IN 1926, Herbert Longbottom split with Fred Farrar and started his own business as Longbottom and Company, metal stampers, in Lawkholme Lane. When he died in 1936 his wife Maggie took over and ran it with the help of her son and daughter throughout the Second World War.

Again a largely female workforce helped the war effort, making "brackets for hanging rifles on, gas mask fittings, clips for parachute dropping equipment and fasteners for quick release lids on canisters used for dropping supplies by air".

Here, after the war in 1947, we see them working at fly and power presses in the stamping shop at the Lawkholme Lane works. Foreman Charles Chester stands on the left.