2. Ian Beesley Through the mill
Photographs of the West Yorkshire textiles industry
Ian Beesley

3. Ian Beesley BOBBIN DOFFER, CARRYING HISTORY
Look at this man, how he carries the bobbins
So carefully, each hand just so. Here, and here.
He’s carrying the jokes and he’s carrying the stories
The Bobbin Doffers told each other in the brief rests
They took, when the sun from the windows lit the wool
in the air.
In a kind of practised geometry of balancing.
He’s carrying the structure of a lost language,
A lost way of thinking, a set of skills and solutions
That hung in the air for a while like wool in light,
Then faded.
Like he’s carrying history.
And he can’t see where he’s going, can’t see which way
History’s heading. But we can see him.
Ian McMillan
Ian Beesley

4. Ian Beesley
Bobbin doffer

5. Ian Beesley
Bradford 1977

6. Wool warehouses
Bradford 1978
Ian Beesley

7. Snicket Bradford
Ian Beesley

8. Saltaire
Ian Beesley

9. Ian Beesley
Saltaire

10. The last warping over-looker
Salts Mill
Ian Beesley

11. Ian Beesley
Pools win and patterns Salts Mill

12. The last loom being removed from
Salts Mill
Ian Beesley

13. Salts mill 1986
Ian Beesley

14. Pin ups
Salts Mill 1985
Ian Beesley

15. Maintenance men
Salts Mill 1985
Ian Beesley

16. Ian Beesley
Christmas graffiti Salts mill 1985

17. Graffiti lift door
Salts Mill 1985
Ian Beesley

18. Empty weaving shed Salts Mill
Ian Beesley

19. Ian Beesley
Mill clearances Bradford 1970s

20. Drummonds mill
Bradford
Ian Beesley

21. Drummonds mill
Bradford
Ian Beesley

22. Lister’s mill
Bradford
Ian Beesley

23. Ian Beesley
Lister’s mill Bradford

24. Ian Beesley
Spinner Lister’s mill Bradford

25. Lister’s mill
Bradford
Ian Beesley

26. Ian Beesley
Black dyke mills Bradford

27. Ian Beesley
Bobbin liggers Black dyke mills Bradford

28. Ian Beesley
Bobbin liggers Black dyke mills Bradford

29. Black dyke mills
Ian Beesley

30. Ian Beesley
Bradford conditioning house

31. Ian Beesley
Bradford conditioning house

32. Ian Beesley

33. Little Germany Bradford
Ian Beesley

34. Invoices
James Ives Mill Guiseley
Ian Beesley

35. Wool exchange
Bradford
Ian Beesley

36. Ian Beesley

37. The last member of the Wool exchange
Bradford
Ian Beesley

38. Mill graffiti Bradford
Ian Beesley

39. Mill boiler man
Bradford
Ian Beesley

40. Ian Beesley
Burlers & menders Drummond’s Bradford

41. Ian Beesley
Wool sorters Bradford

42. Ian Beesley
Wool sorters Bradford

43. Ian Beesley
Card fettlers Bradford

44. Wool scourer Bradford
Ian Beesley

45. Ian Beesley
Mule spinning frames Bradford

46. Ian Beesley
Mule spinner Bradford

47. Ian Beesley
Spinner Bradford

48. Ian Beesley
Tea break weaving shed Bradford

49. Ian Beesley
Spinner Bradford

50. Ian Beesley
Wool warehouseman Bradford

51. Ian Beesley
Shuttle maker

52. Ian Beesley
Dixons bobbin mill

53. Ian Beesley
Dixons bobbin mill

54. Dixons bobbin mill
Ian Beesley

55. Dixons bobbin mill
Ian Beesley

56. Ian Beesley
Crossley’s mill chimney

57. Ian Beesley

58. Ian Beesley
Moonrise mill dam

59. Ian Beesley
Dye house Bradford

60. Ian Beesley

61. Ian Beesley

62. Ian Beesley
Tunwell mill Bradford

63. Ian Beesley
Bowling back lane mill Bradford

64. Ian Beesley
Dean clough mills Halifax

65. Ian Beesley
Bradford 1977