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Shipley in the mid-20th Century [click picture for enlargement] For the first half of the twentieth century little changed in the central part of Shipley, and its appearance at the end of the Second World War was still that of a late nineteenth century industrial town. Textile and engineering manufacturing, continued to dominate the town, and these two industries provided more or less full employment for local people. In the years following the end of the war however, two major factors changed the shape and look of Shipley out of all recognition. The first was the decision of Shipley Urban District Council to embark on a major redevelopment programme. This consisted of two main projects. The first was the demolition and rebuilding of much of the central part of the town, which resulted in the creation of a modern shopping centre, a new library and a new bus station. The second was an order by the town council for the automatic condemning and demolition of all of the town’s back-to-back houses. This decision subsequently required a large scale building programme of council houses and flats for the re-housing of the occupants of the demolished homes.
These changes marked the last acts of Shipley Urban District Council. In 1974, the government reorganised the county and local government administration in England and Wales, and Shipley was incorporated into the newly created Metropolitan District of Bradford. This move was something that Bradford had been trying to achieve, and which Shipley had fought against, for nearly a hundred years. It marked the end of 150 years as a thriving independent industrial town. The second half of the century saw the decline of the textile manufacturing industry, which ultimately resulted in the closure of all of Shipley’s textile mills by the end of the century. A similar decline followed in the engineering industry, and for a time there was little industrial employment in the town. In the latter decades of the century certain amount of regeneration took place. New industries, in the form of computer and electronics design set up bases in Shipley, which created a certain amount of new employment. By the turn of the new century, a new phenomenon, that of the conversion of old textile mills into flats (apartments), and commercial centres, has started to have an affect on Shipley, as it completes the process of being, predominantly, a residential rather than an industrial town. |
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