Former Tillie & Henderson Shirt Factory

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A large former shirt factorycomplex which was demolished in 2003 following a series of fires.

The following description dates from September 2002.

Large part five, part four and part two storey, roughly U-shaped, mainly red brick factory complex opened in 1857 and greatly enlarged in 1866 and 1898 in a more ornate French hotel-de-ville style to the E and N, probably to designs by John Guy Ferguson. The building (which is now vacant) is set on sloping ground between Foyle Road, Abercorn Road and Tillies Brae, with Carlisle Square (the 'landing' point of the upper deck of Craigavon Bridge) close by to the E.

The building is the dominant work of architecture at this main entrance into the western ‘city’ side of the River Foyle. Nearby and surrounding Carlisle Square are other former shirt factories as well as a three-storey terrace, a Presbyterian Church, and three converging roads. The dominant impression at this portal is of a city built upon nineteenth century industry.

The building is basically U-shaped in plan and brick-built apart from sandstone quoins and courses to the later additions and blue whinstone under road level at Carlisle Square. The S block, which faces into Foyle Road is five storey. The E block follows the slope of Tillies Brae, and faces over this onto Carlisle Square, reduces from five storey to three and the N block, facing into Abercorn Road, reduces from three storey (to the E end) to largely two storey (to the W). The rear yard area between the blocks is on a level with Foyle Road and is thus set at a much lower level than Tillies Brae and Abercorn Road, this reveals the E and N blocks as somewhat taller to the rear than the front. The roof of the complex has a mixture of gabled, hipped and Mansard portions all of which are slated. Almost all of the window openings are boarded up to the roads and blocked up to the courtyard.

Historical information

The original portion of this (former) shirt making factory was erected in 1856 by two Glaswegian businessmen, William Tillie and John Henderson, both of whom had come to Derry five years previously. The original building had ‘19,000 sq ft of floorage with a front of 105 feet in Wapping Lane and 70 in Foyle Road’ (Derry Standard).

The sewing machine invented in America in 1845 was employed systematically for the first time in the British Isles in this purpose made building, which was also the first dedicated shirt factory in the city. Previously a network of depots had existed gathering shirts from outworkers in the surrounding district. This had been evolving into a ‘quasi-factory system’ with some production in the depots, but the construction of this building decisively changed production in Derry from a cottage industry into a highly centralised factory process. A contemporary account relates the welcome for the change which in addition to providing secure employment:

‘its advantages will be all the more felt, as, by the fact that Messrs. Tillie and Henderson employ all the workers directly, the later are preserved from those annoyances inseparable from the “middleman” system which formerly prevailed’

These employees were not all located at the factory. In 1864 an Employment Commission report stated that there were 1000 operatives in the factory and 9000 outworkers. As time progressed the proportion of out workers reduced in favour of factory production however.

Competitors were initially sceptical of the use of machines but within a very short time almost all were building factories based upon the same system (which was powered by steam). This investment in manufacturing was critical in maintaining an advantage for the North West over other regions, and the industry was to become the main source of employment in the city for the next one hundred years. In economic terms, only the emigration port had a greater impact on Derry in the nineteenth century. At its peak in 1925 there were 44 factories employing 18,000 workers. Shirt making was directly responsible for much of the industrial form of the nineteenth and early twentieth century city.

The building is shown on an OS town plan of 1858 as an L- shaped structure with blocks facing Foyle Road and another longer block set at a right angle to the east, facing into what was then known as Wapping Lane (now built over). To the rear of these blocks the map indicates that there were some other (probably lower) structures, it also indicates that there was a large vehicle entrance to the centre of the east block.

The Derry Standard of 1860 records an extension along Foyle road of 4 stories in height providing an extra ‘12,000 sq ft’:

The ground floor is principally devoted to the examining room this room is considerably larger than the corporation hall and is roofed in glass.. the lower floor also contains the stockroom the packing room and the counting house with its suite of minor offices. The other three floors are occupied by the cutters, sewers, and machine workers of this vast establishment…. The rooms are warmed by water pipes’

A c. 1865 lithograph of the city appears to show this extension with two main blocks of roughly equal length and of plain appearance and five stories in height. It also shows the newly constructed Carlisle bridge (1863) in front of the factory. This bridge was unusual in that as with the present Craigavon bridge it had two decks. The lower was for rail traffic and the upper deck for roads. This depiction may not be totally accurate, however, for though (given the physical evidence we see today) the original structure was undoubtedly plain looking, the south block at least had four storeys.

Tillie was continually improving and refining production. In 1859 he patented an improvement to the sewing machines making models self acting and allowing a number of machines to be controlled by one operative.

In 1866 the factory was greatly extended to the east with the addition of the château-like bays etc. These new sections appear to have been built to designs by John Guy Ferguson, a local architect, (some sources also imply that Ferguson was responsible for the original structure). In the new mansard roof to the northern corner created by the extension, the owner founded a small school for workers children. This functioned until 1876. Limited housing was also constructed by the company along Foyle Road in this period.

Marx used the factory in ‘Das Capital’ as an example when referring to the differences between domestic work of the ‘old fashioned’ kind and that of the new industrial age. It is clear from this that the factory was a prototypical organisation not just for the competing shirt producers of its city. A lithograph of the building at this stage indicates ball finials at the corners of the end blocks, flush roof glazing in the position of the later dormers and decorative ironwork on the ridges of the main block. A large thin chimney rises at least two stories above the building to the rear.

In 1889 Ferguson was commissioned to extend the building along Abercorn Road. This structure functioned as a laundry. The basement was the washhouse while garments were washed in the floor above. The second and third stories were for smoothing and folding. Dormers to the château bays were added at this time .Repairs and replacement of some brickwork on the Carlisle Square and Foyle Road frontages was carried out and a staircase was added to the southern end (internally).

In 1898 a fifth storey was added to the original south block. (It is reported that this floor was added by jacking up the roof and building up the brickwork under. If this is true it may account for the bow noticeable on close inspection of this floor ). This work made the building the largest shirt factory in the world for a period.

In 1908 Marshall Tillie patented a collar buttoning machine which reduced the thread used in this process by 50%. In 1928 the Tillie family sold all interest in the business.

The building closed as a factory in 1970 due to changing industrial production and competition from the Far East. Limited shirt production by other companies did however continue in parts of the building until the late 1970’s (Peter England hired the two lower floors on Foyle Road). It was listed as grade B+ in 1976 when part of the building (level 3) was in use as a shopping arcade and ongoing repairs were being carried out. Part of level 4 was subsequently utilised as a snooker hall. The shopping declined after 1984 with the rebuilding of the inner city shopping –principally the Richmond Centre and the snooker hall closed at the end of that decade. The building was vacated following this.

During the 1980's and 1990's a number of proposals were put forward for renovating and reusing the building. These ranged from office, to educational, to residential use. None of the proposals were carried forward and the building decayed through lack of maintenance.

In August 2002 a proposal was submitted to demolish the building and replace it with a hotel, museum and residential block based upon the architectural style of the the existing building. Detailed structural surveys, dry rot surveys and a re-evaluation of the value of the Building were carried out by the Department in anticipation of an eventual planning appeal. However during the Autumn of 2002 the building suffered from a number of fires which grew in frequency. In late November a major fire destroyed the roof of the east block overlooking Carlisle Square and badly damaged other parts of the building. This made the building potentailly unstable and surrounding streets were partially blocked as a precautionary measure.

The building was demolished without listed building consent in January 2003. The 'statutory defense' of article 44(7) of the Planning Order 1991 was cited by the owner ie: that the works were urgently necessary in the interests of health and safety, that it was not practicable to secure the building through repair, that the works were limited to the minimum measures necessary, that notice in writing was given to the Department as soon as reasonably practicable.

Following a detailed consideration of the case the Department decided that the owner would not be prosecuted for the demolition in March 2004.

The site of the building was included in the Walled City Conservation Area in June 2006.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/9/21/2 OS town plan of Londonderry, (1848-49, revised 1858)
2 PRONI VAL/2D/5/11 Valuation town plan of Londonderry, 1859
3 Linen Hall Library Lithograph view of Londonderry from the east, c.1865
4 PRONI OS/18/1 OS town plan of Londonderry, 1873
5 Linenhall Library ‘The Industries of Ireland’ (Part I) (Belfast, 1891)
6 PRONI VAL/12E/157/1 Revaluation town plan of Londonderry, (1873 with annotations of 1910)
7 Ulster Museum Welch Collection Photographs of Londonderry, c.1890s-1910 [See PRONI’s Lawrence Collection also.]
8 PRONI T.3077/1-2 Minute books of Tillie and Henderson Ltd, linen merchants and shirt manufacturers, 1907-20, 1920-24
9 PRONI OS/8/18/2 OS town plan of Londonderry, 1908
10 PRONI OS/9/21/4 OS town plan of Londonderry, 1909
11 PRONI VAL/12E/157/4 Revaluation town plan of Londonderry, 1910-35
12 PRONI Register of members of Tillie and Henderson Ltd…, 1924-47
13 PRONI VAL/3G/125/1 Revaluation town plan of Londonderry, 1935-54
14 Derry Standard 22 March 1860

Secondary sources
1 Brian Mitchell ‘On the banks of the Foyle- Historic photographs of Victorian and Edwardian Derry (Belfast 1989)
2 Brian Lacy ‘Siege city- The story of Derry and Londonderry’ (Belfast 1990), pp.193, 196-8
3 Brian Lacy ‘Discover Derry’ (Dublin 1999), pp.88-89 etc.
4 Alaistair Rowan ‘Buildings of Ireland – Northwest Ulster’ (London 1979, pp.399)
5 Annesley Malley unpublished historical research on building.
6. J.A Grew ‘The Derry Shirt Making Industry 1831 –1913’ (Dissertation) Ulster Polytechnic M. Phil, 1987
7. Londonderry Teachers Centre and NW archaeological Society ‘ The Shirt Industry of the North West of Ireland’ (Derry 1979)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed
Not listed
Not listed

Evaluation

The key building in the story of the industrialisation of Londonderry in the nineteenth century. It was the first, the largest and the most famous shirt factory in a city synonymous for a hundred years with that industry. It is also the most visible factory located at the entrance to the west bank and as such is a powerful representation of that period of history. This symbolic function is arguably as important to the city as the walls are to the story of the seventeenth century. Mentioned by Marx, the building is of historic importance beyond Derry as an important nineteenth century case study and as a major and influential example of a specific factory type.

Unfortunately the building was demolished in 2002 following a series of fires and is now no longer in existence.