Knottingley Glass Community Heritage Archive
This project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund through their 'Your Heritage' Programme
“Me Grandfather worked at Bagley’s before me father. He was a glass blower. He blew the glass bottles. My father worked at Bagley’s and he had two brothers that worked at Bagley’s. Eventually my father was the Foreman electrician, his brother Henry was the Foreman joiner, and the other brother, John Willy they called him, he worked in the joiners shop. Well I finished school at 1934. I was fourteen, and I didn’t get a job straight away. Now then, they wouldn’t let me start work under me father, or underneath his brother, so I had to go into the fitting shop.”
Ernie Murgatroyd
Glass Industry Worker 1934 - 1984
"We were unique, we could get any raw material by road, rail and canal, so if wagon drivers were on strike we could always get our raw materials. If train drivers were on strike, we could always get our raw materials, by one or the other means, we just upped the order. So we were in a unique position at Bagley’s to get, for all our raw materials."
Frank Causier
Glass Industry Worker 1978 - Present
"Our job as apprentices, was once a week to climb up into the loft, and go along the shaft, and oil all the bearings for the belts coming down the shaft that was to drive all the machines in the machine shop."
Ernie Murgatroyd
Glass Industry Worker 1934 - 1984
"When it was warm in the summer, well they’d no glass windows in there, they had like big traps made of steel, and they just used to shove it open in warm weather. I slept in the front bedroom with me brother and it was just like at the bottom of the street there, and they used to be singing all through the night we could hear them singing."
Iris Morgan, Bagley's Worker 1940 - 1947
Audio Resources
To request access to complete recordings please contact the Network using our contact page
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