Hope Mill

The Mill currently owned by EWL was built around the end of the 18th Century by a gentlemen called Thomas Corlass, grandfather of Mr Joseph Corlass of Henry Street, Keighley. For several years Mr Corlass was engaged at the mill in spinning cotton, but like the majority of cotton spinners in the parish he found it anything but a paying concern.

Unhappy by the unfavourable state of the markets, one morning he went to the engine tender and ordered him to rake out the fire and stop the engine. And from that moment in time he ceased to be a cotton spinner.

In Keighley in the 20th century Damside, Low Bridge and Hope Mills were the only three cotton mills which were not turned by water power. Formally mills could not be turned by steam power until the time that Watts discovered the rotary motion for the steam engine. It was rumoured that another party had obtained access to Watts' place of business, pirated his invention and obtained a patent for the rotary motion, which he called "The Crank Motion". Watts, in order to avoid clashing with his rival's patent, called his invention "The Sun and Planet Motion"

Details taken from "Textile Manufacture and Other Industries" by John Hodgson - 1879