The “Indiana Jones” of Bradford’s Industrial Museum, who has sought out and procured more than 100,000 items for display, is leaving his job.

Eugene Nicholson, who started work at the former textile mill building in Eccleshill in 1987, says he is leaving to look after his 89-year-old father who is not well.

Mr Nicholson was brought in to build up the museum’s industrial technology collection, most of it textile equipment.

“We have got 120,000 objects of which I put in about 100,000 items – evidence of industrial Bradford for future generations to study,” he said.

“Bradford was Worstedopolis and a lot of the collection reflects that, including the 1853 Salts sample books. We have one here and another at Cartwright Hall.

“We’ve got things like the Baines’ Tandem – bicycle-makers in Bradford, but this tandem was the only one they made – and the lock that Houdini allegedly couldn’t pick.”

Asked about whether the museum keeps everything it collects or gets rid of items, Mr Nicholson said there was a disposals list adjudicated by a panel of managers which meets regularly.

He said: “If you have an acquisition policy you must have a disposal policy otherwise you’d be saturated. We had to learn very quickly in my time.

“Since 1997 we’ve had to get rid of 50 to 60 items. If you get rid of something you work on the premise that you’re going to find a home for it, otherwise you’re going to have to scrap it.

“As far as I can work out, maybe ten items that were broken or incomplete have been scrapped – bags of nuts and bolts that were kept as spares, motors for machinery that no longer operate.”

Among his fondest memories of the museum is setting up the Victorian school room on the third floor, helping people to promote Bradford’s Nobel prize winning scientist Sir Edward Appleton and helping Mark Keighley with his history of Bradford’s textile industry, Wool City: 1906-2006.

“The past determines the future. Local history wasn’t something I studied at college.

“Now it’s the buzz word. If you don’t know your past you’re not a complete person,” he said.

e-mail: jim.greenhalf @telegraphandargus.co.uk