Another short day out, this time to Bradford, and a look around the industrial museum at Moorside Mills.
Moorside Mills was built around 1875 as a small worsted spinning Mill by John Moore. Ownership of the mills changed many times, and they developed and grew. In 1970, Bradford Council bought Moorside Mills from Messrs. W & J Whitehead to create an innovative museum.
Bradford's Industrial Museum has permanent displays of textile machinery, steam power, engineering, printing machinery and motor vehicles, along with a series of changing exhibitions. There is also the splendour of Moorside House where the Mill Manager lived, and the contrast of the Mill-workers' terraced houses restored to reflect three different time periods.
This shot was taken in the textiles gallery, and represents the employment of children working in textile mills, although by the time Moorside Mill was opened, the practice was dying out, and children were going into education instead.
Very emotive scene - makes you think of those children who worked in the coal mines which, I think, was much harder work for them. Thankfully our children of those days weren't maltreated as much. Charles Dickens' books all describe the hardship children suffered in those days.
Thank you all for your lovely comments, they are very much appreciated.
Alongside the displays of machinery there were information boards describing the work that children did, including crawling under working machines to collect the fibre that had dropped. Small children were particularly useful for working in confined spaces. There were also descriptions of some of the horrific injuries that children suffered. However, the parents were so poor that they urgently needed to children to get paid work as young as possible. Very sad tales to read. Fortunately, at least in developed countries, we are today much more enlightened.
Very sad part of our history displayed and captured beautifully here Ian. Sadly, in some countries, children are still being employed to do such hard manual labour.
Thankfully, our country a few years ago banned child labour.
Though they would be selling newspaper or flowers on the street corner, often helping their parents with sales of fruit and veg. Now it is illegal.
Thank you Nina. Our history contains numerous examples where children (and others) were subject to horifying exploitation in our country, but they are in the past (I hope!). Perhaps countries where such things still happen will soon become more enlightened.
Very emotive scene - makes you think of those children who worked in the coal mines which, I think, was much harder work for them. Thankfully our children of those days weren't maltreated as much. Charles Dickens' books all describe the hardship children suffered in those days.
Thank you all for your lovely comments, they are very much appreciated.
Alongside the displays of machinery there were information boards describing the work that children did, including crawling under working machines to collect the fibre that had dropped. Small children were particularly useful for working in confined spaces. There were also descriptions of some of the horrific injuries that children suffered. However, the parents were so poor that they urgently needed to children to get paid work as young as possible. Very sad tales to read. Fortunately, at least in developed countries, we are today much more enlightened.
Ian
Thankfully, our country a few years ago banned child labour.
Though they would be selling newspaper or flowers on the street corner, often helping their parents with sales of fruit and veg. Now it is illegal.
Thank you Nina. Our history contains numerous examples where children (and others) were subject to horifying exploitation in our country, but they are in the past (I hope!). Perhaps countries where such things still happen will soon become more enlightened.
Ian
Ian