We all enjoy a pinch of salt on our food, but for our ancestors salt was vital for making cheese and butter, and preserving meat and vegetables over the winter months. During the 19th century, salt also became important in the chemical industries, for example in alkali manufacture.

Although salt-making in Britain dates back to the Iron Age, the Domesday Book may contain the earliest written references to salt works. The two most important salt counties were Cheshire and Worcestershire, although there were some ‘salterns’ in coastal areas.

The usual way of method salt was by boiling ‘wild’ brine from natural springs. The place where brine was boiled was called a ‘wich’ or ‘wych’ house, which is probably how the salt-making towns – Droitwich, Middlewich, Nantwich and Northwich – acquired their names.

In the ‘open-pan’ evaporation process, large lead or iron pans filled with brine were heated by a wood or coal furnace. Several different types of salt were made by this method.

The most coarse-grained or ‘common’ salt was made by ‘wallers’. The brine was simmered very slowly for a long time. After several hours, salt crystals began to sink to the bottom of the brine. The salt crystals were raked (‘drawn’) with large, heavy iron rakes to the sides of the pan. Then the salt was ladled into wicker baskets; excess brine was drained back into the pan. Common salt was drawn from the pans once a day.

The fishing industry, which used salt for preserving its catches, required crystals of large-grained salt; this was obtained by boiling brine slowly, for five or six days. Alum was added to the brine to help form large salt grains.

The finest table salt, called ‘lump’ or ‘stoved’ salt, was extracted by boiling brine extremely rapidly. Salt was drawn from the pan twice in 24 hours. Makers of fine salt were highly skilled; they were known as ‘lump-men,’ and worked long hours from Monday to Saturday. Another important part of the lump-man’s job was using a special pick to remove any hard mineral scale which formed on the iron pans; scale reduced the yield and damaged the pan.

After the salt was drawn from the pan, the wicker baskets were carried to a bench at the side of the pan-house and allowed to finish draining. Whole families often worked together in the open-pan works, and young lads aged nine or ten helped their fathers carry lump salt into the stove house for drying. Some smaller works were family businesses and, because of the long hours needed for the salt to evaporate, wives ‘mucked in’ and helped, even if they had babies and small children in tow. When the lump salt had dried out, the women broke up the lumps by hand ready for packing.

Family life and meals were slotted in around the needs of the salt pan, even though 12-hour shifts were common. Mr Bradley, manager of the Droitwich Salt Co., told factory inspector Robert Baker that “The system of salt-making is one of contract, the master-man taking a pan, and engaging all his helpers himself, he receiving so much a ton on all the salt he delivers.”

As it took several hours for the brine to boil sufficiently before the salt crystals formed, the helpers (often the salt-makers’ wives) worked in several short shifts. They worked from 6am until 8am, then went home to give their children breakfast and get them ready for school. At 10am they helped for three hours at the works, then returned in the afternoon and worked from 3pm until 6pm.

The atmosphere in the salt sheds was “so full of steam…that it is impossible to see through it, except at the smallest distances”, and the temperatures inside were so hot that the women worked in their petticoats. (Reports of the Inspectors of Factories, 31 October 1873)

Workers were forbidden to ‘combine’ to form trade unions until after the repeal of the Combination Acts in 1825. However, salt workers didn’t have a union until the mid-1840s, when one was formed at Winsford.

Researchers should not confuse the ‘Salt Union’ (a trade association formed in 1888 which controlled prices and production) with workers’ trade unions.

Salt was also made by processing seawater in places like Lymington (Hampshire), northeast England, and salterns along the shores of the Firth of Forth in Scotland, eg at Prestonpans. In June 1635 Sir William Brereton visited the salt-pans of South Shields, where salt had been made since the early 15th century. He asserted there was “more salt made [here], than in any other part of the country that I know”. Seawater was pumped into salt-houses, and boiled up in large iron pans using coal “brought by water from Newcastle pits… Here is such a cloud of smoke… amongst these works you cannot see to walk”. The men who tended the pans earned 14s a week (Remains, Historical and Literary…of Lancaster and Chester, Chetham Society Vol. 1, 1844).

The smoke from the furnaces made the salt towns very dirty, sooty places to live in. In the 1830s, J.R. McCulloch estimated that Cheshire and Worcestershire together consumed about 300,000 tons of coal annually in the salt industries (Statistical Account of the British Empire, Vol.2, Charles Knight, 1837). Some salt proprietors, such as the Marshalls of Northwich and Droitwich’s ‘Salt King’ John Corbett, became very wealthy. Solicitors’ records may include order books, minute books, wage books, etc. Search the National Archives Discovery catalogue for family and estate papers.

The National Archives, Kew and local record offices may hold property deeds, leases, maps, etc, which mention individual salt ‘houses’ or salt works. The Registry of Friendly Society papers (series FS) at Kew includes trade unions such as the Union of Salt, Chemical and Industrial General Workers.

When checking the online censuses, try searching by occupation such as ‘salt maker’ or ‘salt boiler’. Remember that a family may be recorded by the census official at the salt works if working at night, rather than at home.

You can explore your salt-worker ancestors’ living conditions by visiting a museum, or by attending Droitwich Spa’s annual ‘SaltFest’ which celebrates the town’s heritage.