Thread: The Old College
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Old 19-01-2010, 01:48   #24
garinda
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Re: The Old College

Quote:
Originally Posted by steeljack View Post
thinking about it after my earlier post I'm thinking this was the place , probably Retlaw or one of the other 'seniors' can put me right .... not sure how much a 'school of art' (ala Slade) it was compared to more of a commercial concept tied into the local textile industry at the time , training talented youngsters being trained in fabric print design, know for a fact that the Devron mill in Gt. Harwood had 'artists' on the staff (the father of one of my friends was an artist there ,sure other textile outfits had similar, wether it was working on the jaquard weave (sp?) designs, know that the 'punch cards/rolls' used for this process changed every so often by market demand . Also the mills had to have "print screen" set-ups desiged for colour and pattern .
Only reason I know this is that a couple of local Gt. Harwood girls about 4 yrs older than me went there , and one later went on to furthur studies at Manchester University .
Logical thinking is that the art dept. closed down when the cotton industry began to die off and general studies type education became more popular .
It would be interesting to find out. Accrington School of Art & Crafts is listed on quite a few people's résumés, so it obviously existed in it's own right, before amalgamating with Accrington College of Further Education.

It does seem odd if the old Grammar School building was once given over exclusively to arts and crafts. Though neighbouring Blackburn had a similarly grand art school building, which as you say was primarily a place to train people for the once flourishing textile industry.
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