Powerful and deeply moving talk about poor mill girls

Huddersfield Civic Society members heard a powerful and deeply moving talk by Halifax Civic Trust.

Kim Pearson’s theme was Wainstalls’ Waifs and Strays and was held at the Maurice Jagger Centre on Lister Street, Halifax, HX1 1UZ, on Thursday, April 16.

Kim told the poignant story of more than 250 young girls sent from Liverpool’s Brownlow Hill Workhouse and Kirkdale Industrial School in the late 19th century to work in the worsted spinning mills at Wainstalls, high above Halifax.

Kim has lived in Wainstalls for more than 40 years and has meticulously researched the lives of these orphaned mill girls. Her connection is deeply personal as she now owns the land that includes the graveyard where several of the girls were buried after dying while employed at the mills.

Descendants of the mill girls still live in Wainstalls today, linking past and present.