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The power behind it all. The old Wiseman Street Mill steam engine polished every week is lovingly cared for by Clifford Heaton.
In 1936 Sutcliffe and Clarkson's steam engine blew a piston. Within a week it was back full steam ahead driving more than 600 Lancashire looms. Today Burnley's last remaining steam engine would not be so lucky. If the same thing would happen now there will be no alternative but to put it on the scrapheap. Perhaps the engine knows for in the six years the engineer Clifford Heaton has worked with it, it has given sterling service. The engine is the pride and joy of Mr Heaton's working day. In the 28 years he has worked with steam engines in Burnley, he has seen them dwindle and die, until now, when he works with the last one in the town. Now they have become a collector's item. Proud owners lovingly lavish spit and polish on their bodywork, spend hours maintaining and oiling and then stand back to watch the motion which once powered the world's industry. Visitors from as far away as London have tracked Mr Heaton down in his Mill house to pay their respects to his steam engine. How they have found out it is there he cannot say, but among those in the know his engine has achieved fame. It was already installed at the Wiseman Street Mill when the firm of Sutcliffe and Clarkson rented room and power there in 1911. Its actual age is not known but it was probably made in the 1880s.
It is housed in grand style though, fit by Victorian manufacturers whose fortunes were based on the power of steam. Mr Heaton calls it his 'Kingdom'. He said working in the steam engine shed was like working in your own private place, no one was allowed in, you were on your own. Over the years Mr Heaton, who lives in Bivel Street Burnley, worked with three other steam engines before starting at Sutcliffe and Clarkson's mill. In those years he has watched as all but one has disappeared. They started going 15 or 16 years ago. It was a gradual at first then all the engines began giving way to electricity. I think it's sad to see them go. They are fascinating things to work with. Mr Heaton's love of steam engines goes beyond the bounds of duty. At weekends he, like many others, enjoys visiting steam museums where a few of the great engines are preserved for posterity, saved from the fate of many others which, their use for working life done, made redundant by electricity. Mr Heaton must have used gallons of polish on the engine, which every week uses about 25 tons of coal to power the mill's 300 looms. Engines stoked, brass polished it gives yeoman service. It must be almost antique now but it's still got plenty of life in it, the only problem is that if a part needs replacing we have to send away for it. There is nowhere left in the town where parts can be bought. Sutcliffe and Clarkson, which joined Staflex International in 1973, deliberately keeps its 300 Lancashire looms although some automatic looms have been installed in the mill. The reason is not hard to find. The loom so much a part of Burnley history, is adaptable, it can weave cloth as the market demands. Fine or coarse, the Lancashire loom powered by steam can produce it.