Bury

Up to the mid-eighteenth century Bury was a market town and a centre for tanning, paper-making and the manufacture of woollen cloth and felt hats.! The subsequent development of the cotton industry made Bury a centre of economic importance to Lancashire. In the high and late Victorian age Bury's cotton industry was a power in the world market. Although Bury lay within the Manchester conurbation, it w~s not a mere extension of that cotton metropolis. Securing early canal and rail links, Bury had many advantages of lying within Manchester's economic orbit. As 'an old market town' however, by the twentieth century, Bury had 'a well developed commercial focus' , allied to a 'strongly independent corporate life and robust local patriotism'? Cotton spinning with dying and bleaching had become the central core of the town's economy by the mid-nineteenth century. Though in the spinning belt, Bury had a more balanced cotton industry than some other Lancashire towns, and the borough was also an 'outpost of weaving in the Manchester area'. 3 In 1931 cotton spinning and weaving employed over 13 per cent of males and 46 per cent of females in the borough, and the textile category as a whole including dying and finishing employed a quarter of all men and over half of all women aged fourteen and over. Linked to textiles, the manufacture of clothing was important with over 10 per cent of employed women in this sector. Unsurprisingly Bury was high in the ranking of textile towns, lying seventh in terms of the percentage of the total labour force in textiles, and eighth in terms of the female labour force (see appendices 7 and 8). Cotton and engineering had a close relationship in preDepression Lancashire, and by the early twentieth century engineering was gaining ground on cotton as the town's main staple.4 This was an important sector of skilled manual work for men, accounting for over 12 per cent of the male workforce. Bury was ranked fourteenth of the county boroughs in the engineering category. The engineering plants mainly produced textile machinery, mill furnishings and paper-making machinery. One specialism of engineering was the construction of ambulances by the firm of Wilson and Stockhall. Paper-making was a traditional industry in the area and this industry of largely male employment changed and became notable for its significant proportion of female labour in the twentieth century. There was also the important slipper works of I.H. Parker which was a large employer of both male and female labour, and more generally Bury also had a substantial boot and shoe industry.s The manufacture of rayon and hats

developed commercial and financial sector which employed over II per cent of the total workforce, while public administration and defence - including local government - was also worthy of note. A small but established lower middle class existed. Higher up the social scale there was also a small upper middle class, largely the owners of the mills and engineering plants together with the lawyers and other professionals who serviced them. 11 per cent of the workforce was found in the managerial and own account categories, and in these terms Bury was ranked only fifty-eighth amongst the county boroughs. It was also ranked at fifty-ninth in terms of the professional category (see Appendices 4 and 5). In addition, with female domestic servants making up only 2 per cent of the total population, Bury was plainly a town with only a small middle class. Overall, Bury was predominantly a working-class town, and as with other textile towns, women workers were especially significant in comparison to most other boroughs.