Salts Mill has a small archive on display but the museum and archive at Sunny Bank Mills is much more extensive, no doubt due to the fact that it is still in the possession of John and William Gaunt, owners of the textile mill, which ceased production in 2008.
In the entrance there is a Hattersley Power Loom, made locally in Keighley and one of about 200 similar machines used at Sunny Bank from about 1950 to 2008.
In the archive there are thousands of pieces of cloth made at the mill, mostly a very fine wool worsted, used in men's suiting.
I was also quite amused to see a parade of typewriters, from some of the earliest models right through to the electric ones we used to use before computers took over. (I had one myself.) Seeing them reminded me of my first job at the local Electricity Board HQ, where all our letters and reports had to be handwritten first and then sent up to the typing pool to be typed, before they were delivered back to the originator. Hard to believe these days, when missives can be transmitted electronically in a matter of minutes!
Love those old typewriters... Used to work as a secretary myself. Offices had advanced to electric ones when I started working, though (mid 70s). But at secretary school, we still chiefly used manual ones - there was only one electric machine in the classroom, which we (a dozen girls) had to take turns practising on! (Which in turn makes my mind skip back to needlework in middle school, when we had only one electric sewing machine, but several old treadle ones!)
ReplyDeleteGreat to see the old archival footage! Oh yes, many a typewriter was my income based upon!!
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the old typewriters.
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