They focus on a year at Prospect Mill on Victoria Road in Morley in 1965 and showcase the work of different departments which came together to produce the finished cloth. The gallery kicks off with a wonderful image of staff on a mid-morning break and capture different roles such as loom tuners, weavers, dyers, twisters, packers and finishers. Prospect was owned by J. & S. Rhodes. The firm had at one time owned three in the town. Valley Mills was first to close in the 1950s. Queens Mill closed about 1960. It was located immediately behind Morley Town Hall and was affected by the disastrous fire in August 1961 at its neighbouring mill, Albert Mills, when the dome of the Town Hall was also damaged. Both were demolished by 1962. These images are published courtesy of the David Atkinson Archive, whose collection is housed on photographic archive Leodis, which is run by Leeds Library & Information Service. READ MORE: Memories of lost Leeds pubs in Morley, Gildersome, Churwell and Drighlington LOVE LEEDS? LOVE NOSTALGIA? Join Leeds Retro on facebook YEP RETRO NEWSLETTER: Sign up for our free monthly email digest of Leeds nostalgia
1. Prospect Mills
Morning break-time for the workers in the weaving department. | David Atkinson Archive Photo: David Atkinson Archive
2. Prospect Mills
Dorothy Ladley mends a broken thread on a Northrop loom in the large weaving shed. | David Atkinson Archive Photo: David Atkinson Archive
3. Prospect Mills
A worker feeds blend, already dyed, into the scribbling and carding machine. The scribbling and carding machines were always joined together and the pulled fibres transferred from one part to the other on a 'monkey'. Both machines in the pair were known as a set. The number of sets that a mill had gave some indication of its size. It was generally reckoned that the production from one set could supply twelve spinning mules with enough material to keep them working, while one mule could spin weft to keep eight looms in production. | David Atkinson Archive Photo: David Atkinson Archive
4. Prospect Mills
Plain looms, made by Lee and Crabtree, being used by female workers to weave ladies' overcoating material. Normally looms are on the ground floor in textile mills due to the weight of the machinery or may be housed in a special weaving shed. The looms seen here were placed on the second floor in a relatively old building, and the main impression given to a visitor ( besides the noise) was the vibration and movement set up as the shuttle went across the threads, and the picking arm (a wooden arm with leather strap) beat its way backwards and forwards. This arm beat once for each time a weft thread was laid across the warp. A meter on the loom counted these and the weavers were paid according to how many picks they had woven. | David Atkinson Archive Photo: David Atkinson Archive
5. Prospect Mills
An old-fashioned plain loom at Prospect Mills, showing a loom tuner at work on the right hand side. Plain looms were often used to weave cloth that required a woollen warp, (as seen here), as their action was not as rapid as the automatic looms and they could be stopped more easily should the warp threads break and need tieing again. Photo: David Atkinson Archive, Leeds Libraries
6. Prospect Mills
Finished lengths of cloth ticketed and ready for final despatch being examined by the cloth warehouse manager, Bob Kirk. This was important as it would affect the amount of space taken up on a ship if for export, or the number of bales that could be got into a container. The warehousing and packaging department was in an adjoining mill along Victoria Road that the Prospect took over when it went out of business in the 1920s. | David Atkinson Archive Photo: David Atkinson Archive