Bradford Industrial Museum is time capsule of home and work life

Employing families from neighbouring streets, it changed ownership several times until, nearly a century after it was built, Messrs W & J Whitehead sold it to Bradford Council. It was the start of a whole new future for the old mill. In 1974 it was opened by the council as an innovative visitor attraction - the first local authority-run industrial museum in the country.

Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, Bradford Industrial Museum is a fascinating time capsule of the district’s working heritage, displaying textile machinery, steam power, engineering innovations, domestic appliances, trolley buses, trams and vintage cars, as well as temporary exhibitions. Visitors can see textile looms in action, visit a working blacksmith and watch printing and weaving demonstrations.

Neil Hinchcliffe with the museum's shire horses (Image: Newsquest)

Next week the museum will mark its half century at Heritage Open Days featuring stalls, family activities, music and Bollywood dancing. In a nod to 1974, when the museum opened, there will be a 70s ‘selfie station’ and visitors are encouraged to dress up Seventies style.

The museum's storage room in 1972 (Image: Newsquest)

There’s also chance to see the museum’s row of back-to-back houses capturing three time periods: 1875, the 1940s and the 1970s. The 70s house was recently refurbished to reflect the home of a family who came to Bradford from Pakistan.

Changes in domestic life are reflected in the three houses, which originally stood in Great Horton and were dismantled then re-built brick by brick at the museum as Gaythorne Row. The Friends of Bradford Museums researched each period, and stories of people who lived in the properties, and furnished them in painstaking period detail.

T&A reader Vincent Finn grew up on Harewood Street in Barkerend. Furniture and household items from his home were donated to the museum for the mid-20th century house. He recalls life in the neighbourhood in the 1940s and 50s:

“Our houses was built in 1895. My parents moved in when they married in 1930 and lived there for 63 years. Between 1931-1949 they had eight children. Many neighbouring families had between three and nine children, it was a lively neighbourhood.

“Our house was the end of a terrace of eight. Adjoining it was a baker’s shop, owned by Willie Bateson and his daughter. Two of my brothers worked there before and after school. The houses all had a small garden at the front and iron railings which were cut off and used for the war effort. The first floor had a kitchen and front room. Upstairs were two bedrooms and an attic.The kitchen was the focus of the house, the front room was rarely used, mainly for ‘company’.

“The houses had a coal cellar and a wash cellar with a sink. There was a large fireplace - if it rained clothes were hung around it to dry - and an oven attached where my mother baked bread. When there was an air raid warning we’d sit under the cellar steps until the all-clear. The toilet was in the back yard, the ‘tippler’ replaced by a flush in the 50s. My father whitewashed the walls a couple of times a year, in winter we kept a paraffin lamp lit to stop the pipe freezing.

“The houses were packed together, people shared their lives. A lot of us were members of St Mary’s parish and went to the boys and girls schools. There were only two cars, one belonged to Dr Hennessey and the other to Mr Whitaker, a painter and decorator. Many of our neighbours had lived in those houses since the early 20th century. I can still picture the people in our terrace. Next door was Jim Slater, who owned a cafe in Barkerend Road, used by Cockrofts mill workers. The Jowetts’ dad delivered milk from a horse and cart, the Whittakers’ daughter, Jean, gave piano lessons, Mr Brett was Irish and worked at Leeds Road gas works, the Smiths’ father, Tom, was a police constable during the war, and the last house was home to Mr Pheasant, a railway engine driver and part-time therapist who treated muscle problems. My sister was asthmatic and used to go to his house and sit in front of a heat lamp.

“Opposite us lived a German widow with two sons. When war broke out her sons both joined the RAF. Because their mother was German she was interned on the Isle of Man. It seems sad that she was taken away, especially when her sons were fighting for the country.

“A Sikh family bought the house next door. It was a mixed neighbourhood, with various age groups, family sizes, religions. I enjoyed growing up there, it gave me a good, steady environment.”

“My sister Margaret died in 1962, she was 19. My mother left her bedroom completely untouched. When my mother died in 1992, the house my sister and I asked the Industrial Museum if they’d be interested in taking anything, a curator came to 116 Harewood Street and was thrilled by what she found. She removed everything in the bedroom - bed, sets of drawers, clothes, even the linoleum from the floor - and items from the kitchen, including a billy can and a tub, boiler, posser and mangle used for the weekly wash. Months later the museum invited my sister and I to visit; we were taken inside the house and shown what was Margaret’s bedroom, completely as it was, and the kitchen. On the mantle shelf above the fireplace was a Western Union telegram, 1958, sent from me to my parents.

“As the museum marks its 50th anniversary I’m pleased we were able to offer a small contribution. In this fast changing world, memories of things that were once part of everyday life quickly disappear into the dustbin of history. Bradford was fortunate that in the early 1970s there were people with the foresight to preserve such items, for future generations to appreciate things in use as recent as their grandparents’ lives.”

* Bradford Industrial Museum’s 50th anniversary celebrations are on Saturday, September 14 and Sunday, September 15, 11am to 4pm.