Set up in 1977, the North West Film Archive preserves moving images made in or about Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside and Cumbria and offers a variety of access services to users in the public, academic and commercial sectors.
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Platt Bros and Co. Ltd - Textile Machinists
The manufacture of textile machinery in Oldham - men make the machines that produce the cloth.
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Overview
In the smoke and grime on the factory floor, men produce textile machinery components. Forging and welding, planing and grinding, this is hard but skilled work. We also see the training of apprentices, and the inspection, packing and dispatch of the finished goods, all vital parts of cloth production in Lancashire. The deterioration of the original nitrate film stock is clearly visible here.
Platt Bros. & Co. Ltd was based in the Werneth area of Oldham. In the first decade of the 20th century, it was the largest employer in the town. In the First World War it turned to munitions production, but after 1918 returned to textile machinery manufacture. As the Lancashire cotton industry declined, the company lost its home market. The Oldham factory closed for good in 1982.
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