We forget today how traumatic the outbreak of World War One was. In 1914 the name reflected this, it was called the Great War. Prior to this wars had been small affairs in specific locations like the Crimea or South Africa and had limited global effect but this was different. The scale of it sucked money out of the economy and disrupted world trade. There was another effect peculiar to towns that depended on cotton fibre for their industries. Cotton is mostly cellulose and this was the raw material for making the explosives needed by the war effort. The combined effects of a shortage of cotton and disruption of the export market hit Barlick hard. In those days it was said that the mills wove for the home trade till breakfast time and spent the rest of the day producing cloth for export. The India trade was the largest and this collapsed. Making a living became more difficult as employment fell and of course many men went away to the war. Germany used unrestricted submarine warfare to try to strangle our imports and all raw materials and food became scarce.
The terrible and expensive death toll and destruction on the Continent went on till 1918. (Later still in some places in the Near East like Palestine and Mesopotamia.) As if this wasn't enough an Influenza pandemic started in 1918, we called it 'The Spanish Flu' because that was where we got the first news of it. It raged till late 1919 and killed millions of people both here and on the continent. It was late in 1919 before any recovery started and the mills moved back into full production, making a living became easier, the manufacturers were optimistic, they thought that happy days were here again and in Barlick the last of the new mills was completed at last, Bancroft Shed was started and opened for production.
What they didn't realise was that the post war boom was due to merchants re-stocking after five years of shortages, the core export trade to India had been damaged beyond repair. By July 1920 the Craven Bank was reporting high raw material prices, a shortage of orders and increasing short time working in the mills. This was the start of the terminal decline in the cotton industry which became more and more obvious in the next ten years. By 1930, large and hitherto successful mills were closing down permanently. The government made the same mistake as the manufacturers and thought that pre-war conditions could be regained. They pursued policies of debt reduction and 'sound money' and drove the country into depression. The effect on the workers was that making a living became ever harder and mass unemployment blighted the lives of our old Barlickers. The manufacturers panicked and saw lowering wages and getting more production as the answer. This was a recipe for total disaster. It all sounds very familiar doesn't it!
Aunty Liza Nutter starting Bancroft engine in 1920.