Cropping Shears, Bradford Industrial Museum

Gelatine silver print entitled 'Cropping Shears, Bradford Industrial Museum' by Ian Beesley. Prodiced for the commission `Through the Mill:, The Story of Yorkshire Wool in Photographs'. 1985-1987'.

These large and heavy hand shears cropped the nap of the woven cloth to produce a smooth finish. It was the mechanisation of this finishing process which threatened the Yorkshire croppers or 'shearmen' and frightened many of them into ranks of the Luddites.

[Table 17: Through the Mill - The Story of Yorkshire Wool in Photographs, by Ian Beesley and Introduction by Gary Firth]