Marriage gave hat king a head start
THE faded name of Battersby can still be seen on the top of the water tower above their former hatworks on Hempshaw Lane, Offerton.
Older readers may remember it gaily illuminated for the Coronation of 1953, when hundreds of local people still worked there.
Ninety years before that date William Battersby was a young warehouseman at Christy’s Hatworks on Hillgate and had just been asked to accompany a director on a trip to America, but refused because he was about to be married.
This led to William and his new bride, hat trimmer Mary Oldham, setting up as rival manufacturers of quality hats in an old barracks on Hall Street. By October 1864 the first consignment of Battersby hats was sent for retail to J &W Walker of Denton.
The story is told in a new book by their great grandson, Rupert Battersby, published by Amberley as Battersby Hats of Stockport.
It had not been easy for William and Mary to start, and they needed partners to put up the capital. When one proposed the name ‘MacQueen & Co’ as the company title, Mary intervened: “Gentlemen, if my husband’s name does not appear in the firm there will be no partnership!” This was final, as they were doing most of the work.
By the late 1860s they occupied a larger factory in Hopes Carr, with a national reputation for quality hats. By the 1870s a family home ‘Strathclyde’ was built on Offerton Lane and across the fields at the back, their purpose-built factory followed.
In 1906 with his sons helping the internationally expanding business, Battersbys’ factory was suddenly gutted by fire and several floors had to be rebuilt.
There were other tragedies. William’s son Edgar volunteered for WW1 and even had a varicose vein in his leg operated on so that he would be accepted by the army. Wounded by a shellburst in 1917 working as a stretcher bearer, and being treated at a field hospital, he was blown to bits when a second exploded nearby.
Ironically he had spent many happy years in Germany for the company and was a fluent German speaker. A grandson of William, Jack Battersby, died in a Japanese POW camp in 1943.
With the decline of headgear in the 1960s Battersbys amalgamated with Christys and other manufacturers and all work was transferred to Christys’ Hillgate factory, the place where it all began 100 years before, and where it finally ended.
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