MILLS were the main employers throughout the years across East Lancashire.

So we decided to look back at images from mills from yesteryear.

Among the pictures include power loom overlookers like the ones pictured with the manager of Roe Lee Mill in Blackburn,

They were familiarly known as 'tacklers' and they mended and maintained the looms and weavers who earned only piece rates,depended on their skill to keep their machine.

Another picture shows the drawing-in room at Moscow Mill of Union Road in Oswaldtwistle around 1900. The drawer's apprentice was known as a 'reacher'.

Then there is some shuttle-making at Addison Street works in Blackburn of Rowland Baguley and Company around 1920.

The company began in Manchester in 1840 but moved to Blackburn in 1854 where it took over part of Eagle Foundry in Starkie Street.

We also found a shot of the engine house at George Whiteley's Albion Mill in Livesey in 1951. The spinning and weaving mill, built in 1856-8, came to a halt in 1975 due to a shortage of orders. But in 1951 when this photo was taken it was its double-beam steam engine that was at the end of the road as the mill converted to electricity to drive its machines.