In the early 20^th century cotton was king and Greenbank Mill in Preston shipped in over 100 bales of cotton a week, from Liverpool. In this 1930s view John Hawkins and Sons of Greenbank Mill Preston sits like an island surrounded by terraced houses. All of this has now gone. Early in the 20^th century John Hawkins issued a set of picture cards telling the Story Of Cotton, with many views of the factory and the cotton production process. In the images, you can use the mill reservoir to orient yourself to the maps below.

In this 1890 map the junction of Moor Lane and North Road is in the centre of the image.

Today the site of Greenbank Mill is mostly empty space with the UCLan Greenbank building close by. The reservoir has been filled in. Wickes is on the site of Moor Brook Mills, and most of the terraced housing has been replaced with UCLan buildings. The entire cotton production process was shown on the cards.

Steam power from Liverpool

One of the John Hawkins picture cards features a steam lorry. This was owned by the company and carried cotton from Liverpool back to Preston for processing. The Lancashire Steam Motor Company (later Leyland) was a pioneer of steam lorries. Steam lorries had largely disappeared by the Second World War.

The Preston factory performed all of the processes required to convert raw cotton into finished cloth. Today this is know as vertical integration, obviously not a new thing.

It must have been cheaper to move cotton on their own vehicles rather than use the railways or canal. The load looks rather precarious although this type of vehicle rarely went at more than 20mph. According to the cards they used 100 bales per week, so the lorry would have been busy.

Unloading at Preston

In another health and safety nightmare, here cotton bales are being unloaded at the Preston factory. They are being hoisted into the bale room. Greenbank Mill had 73,000 spindles and 1,263 looms, and the factory employed 750 people.

The mixing room

The first process in textile manufacture involved mixing the newly arrived cotton bales to ensure uniformity. The machine shown is a bale breaker, it opened the bales and mixed the raw cotton. Revolving beaters loosened the fibres and removed heavy impurities.

The mill engine

As with most mills Greenbank had a large steam engine to drive all the machinery. The image shows the 1,100 horsepower engine that could drive 800 machines. At the time electricity was beginning to make inroads into driving cotton manufacturing machinery by using electric motors.

Read more: Preston’s power stations, power to the people from 1891

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