platform scales

Platform scales made by T & W Avery in 1953. 5 CWT/250kg/500lb. Bought by M Challah in 1957 to use in his textile trading business. M Challah joined Albert Jones (Textiles) in 1963. The scales have remained in the business ever since.

The scales are part of a post-Second World War and immigration story. They add to a picture of Manchester’s transition to a post-industrial city and the decline, but also the resilience, of Manchester’s textile traders.

Mounir Challah arrived in Manchester from Beirut in 1945. He set up a textile trading business, M Challah Export, building on the strength and influence of global trading networks in the Greater Manchester region.

In 1963, Mounir Challah went into partnership with one of his key textile suppliers to form Albert Jones (Textiles) Ltd. The company occupied the same city centre warehouse from 1946-2023. Mounir Challah’s son continued the business trading with domestic and overseas customers and successfully navigated the declining trade in British textiles, trading high-quality fabrics, including Northern Irish linens.

Mounir Challah bought the 10cwt (508kg) platform scales second-hand in 1956. The scales, made by W&T Avery of Birmingham in 1953, are of a type widely used in the textile industry. They were used to measure the weight of textiles, determining the price of a volume of fabric. The value of the textiles was often calculated by weight. The business bought textiles wholesale, took orders from clients, measured and weighed the textiles using these scales, and then shipped them out.

Albert Jones (Textiles) Ltd was located in a thriving textile warehouse district centred around Princess Street and Whitworth Street. They were the last operational textiles trading company in the area when they closed in 2023. They had withstood vast changes to trading and the local area. The scales had been in almost daily use for nearly 70 years.