Helmshore Mills Textile Museum - History

History

Before the mills were built, the Turner family had been involved in textiles. Three of the six brothers made their living from wool in Martholme and three from cotton in Blackburn. In 1789 the brothers built Higher Mill on a green field site in the parish of Musbury as a woollen fulling mill but the cotton brothers soon dropped out of the enterprise. It was the son of one of these original six, a William Turner (1793–1852) who built the larger mill in the 1820s. This was a wool carding, spinning and weaving mill. Some of the cloth would have gone to the fulling mill next door. Turner instructed in his will that the mill should be sold on his death, which occurred in 1852. This mill was destroyed by fire in 1857, and was rebuilt in 1860. It switched between wool and cotton several times. In the 1920s, the mill was bought by L.Whitaker & Sons who installed cotton condensing equipment and the mill continued in that business until Christmas 1978. Higher Mill came to operated by Lawrence Whittaker in 1875 still using Turners machinery, and his descendants continued to run it as a fulling mill until June 1967. The two families may have been distantly related but by 1920s the Whittakers were a well known local family while the firm of L.Whitaker & Sons no longer had any Whitakers working for them. The freehold of both mills in the Helmshore Mills Estate was bought by Lawrence Whittakers family.

The museum

When Rossall Whittaker died leaving no male heirs the Higher Mill was saved by local enthusiasts who recognised its significance and had it scheduled as an Ancient Monument, and through a trust bought it. Platt International, whose site was also in Helmshore, owned a significant collection of historic textile machines and agreed that they should be located in Higher Mill. The task of running a museum and maintaining the buildings put pressure on the trust, so in 1975 Lancashire County Council stepped in taking a 99 year lease. Whitaker's mill became vacant in 1976 and Lancashire County Council saw the advantages of having control of the two mills and bought the Condensor mill. This allowed them to also purchase the Platt collection in 1985, keeping the site intact and forming a comprehensive museum of the Lancashire Textile industry.