THIS week's centre Bradford Means Business centre spread is as much about history as business,focusing on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

The peg, of course, is the remarkable longevity and record of West Yorkshire cloth maker Hainsworth.

The Pudsey mil is now run by the seventh generation of Hainsworths, making it not only one of Yorkshire's oldest companies but also one of the country's longest surviving family businesses. It has been producing woollen textiles locally since 1783.

The Waterloo commemoration is a particularly special occasion for the firm which produced wool cloth worn by British forces on that historic day in June 1815. .

Hainsworth still makes similar fabric for the familiar scarlet ceremonial tunics worn by the British Army's various Guards regiments - descendants of the 'thin red line' of Wellington's time.

The Hainsworth story started with Abimelech Hainsworth who began by commissioning handloom weavers to produce cloth in their cottages and selling it in Leeds Coloured Cloth Hall before leasing his first mill in 1800, initially employing local handloom weavers.

I recall being told by now retired family director Roger Hainsworth that the firm still buys much of its raw wool from sheep farms in Australia and New Zealand run by the descendants of families it has dealt with for several generations.

The company's illustrious story also includes winning an order in 1917 from the Tsar of Russia to make the cloth for his Cossack regiments’ blue uniforms and expanding into blue fabric for the Royal Flying Corps, now the RAF, which remains a key customer.

In 1958 Hainsworth acquired William Luton & Co., which was owned by Kate Middleton’s great grandparents.

The Royal links remain strong with Hainsworth producing cloth for the uniform Prince Charles wore when he married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and for Prince William and his best man Prince Harry for the 2011 royal wedding.

Hainsworth was granted a Royal warrant by The Queen in 2004 as a result of supplying interior fabrics for Windsor Castle, after the fire in 1992.

While proud of its past, which includes supplying cloth to cover the Woolsack in the House of Lords, Tom Hainsworth, who heads the company now, has his eyes very much on the future - particularly in the field of high fashion where the company is collaborating with many top designers who choose Hainsworth cloth .

It's quite a story.

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