Tim Rowbotham owns and runs the ironmonger’s on Bradford Road, Shipley.  Since Luty’s, opposite Gordon Terrace, closed down Tim’s shop is the closest for Saltaire residents. It’s a shop with bags of character – just like its owner. Tim has an old fashioned approach to business and lots of practical skills. He puts this down to having been brought up in a pre-dominantly male environment after his mother died when he was eleven. He says that he was “put out” to relatives who were very practical and told to make himself useful. He combines the skills thus gained with a real feel for people, especially the elderly and disadvantaged.

Yet Tim only became an ironmonger in 1998, when his career in Public Health ended with compulsory early retirement, taking over the shop from Liam Cunningham. Actually, he’s a water microbiologist by profession. After doing his PhD at Bradford University he was employed at Bradford Royal Infirmary and then at Leeds Public Health Laboratory, where he became fascinated with legionnaire’s disease. As a research scientist, he discovered that in order to grow the bacteria concerned need to have a parasitic relationship with amoebae. Tim published a number of papers in international journals between 1980 and 1998 and even has a species of bacteria named after him: Legionella rowbothamii.

Nowadays Tim’s old hobbies have become his business and his science has become his hobby. One thing’s for certain: he’s passionate about both. You can read more about Tim’s important discovery on the Village Website (follow this link).