Bradford Libraries, Archives & Information Service

history

In the first half of the nineteenth century Bradford was transformed from a small town to the worsted fabric capital of the world, with a population of over 100,000 and 129 working mills. This new-found wealth led to the construction of some of the city's most enduring landmarks and civic buildings. Huge mills and larger than life mill owners such as Illingworth, Lister and Foster dominated the scene. The opening of the world's largest factory in 1853, Titus Salt's Saltaire Mills, where raw wool went in and finished cloth came out, symbolised the industry's strength and innovation. The success of the city however was grounded not only in producing cloth but in its marketing and selling via the newly-built Wool Exchange and the warehouse quarter known as 'Little Germany'.

Conditions in housing and health however, lagged far behind. The average life expectancy was eighteen and half of all children never reached their fifth birthday. Yet people continued to flock to Bradford for work from the surrounding countryside and further away. By 1851 ten per cent of the population was Irish-born, establishing the close link that was always to exist in Bradford between textiles and imported labour.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the number of mills in the Bradford area had grown to 350, but the industry was facing increasing pressure from changes in fashion and foreign competition. The industry moved towards producing specialised products and smaller units. Although both World Wars boosted trade the story of Bradford textiles since 1900 has been one of decline.

The economic slump following the Second World War marked a turning point for the textile industry. Although some mills responded by introducing faster looms from abroad and continental shift systems they were unable to prevent a downturn in the industry. Local people looked to other areas of work with better prospects, pay and working conditions. The textile industry looked abroad to recruit a labour force it could afford: first East European Volunteer Workers, then Italian women and finally Asian men.

In the early 1960s some 160,000 were employed in textiles in Britain, 50,000 of them in Bradford. During the 1970s bankruptcies and belated investment in new technology slashed the labour force and created record unemployment. By the 1980s textiles were no longer the main source of employment in Bradford.

Since then most of the city's last big textile employers have disappeared, with household names such as Salt's, Lister's and Whitehead's closing down. The week before Christmas 2002 production ceased at Drummond's Lumb Lane Mills, putting another 104 people out of work. The Confederation of British Wool Textiles estimated that there were now fewer than 1,000 people left employed in the Bradford textile industry, with 98% of the jobs having been lost in the past 40 years. Other traditional industries which originally attracted migrant labour to the area, such as engineering, have also suffered huge job losses.