A working life at Woodrow’s Mill – a memoir of Alec Hargreaves

In the later years of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th, most employment was provided by the very many local mills.

The loss of two mills in Farnhill at the end of 1905 and early in 1906 had a devastating effect on local people: they no longer had work on their doorstep and had to bicycle or walk to work; some chose to move to other townships.

One of the nearby mills that continued to provide work was Woodrow’s at Junction.

Charles Alexander Hargreaves, known as Alec, left school at the age of 13, in 1906, and – apart from serving abroad during WW1 – was at Woodrow’s Mill for all his working life, a total of 49 years.

Towards the end of this time he wrote a memoir of his period there: A working life at Woodrow’s Mill.