Robert Hutchinson Fell
DEATH OF MR. R. H. FELL, OF TROUTBECK BRIDGE.
Mr. Robert Hutchinson Fell, bobbin manufacturer, died on Monday, July 2nd, at his residence, Troutbeck Bridge, Windermere, at the ripe age of eighty-two. For a few years past infirmity had been stealing upon the sturdy and vigorous old man. A week or two ago he was seized with bronchitis. Under the care of Dr. Clegg, of Downers, he partially, as well es could be expected considering his weight of years, pulled through, and was able to go out of doors. On June 29th, however, he had a relapse, and died on Monday forenoon, syncope being associated with bronchitis as the cause of death.
The deceased gentleman might justly be described as the father of the bobbin-waking industry in the Lake District, and he was the oldest representative of the craft in the kingdom. Bobbin-making is the most characteristic and important of the Lake District industries; suitable wood can be readily grown on the hillsides near at hand, and water power for driving the machinery is abundant. Certainly, the trade is not what it once was, owing to the competition from America and from the Continent, and also to the slackness of the British cotton and woollen industries. Mr. Fell was associated with the industry from its primitive times, when bobbins were turned by hand, down to the present time, when, such being the perfection of the machinery employed, manual labour is reduced to a minimum, and the workman scarcely needs to touch the bobbin. Mr. Fell served his apprenticeship to the trade at Staveley. When he was "loose," he went to work at Cunsey Mill, and it is stated that such was his skill and industry as a journeyman that he used to say that he would not go to bed until he had done the work of two men. The master only paid him his wages at long and irregular intervals, and so large was the sum of Robert's accumulated earnings that when after an interval of perhaps some soments he presented his wage sheet, his employer would testily declare that he was going to beggar him. Mr. Fell commenced bobbin-turniug on his own account in 1832, at Woodland, near Broughton-in-Furness. Leaving there, he bought from his uncle Gilpin Beck Mill, which he carried on till 1840. In 1839 he took a small place at Troutbeck Bridge on a twenty-four years' lease, and at his owe expense he rebuilt and extended the premises. For more than a quarter of a century, too, he rented Cunsey Mill on the Graythwaite estate. At Troutbeck Bridge he built a water-wheel which was the largest in the district at that time, and which was named "Samson."
Mr. Fell was born at The Height, Hugill, where his father, Christopher Fell, was a farmer. Deceased was the eldest of three brothers, the brothers being George and Christopher. In Ings Church there is a stained glass window placed in memory of the father by the brthers Robert and George. The late Mr. Fell began to earn his living when he was nine years of age by working as a sod-graver; and such energy did he display in that primitive craft that the old man who employed him, and along with whom Robert worked, was led to admit that "the youngster was the better man of the two." Before he was 13 years old he was earning 3s. a day. Much against the wishes of his father, who would have liked to make a farmer of him, Robert went to Staveley to learn bobbin-turning. It is related that when only five years age the father took Robert to Staveley, where, at a corn mill which they inspected, he was shown a water-wheel. When the youngster returned home, he set himself to work and fashioned a water-wheel out of a turnip, which he made to work and drive a small hammer.
During his long and useful life, Mr. Fell filled many public offices, and he carried into the duties connected with them that energy and tact which he brought to bear on his business enterprises. He was an original shareholder in the old Windermere steam yachts. Through his connection with this enterprise he had much ill will to contend against from the boatmen, it being even said that he was in danger of his life. He was again "in the wars" at the time of the construction of the Kendal and Windermere Railway. He was then parish constable, and the unpleasant duty fell to him one Sunday of arresting some disorderly and intoxicated navvies. The navvies set upon him, and had it not been for the intervention of his stalwart brother George, of The Common (Robert himself, as is well known, was no pigmy) he would probably not have survived to reach the age of fourscore and two. Mr. Fell was for many years — about forty, we believe — overseer for the township of Applethwaite, and was a trustee of the Kendal and Windermere turnpike trust until the trust expired. ......
'.....Mr. Fell married Miss Alice Atkinson, of Stoney Cragg, Ulverston, and had four sons and four daughters. The sons are well known in the locality as successful business men; the agricultural, bobbin-making, and other machinery of Mr. W. A. Fell, of the Bridge Machine Works, is well-known all over England and on the Continent. Three of the four daughters survive. Mrs. Fell died in 1876. The deceased enjoyed the intimacy of the Lake poets Wordsworth, Southey, H. Coleridge, and Professor Wilson, who used to call at his house. He was specially intimate with Coleridge and Wilson, and in after years used to describe the former as the most conceited he ever met.
During his long career as a bobbin manufacturer, Mr. Fell introduced many improvements into the trade. He was a considerate employer; he liked to keep his workmen about him as long as ever he could, and did not turn a man adrift when through increasing years his right hand had lost its former cuuning. Many of his former workman have been succeseful in business for themselves. In whatever he undertook Mr. Fell was upright and thorough. and he staunchly stuck up for what he conceived to be right. .....' [1]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Soulby's Ulverston Advertiser and General Intelligencer - Thursday 12 July 1888