A WARRINGTON industry which was hugely important in the 20th century was the textile trade.

In 1921, when it was at its height, 2,163 people were employed in textiles in the town.

And as 90 per cent of the workers were women, it amounted for 19.9 per cent of female employment in the town.

Janice Hayes, historian and author of Warrington at Work, takes up the story.

She recorded: "Mass-produced clothing was also to become a Warrington speciality for much of the 20th century.

"In 1921, for example, James Bennett, the shirt and pyjama makers of Golborne Street, were advertising proudly that they produced 5,000 dozen garments each week, while the town's several shirtworks were flourishing into the 1960s.

"The best-known, perhaps, was MacArthur Beattie & Co, which opened in 1928, although the largest was Burton's at Wilderspool Causeway, which closed in 1977 with the loss of 630 jobs.

"MacArthur Beattie spent the war years producing uniforms for servicemen - in 1945 it proclaimed it had turned out 1,437,900 shirts and pairs of pyjamas and 606,000 collars for armed forces.

"In the 1950s the firm did well, but the movement towards mass produced cheap shirts rather than expensive quality products, and particular the flooding of the market with very cheap foreign imports, spelled an end to trade."