In an atmosphere of passion, pacifism and bravery, staff at a dockside factory produced exquisite work, which is to be celebrated in a new exhibition. David Charters reports

BEAUTY shines in the material world, but it can rise from the spirit of people in the strangest places.

Jagged glass was embedded in the concrete of high walls and on the hot summer days tough boys and girls swam in docks, where fish couldn’t live.

Up the waterfront from those oily rainbow pools was the pub. It’s still there. The brewery called it the New Dock Hotel – a grand name, indeed. Locals called it the Blood Tub. For this was not a gentle part of town, but it was a true community of people, many of whom had been bruised by life.

Even so, these people were good and strong in their hearts and they sang around the piano on Saturday nights – the chancers and losers, a few winners; those who were fast with their fists, those who prayed, those who waited and those who studied to escape.

Into their midst had stepped a man of robust religious faith and sound business sense, who believed that on this place – Stanley Road, in the North End of Birkenhead – he should build his factory. In the coming decades, it would gain international renown for its exquisite offerings in tapestry and embroidery.

Next week, an exhibition dedicated to that man, Arthur Henry Lee, and his tapestry works opens at the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum on Slatey Road, Birkenhead.

It will tell a fine story. There was more to this chap with glasses perched on his nose than an almost instinctive understanding of commerce and that Congregationalist religion – which had been flinted amid the shawls and the dropped aitches, the rhythm of clogs and the hooting of factory sirens, in non-conformist Lancashire, where the Good Book was pit-black and broth was always nourishing.

But, more than all this, Arthur Lee was driven by the notion that if you respected people – they would respect you.

And before long the factory of Arthur H Lee and Sons was weaving, stitching and embroidering wall and furnishing covers to grace grand homes – the banqueting hall at the Sheik of Kuwait’s palace, chanceries, embassies, stately homes, boardrooms, hotels and luxury liners, including the Aquetania (1913), Mauretania (1938) and the Queen Mary (1931). President Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline, chose Lee’s work for Blair House, traditionally used by guests of America’s first family. Birkenhead girls also created the patterns of the throne seats for the Queen and other members of the Royal Family visiting Accra, capital of Ghana. Lee’s furnished Royal carriages on trains in Britain and the British Empire.

Perhaps the firm’s most spectacular commission was for tapestry panels to fill a 70ft by 80ft area in the boardroom of the Midland Bank’s headquarters. It took 15.5m stitches and occupied 54 women for nearly eight months.

Arthur (1855-1931) followed his father into the spinning and weaving mills owned by Tootal, Broadhurst, Lee and Company of Bolton. He started business on his own account at Warrington in 1888. By then, he was married to Caroline Armitage. Her brother, G Faulkner Armitage, provided the early designs. Arthur’s reputation grew and a London office was opened in 1890. Thirteen years later, Arthur and his son, Thorold, established a base in New York. Soon after that, Thorold’s brothers, Humphrey and Christopher, joined the business.

But Arthur and Caroline were planning an even more important move – to West Kirby, Wirral, where they thought the bracing sea breezes would be good for her health. He then built his factory about seven miles away in Birkenhead – a town renowned for its park, extensive docks, shipbuilding at Cammell Laird’s yard and William Ralph “Dixie” Dean, still regarded by many as England’s greatest centre-forward. The factory opened in 1908. The year before, Dixie had been born, just down the road in Laird Street.

While Dixie was kicking footballs against the wall, Arthur was also keeping trim by bicycling to and from work. Earlier in his career, he had been described by a colleague as of “striking appearance, straight as an arrow, and of remarkable energy and alertness”. He had often been seen on bitter mornings walking to the mill at 8 o’clock with his cloak over his arm.

As Congregationalists (and, in some cases, Quakers), the Lee family relied on individual conscience to decide whether to fight in wars. Thorold enlisted in 1914 and served in France, where he was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry. In 1917, Humphrey and Christopher joined the Army. With all three boys in the Army, Arthur Lee was in total charge again.

All his grandsons were of military age by the outbreak of World War II. Christopher’s boy, Steven, served in the Friends’ Ambulance Unit in India, while his brother, Michael, started the Liverpool Pacifist Service Unit and also served in Germany as a linguist. In 1941, Thorold’s eldest son, Denis, was killed on a battlefield in Libya, only miles from where Peter was serving.

Peter Lee was awarded the Bronze Cross for his service in the Royal Armoured Corps. Humphrey’s son, Derek, commanded a Royal Naval destroyer. In 1944, he was seconded to the US Office of Strategic Services, serving as a secret agent behind Japanese lines and was honoured with the American Legion of Merit.

Back in the UK, the company had accepted government contracts to produce khaki serge for uniforms and canvas for military use. Christopher Lee resigned, rather than profit from war. But the family stayed together.

Michael and Peter became directors in 1949. Their cousin, Derek, took over the American branch. Steven and Tony were appointed directors in 1957. With the labour force peaking at about 200, the factory flourished after the war, but the family was reluctant to damage their reputation with mass-production techniques.

They closed the factory in 1970, having found each member of staff an alternative position. The building and some of its products were sold – some to the women who had made them.

A way of life had ended in the North End of Birkenhead. The workers had loved their factory and the family had thanked them in so many ways – including a company holiday camp in Dyserth, North Wales.

“Old Mr Lee” (Arthur) used to hold a “magic lantern show” in the factory at 5.30pm every Thursday. Smoke billowed from a covered projection cabinet, where he hunched with the slides and films. The event always began with his narration of a Bible story, followed by cartoons.

Many local children weren’t able to squeeze in and they would express their disappointment by drumming the corrugated iron outside – sometimes achieving a thunderous effect, perhaps appropriate to some of the Old Testament epics.

Herbert Arthur, Birkenhead’s borough librarian, persuaded the council to provide £1,000 to a “Lee Room” in the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum. The family donated original point paper designs – along with pattern information, photographs and related material.

On Monday, members of the family, friends and former members of staff are gathering for a reunion party, before opening the exhibition.

Among those there will be Betty Lee, 89, widow of Michael, and their children, Gay, Pippa, Liz and Christopher.

“The family always tried to treat people well,” says Gay, 60, a hospice nurse. “If people had something to say, they listened. Some of their methods helped increase production, so the staff would be paid more. There was a kindly spirit. I wonder whether that spirit will come back now, after what’s happened and what everybody thinks of how far capitalism has gone down the line – you know, completely mercenary. It was paternalistic, benevolent capitalism, in the spirit of all those big Quaker firms, which were all very successful because they treated people decently.”

The wonderful exhibition, which also celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Williamson, is the result of hard work by the family; Colin Simpson, Wirral’s principal museums’ officer; Charles Metcalfe, former head of fashion and design at the old Liverpool Polytechnic (now John Moores University) and Dr Philip Sykas, a research associate at Manchester Metropolitan University, whose magnificent research has discovered facts unknown even to the family.

THE exhibition at the Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, is open to the public from Tuesday until March 29.

davidcharters