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Dove Street takes its name from the first of Sir Titus Salt’s daughters–in–law, Emma Dove Octaviana Salt (nee Harris). We do not know why the name “Dove” was used in preference to   “Emma”. The street initially had only 24 houses, the 16 houses at its western end being added later.

Emma Dove had married Sir Titus’ eldest son William Henry in 1854, and in the next few years the young family grew as Emma Dove gave birth to first a daughter Constance (1855) and then a son Shirley (1857).

For the next two decades, the young family lived in the area, firstly at Ashgrove, near Halifax and later at Summer Hill, Rawdon, as William Henry engaged in the Saltaire business. However, in his early 40s he retired from the family business, to take up the life of a gentleman farmer of some 400 acres in Leicestershire, where Emma Dove’s roots lay.

The Harris family had considerable standing in the community there - her father John Dove Harris was at one time MP for Leicester - and with the inheritance of the baronetcy on the death of Sir Titus in 1876, Sir William Henry and Lady Emma Dove lived in style at Maplewell Grange, Woodhouse, Leicestershire. The 1881 census shows that in addition to Emma Dove’s personal maid Sarah Poppy, the mansion had eight other domestic staff.

Lady Emma Dove outlived her husband by 12 years, dying in 1904. The modest graves of the couple can be seen today, lying side by side in the picturesque graveyard of the Parish Church of St Paul’s, Woodhouse Eaves, Leicestershire.

© Barlo & Shaw