Subscribe today using voucher code SUMMER22 for an extended free trial

This film is part of Free

Workers at Spring Bank Mill, Nelson (1900)

Lively Lancashire millworkers, including young boys and girls, at the mill gates.

Non-Fiction 1900 1 mins Silent

Overview

The practice of employing children to work 'half-time' was widespread in the cotton mills of Lancashire. Here, many of them appear to be in high spirits, though they may have been encouraged by the filmmakers. James Kenyon had a habit of staging colourful incidents for the camera and he - or another showman - may well have prompted some of the rough and tumble action seen here.