FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Workers leaving the mill in Manchester in the early 20th century. I've put this pic up because I haven't got one of Barlick but this used to be a common sight here as well. Now we see an increase in cars at certain times on the road or occasional workers walking in early in the morning. In those days when every mill kept the same work hours 'letting out time' resulted in a flood in the town centre. The same applied to the fast food shops, the fish and chips and pie shops, which had a flood of customers at break or home times. We often forget that the growth of 'fast food' can be traced back to the fact that so many women were working and had no time to cook. Today we have the opposite, people who have far more time and resources using fast food on the excuse they 'have no time to cook'. Makes you wonder how our grandmothers survived!

[Tizer]

We watched a TV programme about the old railway line around Dartmoor from Exeter to Plymouth. There many rabbit warrens on the edges of Dartmoor and the rabbits were caught and the carcasses sent by train to the towns where it was much appreciated in rabbit pie.

[Tripps]

Workers leaving the mill in Manchester in the early 20th century

Looks a bit mountainous for Manchester - can any photo detectives chase it down? I don't know how to do it.

[Tripps]

Workers leaving the mill in Manchester in the early 20th century

Looks a bit mountainous for Manchester - can any photo detectives chase it down? I don't know how to do it.

[Big Kev]

Workers leaving the mill in Manchester in the early 20th century

Looks a bit mountainous for Manchester - can any photo detectives chase it down? I don't know how to do it.

The image, from 1910, features in an article in the Manchester Evening News but unfortunately there's no detail with it
Manchester Evening News

[Tripps]

Thanks Kev - all good photos - there's even one of the Regent Mill Failsworth which has a tenuous connection to my family.

[chinatyke]

Look at the women in the photos wearing their shawls covering their heads. 60 years later they looked the same but the shawls had become burkhas.

[Stanley]

Hee hee, trust Graham!
Good point about the hill and no, it isn't Manchester. I'd guess at Oldham. Kev is right, I got the image from a MEN site.
Tizer, rabbit warrens as a way of farming. Never had them in Barlick but Lionel Gleed told me that when his dad was farming in the Hungry Thirties in Warwickshire it was common to set up rabbit warrens as a source of extra income. And yes, the gutted carcasses were sent by train into the cities. He said that even though that practice had ceased this was the reason why the older end were so incensed when Myxamatosis was introduced to cut back the numbers.
Many rabbits have developed a resistance these days and the way to tell is if the liver is OK. If it's diseased they are almost certainly affected if not they are OK to eat. Actually I don't think the disease attacks humans but you certainly don't want to eat anything that isn't healthy! I've told the story many a time about how Ted Lawson and myself used to go and ferret for rabbits on Colonel Clay's ground at Malham. We gutted them on site, gave the ferret one liver as a reward but left the rest in so that the buyers could see they were healthy animals and sold them round the pubs when we came back for tobacco money, we were hard up as well and both tipped up to our wives, we gave them our pay packets unopened. Happy days....... and a forgotten corner!



My mate Ted. I still miss him..... (Cancer of the stomach took him early....)

[Tizer]

Workers leaving the mill in Manchester in the early 20th century

Looks a bit mountainous for Manchester - can any photo detectives chase it down? I don't know how to do it.

How did you manage that quote? It was that chap Stanley Graham who wrote those words, not me.

[Tripps]

Yes - I noticed that too, but what can a chap do?
I just (thought) I did as I usually do. It posted twice as well. Isn't I.T. wonderful?

PS. I just had a skim through The Cotton Mills of Oldham and Oldham Brave Oldham but nothing fits the bill. The only photos that seem to have such hills nearby are Shaw, or Greenfield.

[Stanley]

Probably significant that it was a newspaper. A sub needed an image, found one and used it. Quite right really in that it is a typical scene and of course authentic.



The nearest pic I have is this one. Bancroft Shed 1921 on the engine house steps. 1.Eva Pateman, 2. Annie Platt, 3. Vera Scott, 4.Elsie Barnes, 5. Mary Joyce. No shawls but they are all young lasses. Uniform black stockings and clogs with pinafores. Only Annie Platt is wearing a brat made out of a fent. Note the length of the skirts to mid calf, the fashion for bum-freezer skirts popular in high fashion in the 20s didn't extend to the mill!
(I think the sub would have loved this pic and used it if he had seen it!)
Look in the LTP for Jack Platt's memoir, I have an idea Annie was his sister and if I'm right they had had a very hard life but you can see the mischief in her expression. Very similar to Jack actually. I love these pics.....

[Wendyf]

Annie Platt looks like a redhead.
The mill photo looks similar to the Mitchell & Kenyon film showing workers leaving a Colne mill.

[Tripps]

Mitchell & Kenyon film showing workers leaving a Colne mill.

That sounds right but I've just skimmed through three such films and can't find it. Should be under 'mystery objects'.

[Wendyf]

Mitchell & Kenyon film showing workers leaving a Colne mill.

That sounds right but I've just skimmed through three such films and can't find it. Should be under 'mystery objects'.

The film we remember was of "Haslam's Mill" In Colne, which didnt look a bit like the mill in the photo. It also looks staged with people in smart clothes dancing and performing for the camera. I dont think any of the local mills had towers like that either.

[Stanley]

Good point about the tower on the mill Wendy. That's to give elevation to the cast iron water tank for the sprinklers which was on top and serviced by a steam underwriter pump when necessary because local water pressure wasn't enough to drive water to that height.
I noticed something else, they are crossing a railway line in the street and on the left there is an overpass for use if the street was blocked by wagons. No unprotected level crossings like that round here, it's in a large conurbation with engineering works near the mills.

[Tripps]

Well spotted with the rails and bridge, We'll crack this one yet.


I've checked out the Haslam's Mill connection, and found myself in the Getty archive. Some great films there. What impressed me was how healthy, (and dare I say it) happy, and well disciplined / behaved the children looked, given the circumstances of their lives.

The period puzzles me - on one hand I read Engels' tales of abject misery, and then see quite the opposite. Though I guess there is a fifty year time difference.

Then I think again as SCG has previously pointed out - I wonder how many died in WWI.

[plaques]

Well spotted with the rails and bridge, We'll crack this one yet.

'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?' I wonder if some of the Zepellin pictures or old maps may throw up a clue.

[Tripps]

'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth

Indeed - and this will surely be a two pipe problem Watson.

[Stanley]

Thanks David....
It's interesting though. Do any of you remember the pic of the ice cream van and the way we picked the bones out of that one?
I shall have a think and perhaps return later.

[Tripps]

I've had a look through Geoff Shackleton's - Mills of Pendle - for clues in the photos, but nothing comes close. Tremendous book though - I can't imagine how much work is in it.

I was struck by the difference between the mills in the Pendle area, and the ones I grew up next to in Oldham. The Pendle ones seem much older, and there is a great variety of building types whilst the Oldham mills are largely of a similar appearance.

[Stanley]

You're right about Geoff's book on Pendle Mills. Geoff and I shared all our research for years and I refer to it frequently. A similar work is Chris Aspin's 'The Water Spinners' which does the same job but on water mills, also a seminal volume.
David, the reason for the difference in styles of building was that the large spinning mills you remember well were relatively modern structures built at the end of the 19th century when SE Lancs started to specialise in spinning and needed entirely different buildings for the modern machines and engines. They were also bigger enterprises to get advantages of scale in a very competitive market. They also took full advantage of the new company structures, 'The Oldham Limiteds' were famous. The original mid 19th century and earlier weaving sheds in N Lancs had entirely different functions and also didn't have the benefits of large brickworks and so were stone built. The result was an entirely different townscape.

[plaques]

This 'Mill' problem is becoming an obsession. Although the photo shows stone steps over the bridge I think the mill itself is brick build. This would fit the Manchester area rather than Pennine which are usually stone. I started looking at this site to see if I could match up any of the tower designs but fell asleep in no time at all. better than counting sheep!Mills.

[Big Kev]

I uploaded the image to a Google search and there doesn't appear to be a location available anywhere. The photo is available from a few 'stock' photo agencies but they don't really have much info alamy.com Stock Photos

[Tripps]

Thanks for the three posts above. I had vague thoughts about the reasons for the difference - to see them all listed coherently and authoritatively is great.

The Mills site is amazing and must be the last word on the subject. Thank you P for finding it.

The photo remains a puzzle - always good to have a quest on the go. Stick at it . . .

Seems we learn they were walking out on strike rather than just leaving work.
Does that mean we owe someone £35.99 ? Good luck with that.
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PS I find myself using a new punctuation mark as in Stick at it . . .
I use it to indicate a pause in a continuing situation.

[Big Kev]

Does that mean we owe someone £35.99 ? Good luck with that.
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Possibly but I won't tell anyone