Wigan Album
Empress Mill
6 Comments
Photo: . Ozymandias .
Item #: 28875
My mother worked at the Empress she would have known these ladies. What I do remember is that she came home covered in cotton 'fluff'. She was probably on what was known as a 'play' day at the time! There's npo sign of a curling pin or roller in their hair unlike some girls in the early sixties who would wear rollers in readiness for going out at night!
I remember The Empress well. If you walked past on a warm day, you could see in through grids near the pavement, and there was cotton flying about like a snowstorm, and it had a distinctive, not unpleasant smell, and indeed stuck to the coats and hair of the workers. My Aunty Mary worked at another cotton-mill, Eckersley's, and she used to bring home balls of "banding"...a kind of tubular string.... which my friends and I used on our "whips" when playing top-and-whip.
is that stan laurel at the top
This picture is on the Westhoughton pictures site , not sure if its Lostock mill? Or Taylor and Hartleys ?could even be wigglesworths ? But its definitely not the emp.
Although I've been unable to find this actual photograph on the Westhoughton site, I have found several other photographs on there that feature most of , although not all, the same people that appear in the photo above. As several of those people appear to have been identified as being relatives of residents of the Westhoughton area, I conclude that arburthnot is quite possibly correct, and the mill could quite likely be located in either Howfen or Bolton, and may not be the Empress, as I had previously surmised. Apologies, if this is the case, it was never my intention to deliberately misinform. Hopefully, someone may eventually be able to provide a positive identification of the mill. The lady on the extreme left on the front row however, is without doubt Mrs Agnes Ashurst from Rose Bridge, Ince. The photograph was found among her collection following her demise.
This is Lostock Mill. My friends late mother Elsie, is the lady on the back row 2nd on right. She lived on church St. Westhoughton.