23/07/2025
🖌 ART VS HISTORY
ART
This painting by Noël Spencer (1900-1986) depicts Cloth Hall Mills in Dewsbury (c.1940).
Despite the dreariness of the weather in the painting the mill emits a soft cosy light that seems to be drawing people in.
Spencer graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1925 and was the Principal of the School of Art at Huddersfield Technical College from 1934 to 1946. He is well known for his series of pen drawings of Huddersfield.
Cloth Hall Mills is included on O.S maps up to 1938 but not after 1948 so it is likely that during the time that Spencer was in Dewsbury and painting that the building had just stopped operating as a mill or was very close to doing so.
HISTORY
William and Robert Fletcher Machell moved their shoddy and mungo business into the mill in 1874. This date can see seen in the stonework and flanking the door are stone busts of the two brothers.
The Napoleonic Wars during the 19th century caused a wool shortage in the UK which meant textile manufacturers had to come up with a solution. This came in the form of recycling waste fibres and rags into new material. Initially machines were used to grind up soft rags (Shoddy), but later technological advances meant that harder cloths could also be processed into what was called Mungo. During the First World War, Dewsbury produced much of the cloth that was needed for military uniforms and is included in the area known as the ‘heavy woollen district’.
In our photograph you can see the remnants of the iron lamps that used to sit on the columns. The mill has had several purposes since but has now been turned into flats that overlook the historic Dewsbury market.
