Recycling the 1856 way!

Recycling is nothing new!
They did it in 1856. 35,000,000 pounds of rags were being sorted and processed into yarn to make Mungo and Shoddy.

This is Dewsbury. A photo taken from the car while waiting for the traffic lights to turn green.
(MrC was driving)
What a wonderful old mill.Still shouting the news to all who pass in their railwayed comfort, a clarion call from yester-year.
(the rainway passes over a high bridge which is more on a level with the sign. we were about turn under the bridge.))

Shoddy was developed about 1813 by Benjamin Law ( who lived in Gomersal)
He developed a process using recycled woolen rag . This was washed and then shredded into fibres, grinding them and mixing them with small amounts of new wool. Then used to make cheap cloth which could be made into products and clothes.

Several years later his nephew found a way to incorporate taylors clippings into the process, and this superior shoddy was called Mungo.

Dewsbury and Batley were the centre of this industry and the towns thrived and grew in the 1800s and early 1900s
.
(A large amount was exported to America, the Southern States for garments and blankets.)

" The mill itself has now been recycled and turned into flats, dominating the station arches in all its slendour of nineteenth century stone. And yes the bottom floor has become\ "Kiddies Kingdom\", but as you risk a crick in the neck staring up at those words on high, at least it tells you something of whence we came. "

This last paragraph is taken from a book by Fred Butler, called "The Snicket".
I haven't read it but will see if I can find it as it is all about a West country boy born 1944, who moved to Batley when he was a child.

I could write so much more about this subject, of which I knew very little until today!
All thanks to blip!

(Looks better large.)