Brookfield Linen Mill 1851 Crumlin Road Belfast

I'm on the Crumlin Road opposite Brookfield Linen mill. For several decades on either side of the turn of the 20th Century Belfast was undisputed world centre of linen manufacturing. The Belfast population exploded in this era of work rising by several hundred thousand. The long established Belfast mill industry died from the 1960s onward due to the popularity of cheap man made fibres imported from the Far East. The Crumlin Road area of Belfast had many mills, including Brookfield Mill (1850), Edenderry (1869) and Ewart’s (1860). Others included Lindsay Thompson’s, Rosebank, Lower Lodge and Brookfield Factory. Today a number of Belfast’s mighty mill buildings have been converted to local community and small business uses, but many people still have fond memories of Belfast ‘millies’ pouring out of their workplaces, walking arm in arm and singing their mill songs. A typical working week in a mill could be up to 55 1/2 hours, with the working day starting at 6am to 6pm, with one hour for lunch. Working conditions in the mills were harsh. The noise from machinery was deafening, and many workers became skilled lip readers in order to communicate over the noise. The combination of heat, steam and oil fumes from machinery was made worse by the fine dust released when preparing the fibres. Pay for the largely female work force was very low but it was from 1850-1920 guarrateed work when work was scarce. William Conor ( 1881-1968 ) the famous Belfast painter immortalized the mill girls in many of his paintings. eg 'Study of a Belfast Shawlie.'