3-053-793 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Trades procession at Bradford, on the opening of the new townhall, 1873. '...great trades procession...special prominence being, of course, given to everything connected with the worsted and woollen manufactures...All carried flags, banners, streamers, and mottoes. Several trades were headed by their own bands, of which there were seventeen in the procession...Then followed [floats] which bore pyramids of the wool of every country from which Bradford imports it ["Wool from Port Philip, Australia"]...The trophy of the Associated Weavers was a pyramid of manufactured pieces...All the important trades of the town were represented. None made a better show than the linen and woollen drapers, hosiers, and hatters......The weather, so promising in the early noon, changed when the procession was well on its way, and it was exposed to a drenching rain, which lasted, with a short interval, until the front of the Townhall was passed by the whole procession. A gallery for ladies was erected along the entire length; but it presented a dark mass of upturned umbrellas. Every window of the surrounding houses was occupied...and all the seventeen bands, in coming up, joined that of the Fusiliers, and played very well'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.