Montague Burton – The Tailor of Taste

The website buildingourpast.com has an interesting article (1) about the history of Montague Burton. It includes the following:

“Growth did not stop with the [1918] Armistice. The demand for ‘demob’ suits enabled Burton to take over the vast Hudson Road Mills in Leeds from the wholesale clothiers Albrecht & Albrecht. These were said to be the largest works of their kind in the world, and were greatly expanded by Burton.

“The first canteen at Hudson Road Mills, built in 1922, could accommodate 1,000 at a sitting. Its successor, which was completed in 1928, could seat 4,000 workers, but was itself superseded by a new canteen for 8,000 (by architect N. Martin), which was opened by Mary, the Princess Royal, in October 1934. By this time there were 10,000 employees at Hudson Road Mills. As well as its state-of-the art catering facilities the factory had a medical clinic and rest rooms. Sports field and recreation grounds were provided in 1935.

Hudson Road Mills Canteen

“In 1937 Burton’s architect, Nathaniel Martin, collaborated with the architects Wallis Gilbert & Partners on a subsidiary clothing works on the Great Lancashire Road at Worsley, near Manchester (The Builder, 10 March 1939, 478). Conceived as a Garden Factory and built in a modern style, this was dubbed ‘Burtonville Clothing Works’. It opened in October 1938 – the year Burton decided to open ready-to-wear departments in all branches – but soon had to be supplemented by Halliwell Road Mills in Bolton, which was acquired in 1939.”

Oral history transcripts from 1982 held by the Local History section of the Bolton Library describe life in the mills a few decades earlier. Workers had to bring their own lunch and drinks. Even then they often had to eat these sitting outside on the steps. There were no facilities for eating lunch. Burton on the other hand was building a canteen that could seat 8000 people in Leeds. Interestingly, the only architect’s plan of the factory in Wapping Street, Halliwell, that survives in the Archives of Bolton Library, is for a redesign and expansion of the canteen.

(1) https://buildingourpast.com/2017/01/28/the-story-of-montague-burton-the-tailor-of-taste