Autumn 2022, Congruence Engine | Photo essay

Textiles in a modern age

Tim Smith

A photographic essay

https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/001

Photograph of a man preparing the warp threads on a Jacquard loom

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Photograph of a weaver mending a broken thread inside a giant broad loom

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Photograph of the spinning department at Laxtons yarn manufacturer

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Photograph of a woman weaving glass fibre on a specialised loom

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Photograph of a male worker in a worsted cloth weaving shed

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Photograph of piano felts being brushed out

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Photograph of a woman making a biodegradable coffins

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Photograph of a woman preparing a warp on a Jacquard loom

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Photograph of someone loading a creel of fibres made from basalt

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Photograph of a researcher in electro spinning at the University of Leeds

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Photograph of a man weaving silk for replacement knee cartilage

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Photograph of reels of silk being used in a Research and Development lab

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Photograph of a man working on bicycle frames made from woven carbon

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Photograph of a worker Inserting woven carbon combined with resin into moulds

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Photograph of the read out of a machine that measures the thickness of a graphene fibre

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Introduction

https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/002

Raising sheep and making things from wool was Britain’s first great industry, which makes the choice of the woollen textiles sector as the initial focus of the Congruence Engine research a particularly appropriate one. Textiles have been a recurring theme in my work as a photographer. When I began to explore the stories of Britain’s migrant communities in the 1980s, I found that it was the textile industry that had drawn people to Yorkshire from places as far apart as Europe, the Caribbean and the Asian Subcontinent. I have also become fascinated by how the innovative spirit of textiles that once powered the North is fuelling a hi-tech future.

The Congruence Engine’s opening investigations were based in and around Bradford in West Yorkshire, which was also a fitting choice as, in its heyday, the city was once the woollen textiles capital of the world.

Map showing birds eye view of Bradford from 1899 — Figure 1 : Map showing bird's-eye view of Bradford, produced as a supplement to the *Warehouseman and Draper* trade publication, 30 September 1899 © Bradford Libraries https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/019

Using Bradford and the surrounding region as a case study this photo essay raises questions about how we might define and/or categorise the term ‘textile industry’ and the collections deemed relevant to it. The images explore how this may evolve as the textile industry itself undergoes radical change.

Bradford became pre-eminent in the woollen textiles world because it was, to borrow a term, a congruence engine of the Industrial Revolution. Its early development and rapid rise were based on the local abundance of water, wool, coal, stone and iron, and Bradfordians made enterprising use of this favourable confluence of geography and geology to outgrow their rivals.

A brief history

https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/003

Bradford opened its first textile mill in 1799, and the arrival of power looms a few years later set Bradford on its way to becoming the worsted capital of the world. Bradford companies such as Bowling Iron Company and Low Moor Iron Works boomed in the nineteenth century. In 1867 the latter alone employed about 4,000 people, with each company exporting their products all over the world. They also provided a ready source of the metals needed to engineer textile machinery to fill the factories of what became, by 1850, the fastest growing town in the UK.

Illustration of The Bowling Iron Company in 1861 — Figure 2 : The Bowling Iron Company in 1861 © Bradford Libraries https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/020

However, such growth came at a cost. In 1876 historian William Cudworth wrote ‘The appearance created by the (Low Moor) works themselves and their surroundings had been not inaptly likened to that in the vicinity of the crater of some volcano’. The Bradford Canal, which linked the city centre to the Leeds to Liverpool canal in Shipley, was built to transport raw materials in and finished products out but was so polluted it sometimes caught fire. Overcrowded slums that housed much of the rapidly growing population existed alongside some of the most lavish civic and industrial architecture in the country.

Early twentieth century aerial photograph of Listers Manningham Mill — Figure 3 : Lister’s Manningham Mills and the workers housing that surrounded it, prior to the Clean Air Act of 1956 © C.H. Wood/Bradford Museums https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/021

Whilst the textile industry provided the skeleton of this industrial behemoth a host of related industries grew up to both feed it and provide the connective tissue that enabled it to function and interact with the outside world. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Bradford’s tentacles of trade spanned the globe. Canals, roads and railways supplied raw materials, which included not only Australian wool but the Peruvian alpaca hair and Indian silk from which Salts Mill and Lister Mills made their respective fortunes. Finished goods moved in the opposite direction as a busy printing industry produced literature in dozens of languages to market Bradford products globally. Services such as banking and communications flourished. The chemical industry supplied, among many others, Ripley’s Bowling Dyeworks, the largest textile dyeworks in the world. Engineering firms, many of them based in the nearby town of Keighley, made textile machinery for local mills and went on to supply the industry worldwide. So industrious were local people that they even made soap and lipstick from the effluent processed at Esholt’s sewage works, which was thick with lanolin flushed out by mills washing wool.

When textiles dominated Bradford, the city was so steeped in the culture of wool that it permeated every aspect of local people’s lives. For many, the mill not only controlled your working day, but it also owned your house, it determined your health, it organised your leisure time, it decided who your friends were and to whom you got married. Sometimes it even told you what to think, where to worship and how to vote. It also employed a cosmopolitan labour force drawn from across the world.

Photograph of workers spinning silk at Listers Bingley Mills in 1989 — Figure 4 : Spinning silk at Lister’s Bingley Mills, 1989 © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/022

Photograph of workers setting up a loom in the weaving department at Listers Manningham Mill in 1989 — Figure 5 : Setting up a loom in the weaving department at Lister’s Manningham Mills, 1989 © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/023

The textiles industry was so ubiquitous in Bradford, as it was in so many other British towns and cities, that it is all but impossible to neatly delineate it, which also raises questions about how to contain it within a single ‘textiles industry collection’. One approach is to use oral history. The collections of the Bradford Heritage Recording Unit, held at Bradford Industrial Museum, include hundreds of life story interviews with people who worked in textiles and associated industries, or migrated to the area because of the employment opportunities offered to them and/or their families.^[1] Made mainly during the 1980s and 1990s, much of what was said in these audio recordings, such as personal memories of bullying, sexual harassment and racism, had never been made part of an industrial collection before. Sometimes people’s feelings, emotions, attitudes, reflections and relationships are more eloquently spoken than written down. This oral history collection presents its own challenges in terms of cataloguing and access, but it does offer fascinating insights into the multifaceted impact of textiles on everyday life, the complex network of relationships between people, places and things, and how porous all of these elements are.

Over the past fifty years Bradford has fallen rapidly from its position of world dominance to a point where the local textiles industry is scarcely visible. However, that doesn’t make it any easier to delineate it. Close examination reveals that textiles continue to pervade our lives and have the capacity to transform our world in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago.

It is easy to see how centuries of textile production have shaped rural and urban landscapes across Britain, but the industry has also left an intangible legacy of experience and expertise focused on working with fibres that is perhaps less obvious. Modern-day textile production goes well beyond clothes and furnishings, as new technical developments are redefining textiles as a uniquely multidisciplinary field of innovation and enquiry.

Today, Bradford, and the wider regions of Yorkshire and Lancashire, no longer churn out ‘run of the mill’ products in vast quantities, but the sale of exclusive products to niche markets has maintained the role of textiles as a vital part of the region’s economy. People working in modern industries continue to use wool, cotton and an array of other raw materials, together with their imaginations, to adapt traditional methods and machinery and make distinctive goods for global customers. The mills that survive are highly specialised, supplying short runs of high value to the technical fabric markets or the world’s premier fashion houses. Rather than stocking high street shops, Yorkshire cloth is worn by NASA astronauts, families such as the Obamas and the British Royals, and dresses a vast range of on-screen characters, from James Bond to the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Textiles also provide a unique skill and knowledge base for cutting-edge research, as traditional technologies are used in new and surprising ways to develop a huge variety of pioneering materials. Textile research programmes are led by businesses but also universities, such as those in Bradford, Leeds and Huddersfield which were originally established as nineteenth-century centres of excellence for textile education.

The industries benefitting from these skills range from civil engineering (where woven scaffolding is in use within buildings and bridges), solar power generation (nanoelectronic devices are being incorporated within the fibres of a yarn), medicine (in the bio-textiles used for making replacement body parts) and the automotive and aerospace industries (where weaving technologies create incredibly strong, lightweight materials for building vehicles – from bikes and cars to aeroplanes and space satellites).

Thus, the innovative spirit that enabled the textile industry to power the world’s first industrial revolution seems alive, well and driving a new revolution: reinventing textile technologies for the twenty-first century. The Congruence Engine’s investigations in Bradford show that for over 200 years textiles manufacturing has been at the core of an industrial ecosystem that has proved difficult to unravel, but that continues to evolve and adapt.

The recent photographs I have included in the main body of this essay show that the task is not going to get any easier, with ongoing research and development demonstrating the ground-breaking potentials of textile products. As biomedical textiles – including silk-based blood vessels, heart valves, tendons and ligaments – commonly become part of the very fibre of the inner human body, and the aerospace industry uses woven fabrics to build vehicles to explore outer space, we will have to consider how to define what we mean by ‘textile industry’, and to think about how to organise the datasets that document our textile industry collections.

Congruence Engine is supported by AHRC grant AH/W003244/1.

Article keywords

Textiles, Bradford, Photography, Industrial History, Social History, Oral History, Innovation, Weaving, Biomedical textiles, Museum Collections, Museum Catalogues

Appendix A: images

https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/024

Photograph of a man preparing the warp threads on a Jacquard loom — Image 1 : Preparing the warp threads on a Jacquard loom at Avena Carpets in Halifax. The Jacquard uses a series of holes punched into cards to control the weave, and as such is often considered an important step in the development of computer theory. Avena use traditional techniques and machinery to manufacture bespoke carpets using pattern cards dating back to 1803. They are run by Rupert Crossley, the 9th generation of the Crossley family who founded one of the world's biggest carpet factories in the famous Dean Clough Mills next door to their present premises. Yorkshire has always been at the centre of EnglandÕs first great industry and one that remains vital to the region: wool and woollen textiles production. © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/003

Photograph of a weaver mending a broken thread inside a giant broad loom — Image 2 : A weaver mending a broken end, or thread, inside one of the giant broad looms used to weave large bespoke carpets at Calderdale Carpets in Dewsbury © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/004

Photograph of the spinning department at Laxtons yarn manufacturer — Image 3 : The spinning department at Laxtons Limited. A family-owned manufacturer of worsted and fancy yarns, Laxtons brought their production back from overseas in 2009 making use of a newly built, state of the art mill in Baildon in Bradford where temperature and humidity (which affect the fibres with which they work) can be closely controlled. The company draws on over a century of textiles expertise having begun spinning wool and mohair in nearby Oakworth in 1907. Their investment in new machinery has enabled them to increase both the capacity and range of yarns they produce for different markets and end uses © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/005

Photograph of a woman weaving glass fibre on a specialised loom — Image 4 : Weaving glass fibre on a specialised loom at Wyedean Weaving in Haworth. The company uses its huge experience in the weaving and braiding of narrow fabrics to make many innovative products, such as these belts used in jet engines, which perform very well at high temperatures © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/006

Photograph of a male worker in a worsted cloth weaving shed — Image 5 : The weaving shed at Pennine Weavers in Keighley. By investing in new machinery and employing a highly skilled workforce, Pennine has become the largest manufacturer of worsted cloth in the UK, employing over 80 people to make 35,000 metres of top-quality cloth every week © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/007

Photograph of piano felts being brushed out — Image 6 : A W Hainsworth in Leeds have been a major supplier of woven felts for musical instruments for over fifty years. The piano felts seen here are used to enable the smooth movement and cushioning of moving parts in top quality pianos and are supplied to customers such as Steinway © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/008

Photograph of a woman making a biodegradable coffins — Image 7 : Making biodegradable coffins at A W Hainsworth in Leeds. The woollen outer layer is hand fitted around a recycled cardboard frame and mounted on a base board before being lined with a soft woollen mattress base © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/009

Photograph of a man preparing a weave on a new multi shuttle Jacquard loom — Image 8 : Preparing a weave on a new multi-shuttle Jacquard loom, the only one of its kind in the UK, at the University of Leeds 3D Innovation Centre. It is used to weave experimental 3D structures with potential applications across a range of sectors, from medicine to civil engineering © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/010

Photograph of a woman preparing a warp on a Jacquard loom — Image 9 : Preparing a warp, the threads which run lengthways through a fabric, on the Jacquard loom in the 3D Weaving Innovation Centre at the University of Leeds © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/011

Photograph of someone loading a creel of fibres made from basalt — Image 10 : Loading a creel of fibres made from basalt in the 3D Weaving Innovation Centre at the University of Leeds. This volcanic rock can be woven into fabrics used for a wide variety of applications, from fire proofing and civil engineering to water filtration © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/012

Photograph of a researcher in electro spinning at the University of Leeds — Image 11 : Research into electro-spinning at the University of Leeds. Electro-spinning produces a dense membrane of extremely thin fibres which can be used for wound dressings, or as very fine filters capable of removing structures as tiny as individual molecules from fluids, such as toxins from drinking water © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/013

Photograph of a man weaving silk for replacement knee cartilage — Image 12 : Many textile products are now used for medical applications. Wyedean Weaving in Haworth are adapting looms formerly used to weave traditional narrow fabrics as part of their work with Orthox, a company who are researching the use of woven silk for replacement knee cartilage. The precise number of picks per inch, or density of the weave, is a critical factor in making a successful product © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/014

Photograph of reels of silk being used in a Research and Development lab — Image 13 : Reels of silk made by Wyedean Weaving being used in the Research and Development lab at Orthox, where the fabric is combined with resins made from proteins extracted from silk cocoons to produce trial replacement knee cartilage. When the implants are attached to the bone it will grow into the weave and fuse the implant to the joint as though it were human tissue © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/015

Photograph of a man working on bicycle frames made from woven carbon — Image 14 : Hope Technology is one of the world leaders in engineering bicycle parts. At its factory in Barnoldswick, they make bicycles with frames made from woven carbon. This is an incredibly strong and lightweight material and is now being used to build bicycles, cars, aircraft and space satellites © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/016

Photograph of a worker Inserting woven carbon combined with resin into moulds — Image 15 : Inserting woven carbon combined with resin into moulds at Hope Technology in Barnoldswick. The moulds are baked at high temperatures to produce cycle frames © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/017

Photograph of the read out of a machine that measures the thickness of a graphene fibre — Image 16 : A machine that measures the thickness of a graphene fibre. Graphene can be as thin a single layer of molecules and is unsurpassed in its ability to conduct heat and electricity. The University of Leeds is researching how it can be incorporated into textiles © Tim Smith https://dx.doi.org/10.15180/221817/018

All of the above images were taken by Tim Smith. The images were used in Weaving the Future, an exhibition of film, photography and artefacts commissioned as the flagship arts event of the 2019 annual Saltaire Festival.^[2]

Footnotes

1. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/4c1526cc-c1d3-4c84-bc5d-243e51dc6f6f (accessed December 2022) Back to text

2. https://www.campaignforwool.org/weaving-the-future/ (accessed December 2022) Back to text

Author

Tim Smith

Freelance photographer, filmmaker and creative producer

[email protected]

Tim Smith is a freelance photographer, filmmaker and creative producer who combines editorial and commercial work with long-term exhibition, publishing and mixed media projects. He is based in Yorkshire. The region and its diverse communities and industries, especially textiles, have provided the inspiration for publications, installations and exhibitions toured in Britain and over twenty countries worldwide. Much of this work explores the links between Britain and people and places overseas and includes books on the UK, Ukraine, Yemen, India and Pakistan.

He is a member of Panos Pictures who represent international photojournalists worldwide documenting issues which are under-reported, misrepresented or ignored