Chamber of Commerce for Bradford and the Worsted District

Bradford's role as the centre of the world's worsted textile trade allowed it to grow from an oversized village of some 13,000 in 1801 to a city of 200,000 by 1901. The Chamber of Commerce for Bradford and The Worsted District, established in 1851, was the body that represented the wool manufacturing industry. Two German-born businessmen, textile merchant Jacob Behrens (1806 - 1889) and textile industrialist Jacob Unna (1800 - 1881) were instrumental in making the worsted an international success and were both among the Chamber of Commerce's founders. Between 1873 to 1914, the worsted trade faced new competition and foreign tariffs, and this marked the start of a slow decline. The textile industry has gone but the Bradford Chamber of Commerce still exists today.