City Flour Mills - Commercial Road, Gloucester, UK
N 51° 51.844 W 002° 15.011
30U E 551630 N 5746185
The former City Flour Mills are on the south west side of Commercial Road to the north of Gloucester Docks. The owners became famous for a precedent set in law.
Waymark Code: WMKDVE
Location: Southern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/27/2014
Views: 7
The metal plaque on the front of the building tells us:
City Flour Mills
This former flour mill was built in 1850 for Joseph and Jonah Hadley. Three years later, when a damaged crankshaft was delayed in transit, the brothers sued the carriers for loss of profits. The subsequent landmark case of Hadley v Baxendale established the "forseeability of damages" rule in Englis Law, that continues to be applied in many countries throughout the world.
The Gloucester Docks website tells us:
The main building of the City Flour Mills was erected in 1850 for the brothers Joseph and Jonah Hadley. Soon after they started, the brothers were involved in a famous legal case, Hadley v Baxendale, which is well known to law students on both sides of the Atlantic as it set a precedent that has become the starting point for all discussions about how damages for breach of contract should be assessed. The mill was later run by Reynolds & Allen and then by Priday Metford & Co, but after being sold to one of the national milling companies, it was closed down in 1994. Now all the machinery has been stripped out and the buildings have been refurbished to provide luxury apartments with space for a restaurant on the ground floor.
Hadley v Baxendale
Unfortunately, however, the crank shaft of one of the steam engines fractured and needed to be sent back to the manufacturers at Greenwich to serve as a pattern for a new one. It was delayed on its journey, and the consequences led to a court case that is still studied today. The Hadley brothers sued Joseph Baxendale, senior partner of the carriers Pickford & Co, for their loss of profits during the five extra days their mill was idle. At the initial hearing at Gloucester Assizes, the judge accepted that the defendants were answerable for the natural consequences of their breach of contract, and the jury awarded damages of £50.
Pickford's considered that this was unreasonable and asked the Court of Exchequer to order a new trial. After hearing legal arguments, in February 1854, the judge granted the request and set down the principles which any jury should consider when estimating damages (report right). He said that where a party had entered into and broken a contract, the other party should only receive damages for consequences that might reasonably have been contemplated by both parties at the time that the contract was made. As the Hadley brothers had not made it clear that the profits from their mill were at stake, he considered that it was not reasonable for Pickford's to be expected to make good those profits.
No record has been found of any subsequent retrial before a jury, and it is assumed that the two parties settled out of court. What is certain is that the judge's ruling established the forseeability test for consequential damages that has been followed in virtually every Anglo-American jurisdiction. Hadley v Baxendale is studied in nearly all courses on contract law, it is discussed in academic papers by legal scholars and it is referred to in over 30,000 sites on the internet. However, very few lawyers know anything of its geographical setting, and so to mark the 150th anniversary of the ruling, a conference was held in Gloucester in June 2004 to discuss the international influence of the English common law in general and the current relevance of this case in particular.
The building itself is Grade II listed with the entry at the English Heritage website telling us:
Flour mills, warehouse and office block. 1850 and probably 1854. Built for J and J Hadley, millers; the warehouse damaged by fire 1888 and partly rebuilt incorporating silos for the storage of wheat in bulk; a large wing on the south side facing Commercial Road and containing additional silos added c1898; a large concrete silo added 1964 is not included. Brick, ashlar, timber hoist housings, slate roofs.
PLAN: one block comprising two parallel, end-gabled warehouses at right angle to Commercial Road, the earlier and smaller of the two on the east side, C20 extensions on the west side of the larger warehouse; adjoining to the south-east the office block facing south with wing to rear left.
EXTERIOR: the east warehouse of four storeys and attic, the south warehouse of five storeys and attic, both with loading door openings in the centre of their end-gabled walls. West warehouse in the gable-end walls on each side of the loading doors on the upper floors has hinged casements with glazing bars in openings with brick segmental arches, on the ground floor a carriageway to left in the south gable-end wall with a semicircular brick arch set with a projecting keystone; a projecting, gabled, timber winch housing to the loading doors to the upper floors with louvred openings to each floor. The south elevation of the office block, c1850, faced in ashlar, has an offset plinth and a crowning cornice with blocking course; three stone steps to central doorway with rectangular fanlight, the opening framed by a moulded architrave and floating cornice on moulded consoles, panelled double doors and margin lights in the fanlight; on each side of doorway a C20 casement and on the first floor two original sashes with glazing bars (3x4 panes) in original openings with projecting stone sills; the later C19 rear wing of brick has sashes with central vertical glazing bars.
INTERIOR: not inspected.