Daniel Meadows, Weavers, Mari Parker and Sheila Dugdale, on a smoke break. Melfar Manufacturing Co., Colne, Lancashire. Autumn 1975
Shuttles, Steam and Soot: A cotton mill in Lancashire
Renowned documentary photographer Daniel Meadows recreates lost early work in a new touring exhibition from Four Corners.
In 1975 Daniel began a two-year post as photographer-in-residence to the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire. He found himself drawn to Bancroft Shed, the last remaining steam powered cotton weaving mill in the district.
He began documenting an industry in decline and the people who worked in it.
Shuttles, Steam and Soot was first exhibited in 1978, as part of the Half Moon Photography Workshop’s radical programme of affordable, portable touring shows. Sent around the UK and also abroad, the exhibition was eventually lost.
Fifty years on, Daniel has worked with Four Corners to recreate it. He says: “In the time of Johnny Rotten, James Nutter & Sons in Barnoldswick was like something out of Dickens. Vaporised oil hung in the air like incense. It was a place of unholy clatter with a language all its own: slasher sizing machines, flying mice, left-hand frogs. And busy women in dusty alleys who heard you with their eyes and talked back with their hands. How could I not engage?”
Shuttles, Steam and Soot is a Four Corners touring exhibition. https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk
‘Evocative, highly personal photojournalism from a true pioneer of postwar British photography.’
The Guardian, 13 December 2011
‘Daniel Meadows is one of the great photographers of our time and all of the projects he’s done amount to a very significant body of work.’
Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian: BBC TV, 20 November 2019
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Daniel Meadows, photographer and digital storyteller, is a twentieth century pioneer of British documentary practice. His photographs and audio recordings capture uniquely the felt life of the everyday in England. His work has been widely published, exhibited and collected. In 2019, his archive was acquired by the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.
Daniel Meadows
Shuttles, Steam and Soot
Westgate Library
228 The Westgate, Queen St,
Oxford.
OX1 1PE
25 October–25 November
Monday–Thursday 9am-8pm
Friday & Saturday 9am–5.30pm
ARTIST TALK & BOOK SIGNING
6 November, 5pm
