Textile people

2013 marked the 200th anniversary of the Luddite movement in the UK. The Luddites were rebels of their time, railing against an un-stopable technological movement that was to see in the North of England the rise of mechanised mills and the factory system, and everywhere else the beginnings of the industrial revolution. These photographs were taken along the Colne valley in West Yorkshire. A geographic hot spot of Luddite activity 200 years ago, and because the Luddites failed in their ambitions, a valley that would not much later be crammed with woolen mills, dye works and factories, employing thousands and working around the clock. Locally there is no shortage of old photographs showing the mills and the workers from the past. These photographs are often published in the local newspaper and now and again as a book, and always reveal a different time and place. I felt a real need - in celebration of the Luddites - to add to this record with a contemporary documentation of the current textile mills, and mainly the workforce. In the mills I introduced myself as someone wanting to do just that, and almost all of the people I spoke to felt happy to be seen as part of a historical line that for the Colne valley is still (200 years on) closely linked to the textile trade. My own family were also in textiles. My dad designed suit cloth patterns, his uncle dealt in suit lengths, before him the family owned a small spinning mill, and as an impoverished student I worked briefly in a dyeing and finishing mill. There are not many people along the Colne valley that would have much difficulty finding uncles, fathers, grandmothers and great grandfathers that possibly spent their whole working life in the mills.