The English Sewing Cotton Company Scrapbook

 On Sunday's Antiques Roadshow there was a glimpse of this photo of L.S. Lowry. Until seeing this, I had not realised the English Sewing Cotton Company connection. Pendlebury, Manchester, was the home of Ermen and Roby, one of the original members of the ESCC. Pendlebury was also where Lowry lived. He is of course famous for his scenes of millworkers...why had I never made the connection before? Lowry will have been depicting ESCC workers! I wonder if it is possible to pinpoint any specific pictures...

 The company of Rickards was established at Bell Busk Mill on the River Aire in 1862. Although the mill that was purchased was set up for cotton, Rickards turned it over to the manufacturing of silk thread. This was the time of the American Civil War and cotton was scarce. Silk reels of 12 yards were produced and sold for a penny. The company took on the Low Mills, Sackville Street, Skipton in the 1890s. Around 300 people were employed there but it burned down in 1908.  Neither Bell Busk nor Low Mills survive. There is now housing referencing the mill on Sackville Street. Visit my Etsy shop, Sewsylko!

On Wednesday 9th October 1929, Lord Ebury presided over a meeting in the Connaught Rooms at the Park Lane Hotel, London. The proposal under discussion was the formation of an organisation that would determine "colour tendencies for the fashion and allied trades." The reasoning behind this effort to control fashions in colour dyes was economic. The new fashions for spring and autumn collections were made from textiles that had been dyed to individual company requirements. Often they looked to Continental fashion houses for colour trends, ending up picking up on these quite late on. This led to waste as trends waned before all the the new products had been sold. It was felt that the proposed organisation could both reduce waste and improve colour matching.  The British Colour Council was officially launched in April 1931 - it was non-profit making and had a board of representatives from throughout the industry. It operated by releasing two colour cards per year - one in spring ...

  This is an extract from The Yorkshire Post, 28th October 1944, explaining how Aireville Park in Skipton came about. The grounds formerly owned by the Dewhurst family were sold to the local council after the family had decamped elsewhere. Aireville Hall is now a school and much of the grounds are given over for the recreation of the local community. There is an entrance very close to the Belle Vue Mill building. Here are some recent photos that I have taken:   Just imagine Algernon Dewhurst riding through the park to visit the Mill. Visit my Amazon page for my books and downloads on 20th century icons

 Arkwright House was a specially commissioned headquarters for the ESCC. An imposing building, in a mix of classical and art deco design, it was completed in 1937.  As well as being the centre of the combine's administrative work, there were also testing rooms and labs on site - sample reels of cotton were sent here every week to be quality tested. This photo of one of the rooms gives an internal view: This artwork dating from the early years of the building show a company that wanted to portray itself as modern, imposing and a force to be reckoned with. Although Arkwright House escaped the WW2 bombs that fell on Manchester, it was damaged by an IRA bomb later on in the century.  It was repaired and is still in use as offices.  It is a listed building. I took this photo on a visit a couple of years ago. I'm too shy to ask for a look round inside though. Visit my Amazon page here