the Cotton Famine. Railway investment also played an important, although lesser part. The process was facilitated notably by the relaxation of policy on land tenure by the principal landowner and by the work of a well managed local authority. The resulting net in-migration, along with the internal redistribution of population necessitated by the extension of commercial and other services in the town centre, was accommodated by house building in clusters which were either aligned with or removed from the main factory sites. This gave rise to a distinctive pattern of social and spatial segregation, the distribution of which was governed principally by the need for factories to have access to water supplies for steam raising and condensing. Thus the canal corridor beyond the existing built-up area was subject to textile colonisation while wholly residential development was more closely associated with existing high status housing elsewhere. The study considers the processes involved in creating this pattern of development with particular reference to the values and activities of the principal decision-makers. It also discusses the resultant shift in power and influence from the principal landowner to the local authority and to industrial and commercial interests which increasingly were based outside the town. Arising from this a model of urban growth is proposed and tested against neighbouring small textile towns.