Shawclough & Healey December 2018

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From The Archives JOE SMITH, THE ROCHDALE STEEPLEJACK Over many years, TV audiences got to know Fred Dibnah and watched him shin up chimneys to repair them or set explosives to demolish them. 60’s. A life-long teetotaller and non-smoker, Smith always maintained that ‘alcohol and heights don’t mix!’ Professionally, Smith won contracts His personality became celebrated by many throughout the North of England to ensure but whilst he made a great name for himself the safety of the chimneys, working on as a Lancashire character, Rochdale can buildings as high as 300 feet. At that time, claim, as with so many things, that they mill-owners were understandably were there first. Rochdale had its own concerned about the cost incurred in the celebrity steeplejack in the 19th century in time it took to repair weather-worn the form of Joe Smith and given the number chimneys so they often employed Joe Smith who could ladder some of the highest of coal-fired factories at the turn of the 20th chimneys in 2 hours. Masonry on the century it should come as no surprise that chimneys would become weathered and the profession of steeplejack was a critical cracks appear so Smith’s job was to repoint one in the mill towns of Lancashire and them, sometimes from bottom to top. This Yorkshire. However, there were steeplejacks work, of course, was perilous, Smith driving and steeplejacks! Rochdale’s man was iron dogs into the chimney and then lashing something special. 21-foot ladders to them before repeating the And yet Joe Smith was not born in the process with more fasteners, then another town but in Coventry in 1845, moving up ladder and so on to the top of the stack. to Rochdale in the 1870s having been a He did the same on church spires in the steeplejack from the age of 18. Unwilling to process of maintaining them or fixing follow his father in the profession of lightning conductors to the structure. shoemaker, he first became a scaffolder Sometimes the chimneys proved quite a before making his profession the challenge. The factory chimney of Dobson maintenance of industrial buildings. and Barlow in Bolton for example was 357 Physically, Joe Smith was small but strong, feet high, in 1897 the tallest in England attending a gymnasium daily where he and second tallest in the world. Allegedly exercised with dumb bells to build up arm it contained one million bricks and needed strength and becoming expert on horizontal scaffolding lashed in a long series because and parallel bars. Described by Falconer it was so high. Charles Blondin, the great in 1902 as a ‘typical north-countryman’ he tightrope walker once refused to scale such was muscular, lithe and active not only in a chimney, saying that it was too his youth but all the way into his 50’s and dangerous, but Smith did it and finished 34 To advertise call 07976 289967 or 07974 434793 or email sales@streetwisemag.co.uk
the job on time. Then there was the ‘leaning tower of Heywood.’ This was the chimney of Brook Mills owned by Colonel J J Mellor who claimed that it was out of straight due to ‘a violent gale exerting its full force’ when it was being built. Although the owners claimed that it hadn’t moved in 40 years, it stood 7 feet from the perpendicular but this didn’t bother Joe Smith who maintained that working on it was as safe as on the straightest tower. Smith was a courageous, some would say foolhardy climber. There was the famous time on John Bright’s birthday, when he climbed the 265 feet of the wooden spire of the old Town Hall in order to fix an 18 foot banner on the statue of St George which stood at the top. Records suggest that Joe scaled up the lightning rod before climbing onto the shoulders of St George with the flag. book written about him - ‘The Lancashire Steeplejack’ – Smith played up to his local fame by travelling about the country in a luxurious Pullman coach. He died in 1903 at the age of 50 of a heart attack following pneumonia but had he been alive today, no doubt Joe Smith, the Rochdale steeplejack, would have had a TV series, best-selling books and would have achieved national treasure status. If you have any comments about Joe Smith, I’d be delighted to hear from you and add them to a growing Rochdale archive on the subject. Please contact Gary Heywood-Everett at garyheywoodeverett@yahoo.co.uk or leave your comments by text or by recorded message at 07745 201263. Gary Heywood-Everett Although Smith never had an accident in all his years as a steeplejack, others were not so careful. On one occasion he was working at the top of a chimney on Sutcliffe’s Corn Mill when his workmate tripped and started to fall over the edge. His reflexes and strength being what they were, Smith grabbed him by the ankle and held him but the other man struggled in panic so much that Smith had to hit him with a crowbar before lowering the groggy man to safety with a rope. Alongside his work as a steeplejack, Joe Smith also was employed in entertainment, being proprietor and manager of the Circus/Hippodrome in Rochdale and also director of the Bolton Theatre Co Ltd. Furthermore, he was one of the earliest hot air balloonists. Celebrated in 1898 by a Visit our website www.streetwisemag.co.uk for all the info about the Streetwise magazines 35
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