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The Duke of Kent visited the town on July 7 to inspect the Unemployment Centres. He was deputising for his brother, who would have made the visit had he still been Prince of Wales. The Duke was no stranger to the area, for he had visited both Darwen and Blackburn in 1934, landing at Guide in a light aircraft. He was particularly interested in the woodwork classes, and a special demonstration was arranged at Community House. The Duke also toured the Y.M.C.A and visited the Friends Meeting House.
While representatives from the Ministry of Labour continued to visit the Junior Instruction Centres with news of opportunities in the South, the transfers did not always work in practice. One group of youths who had been promised engineering work at Luton at 30 shillings a week, found that the work was not what they had expected, and the pay only 22 shillings. They quickly returned home, penniless.
Some of the girls got work in a biscuit factory at Uttoxeter, and this was fairly well paid, if monotonous. Other youths who found employment in their own town were put to work on packing. Because of their weakened condition due to poor nutrition, they could not get through the amount of work expected and were dismissed after a few weeks.
On 19 October a contingent of Scottish unemployed marchers, led by James Maxton, M.P. arrived in Blackburn. They were met at the borough boundary and escorted into town by weavers and others in sympathy with them, being accommodated in the casual ward of the workhouse, and in All Saints School. On the 20, they were given a breakfast, and egg sandwiches provided for them to eat on the road, their destination being Westminster.
The fifth annual Christmas treat for necessitous children was organised by the Northern Daily Telegraph and Community House on December 22. Mrs. Trinder, wife of the Head Postmaster arranged the toys, and the children were given a bag of sweets and three new pennies as they left. There was more money than on previous Christmases, as Community House had been adopted by the Post Office and the Inland Revenue Social Service Association.
The year closed with the abdication of King Edward VIII, which was saddening for the unemployed, who felt that the King was more sympathetic to their cause than his Ministers, and he had clearly been deeply moved on his visits to the distressed areas, but with the promise of the Coronation celebrations for the new King, Edward’s brother, in the New Year. The number of looms in Blackburn had declined to 37,000.
If the Community House and allotments movements were going from strength to strength, the Junior Instruction Centres were in a state of decline. There had been frequent changes of staff during 1936, which had an unsettling effect on the pupils, and numbers attending declined in the autumn. A more rowdy type of behaviour was developing, and an outbreak of pilfering in November made parents keep their children away. The fall in numbers led to a reduction in the number of hours the centres opened, and to a cut in staff, as the Ministry of Labour payments were based on the average numbers attending. By early 1937 the number of girls attending was 27 in the morning and 15 in the afternoon, while there was an average attendance of 84 boys at Maudsley Street. The number of girls fell more quickly than the boys because a number were employed on assembling gas masks, while one of the trade unions started to pay unemployment benefit, and the girls ceased to attend. However, the Head Mistress noted that 17 girls who were not working and could have attended also left. Probably the reason was a feeling of resentment that some of the girls had obtained employment.
In the spring, a definite boom in housebuilding provided jobs for the unemployed. 124 houses were being built at Higher Hill, Longshaw for the Corporation, while private sites at Lammack, St. James’s Road, Roman Road, St. Mark’s and Witton Stocks meant that 1870 houses were built by March 1938. The rateable value of cotton mills in 1937 was £11,000 and of shops, £65,000 so the cotton industry was becoming less important as a source of rate money. J. G. Shaw compiled a list of mills, which had gone out of business since the end of the First World War: of 144 mills active in 1919, only 68 remained.
The approach of the Coronation brought slightly better news on the textile front. There were new markets being developed in West Africa, while the coronation decorations provided work in weaving and dyeing cloth to be used for bunting and drapes. There was a further demonstration of the work of the Unemployed Centres arranged by the Mid Lancashire Unemployment Advisory Council in King George’s Hall on May 6 and 7. The exhibition included work from most of Lancashire.
Coronation Day was May 12 when there was a holiday from school and work, and a procession and service in the Cathedral. The buildings in the centre of town and Corporation Park were floodlit, while free electricity was provided to any shopkeepers or businesses who wanted to illuminate their premises. The Corporation decorated the Boulevard and town centre, while hundreds of houses were festooned with union jacks, portraits of the King, Queen and two Princesses, streamers and bunting.
There was a Royal Salute by the army in Corporation Park, the schoolchildren received a Coronation mug, and the over sixty-fives a bag of coal and Coronation tin of biscuits. The celebrations ended with a firework display on the evening of May 15. Profiting from experience gained at the Silver Jubilee, when flowerbeds had been trodden and shrubs damaged, the Coronation display was held in the field below Queen’s Park Hospital.
In July, a new Wage Census was published. Based on returns for the week ending June 12, the average weekly wage for weavers was found to be £1. 16s. 4 1/2d. or about five shillings higher than in 1936. In Blackburn 358 weavers earned over 45/-; 1528 between 40/- and 45/-, and 1690 between 35/- and 40/-.
The Junior Instruction Centres continued to decline during the summer of 1937. Mrs. Ettock thought that they were fast becoming redundant and was disheartened at “all interest on one’s work gradually dying”. The response of the Government to this situation was to issue an ultimatum that unless attendance was kept above forty, the centres would close. Finally, when attendance had fallen below this figure for four consecutive weeks, the payment of grants ceased, and both the boys and girls centres closed on September 17, 1937. No attempt had been made to broaden the scope of the classes, or to use the buildings for day release courses for young people, or for youth work. There were still many young people without employment. Work was found for only 50 boys and 30 girls in March 1937, and 33 boys and 25 girls in April 1938.
The Blackburn Education Committee felt that the centres had done good and useful work during the many difficult years. A Flag Day on behalf of the Blackburn Council of Social Service was held on September 18, while during October a further instalment of work and excavations at Whalley Abbey was begun. This was a relief scheme, which had been paid for privately by Mrs. Yerburgh, and at the completion, the site was rededicated by the Bishop of Blackburn for use in religious retreats and conferences.
In the same month, tests were arranged by Philips in the Women’s Section of the Labour Exchange to determine manual dexterity. The applicants, former weavers, had no difficulty in passing. Test drillings were started at Lower Darwen on the site of the fuse factory, which had been allocated to Blackburn as part of the re-armament programme. On November 11, work started on the foundations of the Philips Factory at Little Harwood, formerly Greenhead Farm.
A Christmas treat for the children was still felt necessary, money was raised at a dance in the public halls on December 2, and the meal was organised by the usual welfare agencies on December 23rd.
A survey of the textile industry showed that there had been a revival which had lasted until October, since then a further downturn had kept the Blackburn unemployment total at 15,000.
In spring 1938 work restarted on the Fuse Factory and Philips. Hardcore was brought to Lower Darwen from the dismantled Cotton Hall mill in Darwen, while the foundation stone of the Philips Factory was laid on March 28. A feature of both sites was the large amount of mechanical equipment in use – large scale concrete mixers and mechanical earth movers and excavators.
Figures released in March showed that 3s. 9d. of every £ of rate money went on public assistance, that employment was increasing in building, construction and clothing, while declining even further in cotton, Blackburn having 16,000 out of work. One reason for this decline in cotton was shown by the pattern of trade in the Straits Settlements, where the quota system should have given preference to Lancashire, but in fact the bulk of cotton goods imported came from Japan. The amounts allowed into India were still linked to the amount of raw cotton taken up by Lancashire.
The town was decorated for the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on May 17, and children from all the Blackburn schools lined the route of the procession.
The following day was the occasion of the most ambitious concert staged by the members of the Community House Choir and the Sunshine Group Ladies Choir. This was a concert version of Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha, the chorus and orchestra being conducted by the Musical Director of the National Council of Social Service.
The unemployed were granted the use of the Swimming Baths and bowling greens at a reduced rate on production of the unemployment cards. Blackburn came eighth in the National Allotments Competition.
As a result of the sharp increase in the juvenile unemployed, the Junior Employment Committee re-opened the Maudsley Street and Audley Range Centres. By September, there were 82 girls attending morning, and 66 the afternoon sessions, while the boys averaged 120. As before, the subjects were practical, interspersed with talks on such subjects as “music appreciation” and “superstitions” but the changing international situation was indicated by talks on “Czechoslovakia” and “Poland”.
The by-pass road from the Aqueduct to Buncer Lane and the second carriageway of the Arterial road opened in the spring.
After the Munich Crises in September 1938, the number of rooms available as classrooms at the centres was reduced, as they were made into Air Raid Precaution Depots, which had priority in the allocation of space. Because of this, the domestic science class at Audley Range was discontinued on October 10.
The Munich crises also brought a sharp slump in the cotton trade, which was continued on a day-to-day basis afterwards. Fifty percent of the mills in Blackburn had gone out of business.
Peel Mill ceased to be an unemployment centre in November 1938, as the building was required for government purposes. A new Community House was opened in Clayton Street, and the water pipes, shower and toilet fittings removed from Peel Mill.
By January 1939 unemployment had once more reached 200,000, which prompted the Town Council to move the resolution “That steps should be taken by the Government to re-organise the cotton industry and halt the growing volume of unemployment”.
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain visited Blackburn in February 1939. Introducing him to the audience in King George’s Hall, Sir John Taylor said employers had lost capital, and thousands were out of employ. Cloth exports were less than in 1850. Mr. Chamberlain made a rather complacent speech in which he said that a Lancashire Industrial Development Council had been set up to advise industries contemplating moving into the area. The Government re-armament programme had bought factories actually into Blackburn. Foreign countries, once our markets, set up secondary industries, including cotton, and the money they made would enable them to buy our high-quality goods.
After the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Germany in the spring, a number of cotton factories in Blackburn started to build air-raid shelters. The number of girls in attendance at the Centre was reduced owing to the demands of the gas-mask factory, and the crash programme to equip everybody in the country with a mask. Community House was becoming somewhat redundant but did stage a variety show in March.
On September 1, the Junior Instruction Centres closed down owing to the emergency “with deep regrets”. Two days later, we were at War. In October, the mills started to vary their opening times to relieve congestion on public transport. In January 1940, two shifts were worked, and adverts placed on the screen at local cinemas to tell the weavers to report to the mill. They were doubtless gratified to learn that after 20 years of neglect, the cotton industry was in the industrial front line, and cotton exports were going to pay for the War.
One final set of figures showed that between 1929 and 1939 14,831 jobs had been lost in the cotton trade in Blackburn, and ten percent of the population had migrated.
Written by Stanley Miller
Transcribed by Shazia Kasim
Published January 2026