The Textile Industry

Huddersfield lies close to the confluence of three major tributaries of the River Calder, which passes the town to the east. Its history illustrates the natural advantages of the settlements which lie on the Pennine rivers. Huddersfield had long been a centre for employment even before the process of industrialisation concentrated textile manufacture into the mills. At different times it has been a centre for woollen, worsted, cotton, silk and recovered wool production. The use of recycled fibre more latterly became associated with the towns lower down the Calder, around Dewsbury and Batley. To the north the town of Halifax and its associated settlements grew prosperous on the textile industry. In the eighteenth century the Halifax Piece Hall was built to serve as prominent market for the sale of cloth manufactured in the pre-factory era.

Prior to 1770 textiles were manufactured through a domestic system. Small manufacturers worked from their homes. Processes such as spinning and weaving were still hand powered and thus were suited to this system. One process, however, had been mechanised since the Middle Ages. Fulling, the process of giving a cloth piece a dense felted finish, was concentrated in water powered mills. The mills were run as a commercial service for the independent manufacturers. They were often run by a tenant of a local landowning, gentry family, being built in prime locations for exploiting water power. The fulling mills together with the cloth halls, built for marketing the products became the most striking architectural features of this era.

After 1770 the West Yorkshire textile industry moved to a mixed economy of mill and domestic production. Mill based processes were extended to cover scribbling and carding. These processes involved opening and straightening the wool fibres. Combined scribbling, carding and fulling mills now offered a much wider mechanised service for the independent clothiers. During this era there was a gradual shift from the public mill offering a service to local clothiers to private enterprises run by a mill owner. Now the industry centred on the mills for preparation and finishing; three or four storey cottages for spinning and weaving and the cloth halls for trade. The weavers cottages usually had two lower levels for accommodation and an upper level workshop. Many examples survive in the Huddersfield and Halifax areas. Most date from after 1780 illustrating the high level of activity in the West Yorkshire textile economy.

Between the mid 1820s and mid 1830s mechanically powered spinning and weaving was introduced. The private mills now had a real advantage over domestic production and gradually the factory based industry became dominant. Mills expanded, developing as multi-storeyed buildings each housing different processes. The textile factory would be associated with warehouses and dyehouses. Most often they were concentrated in the valley bottoms and the larger mills were soon associated with canal and rail links. By now steam power had replaced water power and tall chimneys would carry the coal smoke into the atmosphere from the boiler rooms and engine houses.
By the mid-nineteenth century the textile industry in West Yorkshire was fully mechanised. The number of mills increased to meet demand. Britain dominated the world textile market. The manufacturing economy developed rapidly around the textile mills. However by the early twentieth century the rest of the world had caught up and the industry started to suffer from international competition. During the twentieth century the textile industry of West Yorkshire has declined dramatically.

Today the most efficient and certain specialist mills remain, supporting a buoyant but much reduced textile sector. The mils are highly mechanised and today more likely to rely on computers than people. The old mills have either been demolished or turned to other uses. A tour of the Calder valley will reveal mills currently used for homes, shopping, offices and other types of manufacturing.