The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
T.M. Bairstow's Mill Centenary, Sutton in Craven
A telling picture of textile workers before the sea change of WW2, showing excitement at the occasion, and maybe both gratitude and resentment in their faces for the mill bosses.
From the collection of:
Overview
Hundreds of weavers and spinners gaze into the camera as it pans across the workforce of a typical West Riding textile mill in Sutton in Craven. It’s on the eve of the Second World War, and the mainly female workers are remarkable for their almost identical sensible hairstyles, no doubt designed to accommodate their dangerous occupation. They are joined by grandparents and children, with the men staying farther afield, to witness the company bigwigs make fine speeches.
The mill started out as a corn mill when it was acquired by the Bairstow family before being converted to worsted spinning and manufacture in 1838, building a new mill in 1888. Like many large firms of the period they had an Institute with a billiard room, a reading room and a large swimming pool. As their 1920 booklet has it: “in fact, everything is provided for the comfort and welfare of workers after their labour”. They even had a hostel to house fifty female employees, “girls”, from out of the area, which had tennis courts and organised classes and concerts. The original small village grew to become Sutton Mill, with the mill employing over 700 hundred staff. The mill closed in 1970 and was demolished in 1996.
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